This is a prophecy and not a blessing. In fact, the blessing is concerned with someone who is blessed, while the prophecy is fulfilled when a certain action is accomplished. How will the explanation proposed above agree with these words of the Scripture: All these are the twelve tribes of Israel; and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.^[1] At one time are they clearly prophecies, at another prophecies called blessings? In this explanation it must be understood that exactly in the things said are the prophecies and the blessings, so that the blessings fall on the one who was born from Judah, on the one who was prefigured by Joseph, on the one who, coming from Levi, finds himself being the priest of the Father, while the prophecies fall on those who acted as enemies and had no consideration for the Son of God.

And as for the consummation of the world, Jacob is the first to refer to this when, in giving his testament to his sons he says, Gather to me, you sons of Jacob, that I may tell you what shall be in the last days, or, after the last days. If then there are last days, or a time after the last days, it follows of necessity that the days that had a beginning also come to an end.

After the joyous conferral of this blessing, Jacob called his sons as well.^[1] Whereas before he had preferred the younger to the elder, he begins with the eldest. In the former case he preferred the symbolic gift; in this one he maintains the order of age. Likewise earlier he had blessed all men with all their posterity and offspring of times to come in the persons of the two brothers; a repetition of that blessing of the people might seem superfluous, or the earlier blessing might be considered invalid. And so it is with reason that Jacob says he is presenting anew his announcement of events that were to come in later ages, rather than a blessing.

See the good man’s shrewdness. Since he foresaw the moment of his death, he summoned his sons and said, Gather around so that I may predict ahead of time what is in store for you at the end of your days. Come together, and listen to Israel your father. Come along, he says, and learn from me, not the immediate future but what will happen in the last days. This I foretell to you not of myself but under the inspiration of the Spirit; hence I predict ahead of time what will occur after many generations. You see, as I am on the point of departing this life, I want to imprint it on the memory of each of you as if on some bronze pillar.

Now consider how with his sons gathered together the good man follows the order of their birth and in this way bestows curse or blessing appropriate to each, showing by this procedure the extraordinary degree of his own virtue.

It seems to me that, according to the mystical interpretation, Reuben may play the role of the first Jewish people, that is, the firstborn and the beginning of the children, as the prophet says: Israel is my firstborn.^[1] The words of God in fact were first addressed to that people.^[2] And the Scriptures relate that that people was hard and reckless. About whom the prophet says, Whatsoever this people says, is hard.^[3] Elsewhere he says again about the Jews, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart.^[4] And these people offended God the Father when they turned their back to him and not their face. They defiled the concubine’s bed into which they got, that is, the law of the Old Testament, which they often stained with their transgressions. Paul teaches us that the concubine symbolically represents the law of the Old Testament by saying, Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman: these are the two Testaments;^[5] and Hagar, who was the concubine, clearly is the figure of the Old Testament.

One indeed was the perfect dove or mother, the church that, as a chaste virgin and as a queen for her bridegroom the king, is united through the gospel to Christ.^[6]

See the extent of the good man’s wisdom. Intending to level a worse accusation against Reuben, he first mentioned the privileges conceded him by nature and the precedence he enjoyed in being the beginning of his line and enjoying the dignity of firstborn. Then he records his sins of free will as if on a bronze pillar to show that no advantage comes to us from natural advantage unless accompanied by good deeds of free will—these, you see, are what bring us commendation or lend us the stigma of blame. Unyielding in endurance, he says, unyielding in willfulness: the pride of place accorded you by nature you have forfeited by your own headstrong behavior.

He said couch and bed, that is, the holy flesh of Christ, on which the saints are saved while enjoying their rest as on a holy divan. This is the flesh that those outlaws took possession of and then outraged by offering him [Christ] vinegar, by hitting his head with a reed, by flogging him on the back, by spitting on his face, by skinning his cheeks with slaps and by piercing his hands with nails.^[1] All these things the impious and unbelieving people did in accordance with the high priests, the scribes and the leaders of the people. That is why the blessed prophet neither has remained silent about their deeds nor wants to be involved in their wickedness and evil decisions. On the contrary, he keeps himself away from their intrigues where such criminal plots are conceived.

Just as the justice of Jacob cursed his firstborn because of his evil deed and this curse of Reuben was blotted out by Moses who was the descendant of Jacob,^[1] so too was death decreed by God against Adam when he transgressed the commandment. But the Son of God came and, with the promise of the resurrection that he promised, brought to nought the judgment that accompanied Adam out of paradise.

Doesn’t this seem to be a reproach rather than a blessing? Thus it really is more a prophecy than a blessing. For a prophecy is an announcement of events to come, whereas a blessing is the longed for bestowal of sanctification and of graces.

The Jews suppose that the old man is saying these things to his son Reuben on this account, because the latter lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and polluted his father’s bed. But they are easily refuted; this had already taken place. Now Jacob is promising that he will speak of events to come in the last days, not what took place before. Therefore the meaning is consistent and in accord with the thought of the patriarch himself: he sees the future passion of the Lord under persecution from the Jews and execrates the boundless audacity of that firstborn people. . . . For Israel itself was called the firstborn and said to be stiffnecked, and of it Moses said, You are a stiff-necked people.^[1]

See how through the insight granted him by the Spirit Jacob anticipates the legislation of Moses against allowing father and son to have relations with the same woman. Ahead of time he forbids this in censuring his son thus, You stained the couch by entering your father’s bed. You committed an unlawful act, he says. Hence you ran riot like water, but you shall not break out again.

These too are figures for Satan and death. For just as Simeon and Levi, in their anger, destroyed a city and, through their greed, plundered its possessions, so also Satan, in his envy, killed the world secretly as Simeon and Levi had killed the sons of Shechem openly, and death fell suddenly upon all flesh as Simeon and Levi did on the possessions of the inhabitants of Shechem. The gospel of our Lord raised up those whom sin had slain in secret, and the blessed promise of the Son raised up the dead upon whom the tyrant Death suddenly fell.

For the brothers supplied the reasons for their own misfortune when they claimed to their father that they, although young in years, were vindicators and avengers of a wrong done to the sense of respect and of a violation of chastity. Surely the holy Jacob could not have condemned the fact that they did not permit their sister to be unavenged, in the position of a harlot, who had lost her virginity and did not have the consolation of a vindication. This is especially the case, seeing that Jacob himself approved the deed; for when he had possession of Shechem, he gave it at his death to his most beloved son Joseph and said to him, I give to you above all your brothers Shechem in particular, which I took from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and bow.^[1] The act is undeniable; still, we can interpret that by Shechem are meant shoulders and by shoulders are meant works. Therefore Jacob chose the holy Joseph before the others as heir to his good works, for the other brothers could not match his works. Who indeed could match Christ’s deeds? Moreover Christ, being unspotted and chaste, has carried back the spoils of victory from this earthly sojourn and from the instigators of impurity. With heavenly words and the sword of the Spirit he has taken a place that was free of debaucheries and outrages, for a dwelling of the saints. . . .

It is the tribes then that are meant by the names of the patriarchs. From the tribe of Simeon come the scribes, from that of Levi the chief priests, who brought their wickedness to completion and filled up the entire measure of their fathers’ unholiness^[2] in the passion of the Lord. They took counsel against the Lord Jesus, to kill him, even as Isaiah says, Alas for their souls! Because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the just one, for he is profitless to us.’ ^[3] They killed the prophets and apostles who announced the coming of the Lord of salvation and preached his glorious passion and resurrection.

Read the gospel and you will find it written down; the scribes were from the tribe of Simeon, and the high priests from that of Levi. Since the decision to arrest the Christ and to execute him was taken in their council, the prophet foreknowing that said, O my soul, come not into their council! In this passage he talks about the council where they took their decisions by searching for a reason through which they might accuse Christ, so that they took counsel together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.^[1] And Isaiah says the same: Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the just one, for he is burdensome to us.’ ^[2]

God forbid, Jacob is saying, that I should share their evil intent or associate myself with their unjust doings. Because in the heat of their passion they slew people; their rage turned irrational. . . . After all, even if Shechem had sinned,^[1] there was no need to turn their thirst for blood against everyone. And in their fury they cut down a bull; there is reference here to the son of Hamor,^[2] calling him a bull because of his hot-blooded maturity.

As for the historical account, it seems that in this passage [Simeon and Levi] are reproached because, through deceit and fraud, they slaughtered Shechem, the son of Hamor, who after sleeping with their sister had tried to associate himself with the family of Israel. They also destroyed the whole people [of Shechem], so that Israel himself, their father, said to them, You made me odious in this world.^[1] Therefore he curses their cruelty and their recklessness and declares he will scatter them amid the people of Israel, and that from them the Levites and the priests who do not have their own inheritance of land will descend.

Likewise, when he said to Simeon and Levi, I will divide you in Jacob and scatter you in Israel,^[1] he revealed that they were to be redeemed in the gathering together of the nations. For when the shepherd has been struck down, the flock that was previously brought together is scattered;^[2] thus one who did not belong could enter in and all Israel could be saved.^[3] And we ought in particular to assume this as regards the tribe of Levi, for it appears that the Lord Jesus traced his origin from that tribe, as concerns his taking on of the body. Of that tribe are the priests Levi and Nathan, and, in the Gospel which he wrote, St. Luke counted them among the ancestors of the Lord.^[4] For the Priest of the Father and Chief of all priests, even as it is written, You are a priest forever,^[5] should have laid claim to succession from a priestly line. On this account also Moses blessed this tribe and said, Give to Levi the lot of his own approbation, and to the holy man his truth.^[6]

Then, in a reference to their crimes Jacob applies a curse in the words Cursed be their rage for its ferocity and their frenzy for its willfulness: this touches on the stratagem they employed in deceiving the inhabitants of Shechem and imposed on them by guile. Their rage was ferocious, he says, headstrong, irrational. Their frenzy is cursed for its willfulness. When the Shechemites came to believe they had won great favor with them, then it was that Simeon and Levi vented their baleful frenzy and deployed the tactics of a foe against them. Referring to their exploit as sins, he foretells as well the punishment for it that awaits them: I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. They will be scattered in all directions so that this very thing will be obvious to everyone, namely, that they had persisted in committing this crime out of bravado.