Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 49:5

5 Simeon and Levi are brethren , instruments of cruelty are in their habitations .

Not onely by nature, but in iniquity, of like cruel and bloody disposition, confederate in the same wicked design, Gen. 34. 25. So the word Brother is elsewhere used for him that agrees much with another, in his temper, or employment, or designs, as Iob 30. 29. Prov. 18. 9. &c.

(i. e.) Their bloody Swords are yet in their dwellings, to bear witness against them for their barbarous cruelty. But these words may be and are by some both antient and later Interpreters rendred otherwise. For the Hebrew word Mecheroth, here rendred habitations, is never so used, nor indeed is found elsewhere in Scripture. Nor doth that signification agree with the Hebrew root from whence this comes, which is mechar and signifies to bargain or sell or exchange. And accordingly this word is by the Samaritan Translator and by other learned Interpreters rendred, their conventions or compacts or civil contracts or agreements. And which is more, the Chaldee Verb, mechar, from whence this word may very well be deduced, signifies to espouse, and the noun mechirah derived from it signifies a spouse. And so the words may be rendred thus, their contracts or agreements (or, their nuptial contracts) were instruments of cruelty. Which Translation seems better than the other, 1. because it keeps closest to the words of the text, and leaves out that particle, in, which is not in the Hebrew Text, but was added by our Translators to compleat the sense. 2. Because this best agrees with the history recorded Gen. 34. where we read that they did cover their bloody design with [illegible: 1 word] pretence of an agreement and nuptial contract with the Sichemites, which was a great aggravation of their villany, that those things which to others are bonds of love and peace were made by them instruments of cruelty.

Marginal references: chap. 29. 33, 34.; Or, their swords are weapons of violence.