Genesis 49:4

Pouring out like the waters - This is an obscure sentence because unfinished. It evidently relates to the defilement of his father' s couch; and the word pachaz , here translated pouring out, and in our Version unstable, has a bad meaning in other places of the Scripture, being applied to dissolute, debauched, and licentious conduct. See Judges 9:4; Zephaniah 3:4; Jeremiah 23:14, Jeremiah 23:32; Jeremiah 29:23.

Thou shalt not excel - This tribe never rose to any eminence in Israel; was not so numerous by one third as either Judah, Joseph, or Dan, when Moses took the sum of them in the wilderness, Numbers 1:21; and was among the first that were carried into captivity, I Chronicles 5:26.

Then thou didst defile - Another unfinished sentence, similar to the former, and upon the same subject, passing over a transaction covertly, which delicacy forbade Jacob to enlarge on. For the crime of Reuben, see Clarke on Genesis 35:22 (note).

5.Simeon and Levi, brethren:

They have accomplished their fraudulent purposes.

6.Into their secret council my soul did not come;

In their confederacy my honor was not united:

For in their anger they slew a man, ( ish , a noble),

And in their pleasure they murdered a prince.

7.Cursed was their anger, for it was fierce!

And their excessive wrath, for it was inflexible!

I will divide them out in Jacob,

And I will disperse them in Israel.