Such nevertheless he must have been, for the poet in Genesis
xlix. 5-7 puts him on a footing of perfect equality with Simeon,
and attributes to both brothers a very secular and bloodthirsty
character; he has no conception that Levi has a sacred vocation
which is the reason of the dispersion of the tribe; the
dispersion, on the contrary, is regarded as a curse and no
blessing, an annihilation and not the means of giving permanence
to its tribal individuality. The shattered remains of Simeon,
and doubtless those of Levi also, became incorporated with Judah,
which thenceforward was the sole representative of the three sons
of Leah, who according to the genealogy had been born immediately
after Reuben the first-born. Judah itself seems at the same time
to have suffered severely. Of its three older branches, Er, Onan,
and Shelah, one only survived, and only by the accession of
foreign elements did the tribe regain its vigour,--by the fresh
blood which the Kenites of the Negeb brought. For Zarah and
Pharez, which took the place of Er and Onan after these had
disappeared, belonged originally, not to Israel, but to Hezron or
the Kenites; under this designation are included families like
those of Othniel, Jerachmeel, and Caleb, and, as has been already
remarked, even in David's time these were not reckoned as strictly
belonging to Judah.
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