My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle.
Parallel Translations
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My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle.
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O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
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Let my soul not come into their council; unto their assembly let my glory not be united; for in their anger they slew men, and in their self-will they houghed oxen.
Cross-references (26)
Passages linked to Genesis 49:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 34:30 Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house.”
- Psalms 26:9 Don’t gather my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men;
- Psalms 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety.
- Genesis 34:25-26 On the third day, when they were sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away.
- Psalms 26:4-5 I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.
- Psalms 57:8 Wake up, my glory! Wake up, lute and harp! I will wake up the dawn.
- Psalms 64:2 Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the noisy crowd of the ones doing evil;
- Proverbs 1:15-16 My son, don’t walk on the path with them. Keep your foot from their path, for their feet run to evil. They hurry to shed blood.
- Jeremiah 4:19 My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- Jeremiah 15:17 I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice. I sat alone because of your hand, for you have filled me with indignation.
- Luke 12:19 I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” ’
- 2 Corinthians 6:14 Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
- Deuteronomy 27:24 ‘Cursed is he who secretly kills his neighbor.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
- Judges 5:21 The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength.
- Psalms 1:1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;
- Psalms 5:10 Hold them guilty, God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Thrust them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you.
- Psalms 28:3 Don’t draw me away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity who speak peace with their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts.
- Psalms 30:12 to the end that my heart may sing praise to you, and not be silent. Yahweh my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
- Psalms 42:5 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.
- Psalms 42:11 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
- Psalms 43:5 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him: my Savior, my helper, and my God.
- Psalms 94:20-21 Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
- Psalms 103:1 Praise Yahweh, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name!
- Psalms 139:19 If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
- Proverbs 1:11 If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lay in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause.
- Proverbs 12:5 The thoughts of the righteous are just, but the advice of the wicked is deceitful.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Or, tongue: meaning that he neither consented to them…
Or, tongue: meaning that he neither consented to them in word nor thought.
The Shechemites, Gen. 34:26.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 49:6 O my soul, come not thou into…
Gen 49:6 O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
Ver. 6. O my soul, come not thou, &c.] Jacob here meaneth that neither should any, neither would he approve of their perfidy, saith an interpreter. And yet Thuanus writes that the Pope caused the massacre of Paris to be painted in his palace. Another of them highly extolled in his consistory the noble act of Clement the monk, that killed the king of France, comparing it with the work of creation, incarnation, &c. Friar Garnet, our chief gunpowder plotter, had his picture set among the rest of their saints, in the Jesuits’ Church at Rome. And Cornel. a Lapide, upon Apoc. vii. 3, crowns this traitor with fresh encomiastics. {a}
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In their anger they slew a man.] Yea, many innocents; and then cried out, O rem regiam! as Valesius did when he had slain three hundred. O pulchrum spectaculum! as Hannibal, when he saw a pit full of man’s blood. Quam bonus est odor hostis mortui! as Charles IX, in the massacre of Paris; where they poisoned the Queen of Navarre; pistoled the Prince of Conde; murdered the most part of the peerless peers of France, their wives and children; with a great sort of the common people, in various parts of the realm, - thirty thousand in one month, three hundred thousand in the space of a year! Mohammed I, Emperor of the Turks, was thought, in his time, to have been the death of eighty thousand men. Selymus II, in revenge of the loss he had received at the battle of Lepanto, would have put to death all the Christians in his dominion, in number infinite. Mithridates, king of Pontus, with one letter, slew eighty thousand citizens of Rome in Asia, that were scattered up and down the country for traffic’s sake. It was the cruel manner of Uladus, prince of Wallachia, together with the offenders, to execute the whole family; yea, sometimes the whole kindred. {b} Did not these two brethren in sin do so, and worse?
{a} Jacob Revius, De Vitis Pont., p. 291. Gir. i. Apol. contra Jesuit.
{b} Answ. to Cathol. Supplic., by Gab. Powel, 885. Val. Max., lib. ix. Turk. Hist., fol. 363.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Their secret; or, counsel, or company, as the word…
Their secret; or, counsel, or company, as the word is used, Psa 64:2; Jer 15:17; i.e. do not partake with them in their secret and wicked designs. Hereby he signifies to all posterity, that that bloody enterprise was undertaken without his consent or approbation, and that he could not think of it without detestation, nor let it pass without a severe censure. Or, O my soul, thou wast not in their secret, as the Chaldee, Syriae, and Arabic take it, by a common enallage of the future tense for the past.
Mine honour; either,
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1. Properly so called. So the sense is, Let not my honour or good name be bound up with theirs; they gloried in this wickedness, which I abominate, and which indeed is their shame. Or,
2. Improperly; so he understands either,
1. His soul, which is indeed the glory of a man, though I do not remember any place of Scripture where that word must necessarily be so understood. So this is a repetition of the same thing in other words, which is usual in Scripture. Or rather,
2. His tongue, for which the word honour or glory is commonly put, as Psa 16:9, compared with Act 2:26; Psa 30:12; 57:8; 108:1, because the tongue or speech is the glory of a man, by which he is distinguished from unreasonable creatures, and, if well used, it brings much honour to God, and to the man that speaks with it. So the sense is, As my soul did not approve of that wicked action, so my tongue never gave consent to it, nor shall it now by silence seem to own it, but shall publicly witness my abhorrence of it.
In their anger they slew a man, i.e. men, the Shechemites, Gen 34:25,26, the singular number for the plural, as Gen 3:2; 32:5; 1Ch 10:1, compared with 1Sa 31:1. He saith man rather then men, either with respect unto the prince, whose slaughter was principally designed, or to show that they slew them all to a man.
In their self-will: it may note, that this cruelty of theirs was committed,
1. By their own will and choice, not by Jacob’s will or consent, which they never asked nor obtained.
2. Without any necessity or sufficient provocation, but merely by their own will and proper motion.
3. Not rashly and hastily, but wilfully and resolvedly, after mature deliberation.
4. Not unwillingly, but cheerfully, and with delight and good will, as that word commonly signifies.
They digged down a wall; not the walls of the city, but of private houses; it may be only of the prince’s house, who upon the first noise of the tumult might, and probably did, retire and secure himself in some strong room of the house, whose wall they brake down that they might come at him. For neither were the walls of houses or cities so strong then as now many are; nor were Simeon and Levi destitute of fit instruments to break down a wall, which doubtless they brought with them, as easily foreseeing that difficulty in their enterprise. But because the Hebrew word is not shur, a wall, but schor, an ox, others translate the words thus, they houghed, or killed an ox, or bull, meaning Shechem, so called either from his lust, or from his strength and power, from which princes are oft so called, as Deu 33:17; Psa 22:12; 68:30. Or rather thus, they rooted out, or drove away an ox, i.e. the oxen, the singular number for the plural, as before; and under them are comprehended the other cattle of the Shechemites, which they drove away, as we read they did, Gen 34:28. For as the words may bear this sense, so it seems more reasonable to understand them of that which certainly was done by them, than of their breaking a wall, of which we do not read any thing in the history.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain O my soul, come not thou into their secret,....…
O my soul, come not thou into their secret,.... Their cabinet counsels, combinations and conspiracies; this Jacob said, as abhorring the wicked counsel they had took of slaying the Shechemites; and lest any should think he was concerned in it, or connived at it, he expressed a detestation of the fact on his dying bed: the future tense may be put for the past; and so Onkelos renders it, "my soul was not in their secret"; and so the other two Targums paraphrase it, that when they got and consulted together, his soul was not pleased and delighted with their counsel, but abhorred it; or "my soul shall not come", which Jarchi thinks prophetical refers to the case of Zimri, the son of Salu, of the tribe of Simeon, as the following clause to the affair of Korah, of the tribe of Levi, as foreseeing and disapproving them, and desiring they might not be called by his name, or his name called upon them, Num 25:14.
unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united; the same thing expressed in different words; by his "honour or glory" he means his soul, the more honourable part of man, or his tongue, with which man glorifies God; and hereby Jacob intimates, that he did not in thought, and much less in express words, give any consent unto, and approbation of the deed of those two sons of his, and that he never was, nor never desired to be with them in their meetings and consultations:
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for in their anger they slew a man; Hamor or Shechem, together with all the males of the city; and so "man" may be put for "men", the singular for the plural, as is frequent. The Targum of Jonathan is, a king and his governor; and the Targum of Jerusalem, kings with governors:
and in their selfwill they digged down a wall; not the wall of the city of Shechem, which does not appear to be walled, by their easy access into it; and if it was, they do not seem to have had proper instruments for such an undertaking, nor a sufficient number for such work, and which would have required longer time than they used, unless it was a poor wall indeed: rather the wall of Shechem's house, or the court before it, which they dug down, or broke through to get in and slay Hamor and Shechem, and take away their sister; though the word, as here pointed, always signifies an ox; and so the Samaritan and Septuagint versions render it, they hamstringed a bull, or houghed an ox, just in like manner as horses are said to be houghed, Jos 11:6 and which some understand (l) figuratively of a prince or ruler; so great personages are called bulls of Bashan, Psa 22:12 and interpret it either of Hamor or of Shechem, who was a prince among his people, and furious in his lust towards Dinah, and so this clause is much the same with the former: and besides, him they enervated by circumcision, and took the advantage of this his condition at the worst, and slew him, which seems to be the true sense of the text, agreeably to Gen 34:25 but the Jerusalem Targum paraphrases it of Joseph, whom his brethren sold, who was like unto an ox; and so Jarchi interprets it of him, whom they designed to slay, see Deu 33:17 but it is better to take the words in a literal sense, either of the oxen that Simeon and Levi took from the Shechemites, which they plucked or drove away from their mangers, as some render the words (m); and some of them they might hough or hamstring, that they might not get away from them, see Gen 34:28 or rather of Shechem himself, who was "a prince", a word which has some likeness and affinity to this in the text.
(l) R. Jacob Ben Eleazer in Ben Melech, in loc. (m) "avulserunt boves", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; others, "enervarunt bovem", Schmidt; so Ainsworth.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain They slew a man - Shechem himself, and many…
They slew a man - Shechem himself, and many others; and to effect that, they digged down a wall, broke the houses to plunder them, and murder the inhabitants. O my soul, come not thou into their secret - Hereby he professeth not only his abhorrence of such practices in general, but his innocency particularly in that matter. Perhaps he had been suspected as under-hand aiding and abetting; he therefore solemnly expresseth his detestation of the fact.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Into their secret council, c.] Jacob here…
Verse 6. Into their secret council, c.] Jacob here exculpates himself from all participation in the guilt of Simeon and Levi in the murder of the Shechemites. He most solemnly declares that he knew nothing of the confederacy by which it was executed, nor of the secret council in which it was plotted.
If it should be said that the words תבא tabo and תחד techad should be translated in the future tense or in the imperative, as in our translation, I shall not contend though it is well known that the preterite is often used for the future in Hebrew, and vice versa. Taken thus, the words mark the strong detestation which this holy man's soul felt for the villany of his sons: "My soul shall not come into their secret council. My honour shall not be united to their confederacy.
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For in their anger they slew a man] איש ish, a noble, an honourable man, viz., Shechem.
And in their pleasure] This marks the highest degree of wickedness and settled malice, they were delighted with their deed. A similar spirit Saul of Tarsus possessed previously to his conversion; speaking of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, St. Luke says, Ac 8:1: Σαυλος δε ην συνευδοκων τῃ αναιρεσει αυτου· And Saul was gladly consenting to his death. He was with the others highly delighted with it; and thus the prediction of our Lord was fulfilled, Joh 16:2: Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And it is represented as the highest pitch of profligacy and wickedness, not only to sin, but to delight in it; see Ro 1:32. As the original word רצון ratson signifies, in general, pleasure, benevolence, delight, c., it should neither be translated self-will nor wilfulness, as some have done, but simply as above and the reasons appear sufficiently obvious. They murdered a prince - Hamor, the father of Shechem. Instead of שור shor, which we have translated a wall, and others an ox, I read שר sar, a prince, which makes a consistent sense; (see Kennicott's first Dissertation, p. 56, c.) as there is no evidence whatever that Simeon and Levi either dug down a wall or houghed the oxen, as some have translated the passage; (see the margin;) on the contrary, the text, Ge 34:28-29, proves that they had taken for their own use the sheep, oxen, asses, all their wealth, their wives, and their little ones.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 49:6. My soul, come not thou into their…
Gen 49:6. My soul, come not thou into their secret — Their cursed plot hatched in secret: far be it from me to approve of their secret designs. And let not mine honour — Or good name, be stained by being associated with theirs. Thus he signifies to all posterity that that bloody enterprise was undertaken without his consent, and that he could not think of it without detestation, nor let it pass without a severe censure. For in their anger they slew a man — Shechem himself, and many others: and to effect that wickedness they digged down a wall — Broke into their houses to plunder them, and murder the inhabitants.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Slew a man, viz., Sichem, the son of Hemor,…
Slew a man, viz., Sichem, the son of Hemor, with all his people, chap. xxxiv. Mystically and prophetically it alludes to Christ; whom their posterity, viz., the priests and the scribes, put to death. (Challoner) --- A wall, Sichem, which they destroyed: or, according to the Septuagint, "they ham-strung" a bull, as the same Hebrew word signifies; both which may refer to the prince of the town, or to Joseph, (Calmet) in whose persecution these two were principally concerned. Jacob declares, he had no share in their attack upon the people of Sichem: his soul, or his glory, was not impaired by their misconduct. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 6. Their secret council — Allusion to their private…
6. Their secret council — Allusion to their private conspiracy to massacre the men of Shechem.
Unite not — This uniting in secret assembly is to be punished by dividing and scattering them. Gen_49:7.
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My honour — Used of the heart or soul, as the noblest and most honourable part of man’s nature. Compare Psa_7:5; Psa_16:9; Psalm 30:13. But at the same time the ordinary meaning of the word may be here kept prominent: Let not my honour be compromised or tarnished by any union with their counsels.
They slaughtered men — Hebrews, a man. The singular, though used collectively, gives peculiar vividness to the thought as conceived in the Hebrew idiom.
They houghed oxen — Here, too, the Hebrew employs the singular in the same collective sense. The fact stated illustrates the wanton cruelty of these brothers. The common version, they digged down a wall, follows the Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate, Aquila, and Symmachus; but the authority of these versions, which have copied from one another, is outweighed by the fact that in all other passages where the Piel of this word (עקר) occurs, it means to hamstring or hough an animal. Such uniform usage has greater authority than the testimony of many versions.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. council] or, as R.V. marg., secret. The word…
6. council] or, as R.V. marg., secret. The word means either a secret confederacy, or its secret purpose. The parallelism of the clauses rather favours the former rendering.
The true spirit of Israel will have nothing to do with the savage policy hatched in the secret conclaves of these two tribes.
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my glory] The word “glory” is used to denote the “soul,” or the “spirit,” as man’s most glorious possession. Cf. Psa_16:9, “my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth”; Psa_30:12; Psa_57:8; Psa_108:2. The LXX, reading the same Hebrew consonants with different vowels, translates “my liver” = “my affections,” and, instead of “united,” renders a slightly different text “contend,” μὴ ἐρίσαι τὰ ἥπατά μου.
a man] or, as R.V. marg., men.
houghed] i.e. “mutilated,” by cutting the sinews of the leg. Cf. Jos_11:6; Jos_11:9; 2Sa_8:4. LXX gives an exact rendering ἐνευροκόπησαν. The Old English “hox” is the form found in Shakespeare: Wint. Tale, i. 2, “thou art a coward, Which hoxes honesty behind.”
an ox] or, as R.V. marg., oxen: so A.V. Instead of the Heb. shor, another reading, shur, “a wall,” is followed by Lat. suffoderunt murum, and by Targ. Onk., Syr. Pesh., Symmachus, and Jerome; probably on account of the apparent contradiction in Gen_34:28-29, where the sheep and oxen are not mutilated, but carried off as booty.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) Their secret.—The word sôd used here is literally…
(6) Their secret.—The word sôd used here is literally the little carpet, or cushion, upon which an Oriental sits. Consequently, for two persons to sit upon the same carpet marks a high degree of friendship and familiarity. It would therefore be more exactly translated alliance, or intimacy.
Unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.—For assembly (Heb. congregation), see Gen_28:3; Gen_35:11. It means here their union, or confederacy. In the first clause Jacob bids his soul, his true self, not to enter their alliance; here, after the manner of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, he intensifies the meaning. For by mine honour, he signifies all that gave him dignity and worth in the sight of God and man. And this nobleness would be degraded and lost by union with men banded together for evil.
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In their self-will they digged down a wall—Self-will is worse than anger, and signifies that arrogant temper which leads on to wanton cruelty. The last words mean, they houghed an ox. The Vulgand Syriac took it as our version does, and understood it of making a breach in the walls of Shechem; but they had a different reading, shur, whereas the word in the Hebrew is shor, an ox, and it is so rendered by the LXX. The ox was in old times the symbol of majesty, and thus bulls are put for princes in Psa_22:12; Psa_68:30. Thus, then, the meaning is, “In their anger at the wrong done to their sister they slew Hamor, prince of Shechem, with his people; and from wanton cruelty, without any just cause for indignation, they hamstrung the noblest of their brethren, not killing Joseph outright, but disabling him by selling him into slavery, that he might there perish.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.