Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.
to say (used with great latitude) · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
father
לְאָבִ֤יוle.'a.Viv
H1
father · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
mother
וּלְאִמּוֹ֙u.le.'i.Mo
H517
a mother (as the bond of the family) · conjunction + preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
seen
רְאִיתִ֔יוre.'i.Tiv
H7200
to see · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
acknowledge
הִכִּ֔ירhi.Kir
H5234
properly · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
brethren
אֶחָיו֙'e.Chav
H251
a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relation… · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
knew
יָדָ֑עya.Da'
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
children
בָּנָ֖יוba.nov
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
observed
שָֽׁמְרוּ֙sha.me.Ru
H8104
properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
word
אִמְרָתֶ֔ךָ'im.ra.Te.kha
H565
something said · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
kept
יִנְצֹֽרוּyin.Tzo.ru
H5341
to guard · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
covenant
וּבְרִֽיתְךָ֖u.ve.ri.te.Kha
H1285
a compact (because made by passing between pieces of fl… · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 32:25-29 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
Matthew 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Leviticus 21:11 Neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
Jeremiah 18:18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, n…
Matthew 12:48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, h…
Genesis 29:32 And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now theref…
Leviticus 10:6 And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 33:8-11
In blessing the tribe of Levi, Moses expresses himself more at large, not so much because it was his own tribe (for he takes no notice of his relation to it) as because it was God's tribe. The blessing of Levi has reference.
I. To the high priest, here called God's holy one (Deu 33:8), because his office was holy, in token of which, Holiness to the Lord was written upon his forehead. 1. He seems to acknowledge that God might justly have displaced Aaron and his seed, for his sin at Meribah, (Exo 17:7), which might be very remarkable, and which God might have an eye to in conferring the priesthood upon him, though no mention is made of it there. All the Chaldee paraphrasts agree that it was a…
of Levi he said--The burden of this blessing is the appointment of the Levites to the dignified and sacred office of the priesthood (Lev 10:11; Deu 22:8; Deu 17:8-11), a reward for their zeal in supporting the cause of God, and their unsparing severity in chastising even their nearest and dearest relatives who had participated in the idolatry of the molten calf (Exo 32:25-28; compare Mal 2:4-6).
John Gill on Deuteronomy 33:9
Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him,.... Which some understand of the high priests who were of this tribe, and according to the law were not to defile themselves, or mourn for a father or mother, Leviticus 21:11; or rather, as others, of their having no respect to them in judgment, but determining all causes that came before them according to the law of God, and the rules of justice and equity, in the most impartial manner, without having any regard to the nearest relations to them: with this compare what Christ the antitype of Levi says, in Matthew 12:49,
neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children; had no respect to persons in judgment, t…
That man desires to know God more closely who, out of love for piety, does not want to know those he knew according to the flesh. Divine knowledge suffers a grave loss if it is shared with fleshly knowledge. Each one ought to stand apart from his relatives and neighbors if he wishes to be joined more truly to the Father of all. Those he manfully neglects for the sake of God he loves more firmly, to the extent that he ignores the passing attachment of carnal relationship. In the world of time, indeed, we should be more helpful to those we are related to more closely than to others, since this flame grows into a fire when fuel is supplied. But the fire first burns where it is kindled. We ought to acknowledge the bond of earthly relationship but ignore it when it blocks the journey of the mind. This happens when the faithful soul, on fire with devotion to God, does not despise what is joined to it below, rightly orders these relations within itself and transcends them by its love of what is highest. So we ought to see to it by resourceful concern lest such love should make its entry for the sake of the flesh and turns the heart's progress away from the right path. It could weaken the power of higher love and press the rising mind down by loading a weight on it. Thus one ought to sympathize with his relatives' needs in such a way that, through compassion, he does not allow the effect of his decision to be blocked. The emotions of the mind should fill the heart but not turn it away from its spiritual vocation. For holy men do not love their carnal relatives by failing to give them what they need, but by love of spiritual things they conquer that love in themselves, insofar as they temper it with the reins of discretion. Through this love, at least in a small measure, they will not stray from the right path. Cows are figures that suggest these men to us. As the cows move to the high place before God's ark, they walk with eagerness and a determined pace, while their calves have been left in the stable. For Scripture has it, "walking on and lowing, giving forth bellows from within, and yet not turning their steps away from the path, they have set out."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bless — (1.) God blesses his people when he bestows on them some gift temporal or spiritual (Gen. 1:22; 24:35; Job 42:12; Ps. 45:2; 104:24, 35). (2.) We bless God when we thank him for his mercies (Ps.…
Covenant — A contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived from a root which means “to cut,” and hence a covenant is a…
Simeon, The tribe of — Was “divided and scattered” according to the prediction in Gen. 49:5-7. They gradually dwindled in number, and sank into a position of insignificance among the other tribes. They decreased in the…
Law Of Moses, The · Priests and Levites to teach — Priests and Levites to teach
Levites · Religious zeal of — Religious zeal of
Levites, The · Prophecies respecting — Prophecies respecting
Tribes Of Israel, The · Predictions respecting each of — Predictions respecting each of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Who said unto his father and his mother. In the person of Aaron an example is set before all the Levites for their imitation. And, first, he is said to have renounced his own flesh and blood, in order that he might be more disencumbered for obeying God; and in fact it is necessary that all the pastors of the Church should put off their earthly affections, which would otherwise often keep them back from devoting themselves entirely to God. Aaron, then, is said to have bid farewell to all his family, that he might be at liberty to lay himself out for God. Christ now requires the same thing of His disciples, that sons should forget their fathers, and fathers their sons, and husbands their wives…
Levi. - Deu 33:8, Deu 33:9. "Thy right and Thy light is to Thy godly man, whom Thou didst prove in Massah, and didst strive with him at the water of strife; who says to his father and his mother, I see him not; and does not regard his brethren, and does not know his sons: for they observed Thy word, and kept Thy covenant." This blessing is also addressed to God as a prayer. The Urim and Thummim - that pledge, which the high priest wore upon his breast-plate, that the Lord would always give His people light to preserve His endangered right (vid., Exo 28:29-30), - are here regarded as a prerogative of the whole of the tribe of Levi. Thummim is placed before Urim, to indicate at the outset that…
guarded your covenant: The verse alludes to the incident of the gold calf at Mount Sinai (Exod 32:25-29) and to the affair at Baal-peor (Num 25:6-9). The Levites’ love for the Lord and loyalty to his covenant eclipsed their devotion to their own families, averted God’s judgment, and brought them the honor expressed here.
Rashi on Deuteronomy 33:9
האמר לאביו ולאמו לא ראיתיו WHO SAID TO HIS FATHER AND TO HIS MOTHER, I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM — When they sinned in the matter of the golden calf and I said, “Who is on the Lord’s side, let him come to me” (Exodus 32:26), all the sons of Levi gathered themselves unto me, and I ordered them each to kill his mother’s father, he being an ordinary Israelite, or his brother on the mother’s side, or the son of his daughter whose husband was an ordinary Israelite, and thus did they do. — It is impossible to explain the term “his father” literally, and “his brothers” as being those on his father's side, and similarly to understand “his sons” literally, for really all these are Levites, and of the tribe o…
