Genesis 49:5

Summary

The verse names Simeon and Levi as "brothers" and then characterizes them through a construct phrase describing "weapons" or "instruments" associated with violence. The Hebrew consists of two brief verbless clauses that juxtapose the pair's fraternal identity with an image of aggression, without any verb explicitly stating an action they performed.

Key words

• achim ("[are] brothers", H0251G) — masculine plural noun functioning as predicate; no copula appears, so "are" is supplied by the reader from context.
• kelei ("[are] weapons/vessels of", H3627) — masculine plural construct form of keli; construct state means it must be joined to the following noun, forming "weapons of X."
• chamas ("violence", H2555) — masculine singular noun completing the construct chain begun by kelei, specifying what kind of weapons/vessels are meant.
• mekherotei ("swords" / obscure term, H4380) — feminine plural construct noun; its exact meaning is uncertain in the base lexicon (rendered "swords" here), and it stands in construct relation to the following suffix.
• hem ("their", H9028) — third-person masculine plural pronominal suffix attached to mekherotei, indicating possession ("their [swords/instruments]").

What the text says

The verse is built from two short nominal (verbless) clauses typical of Hebrew poetic parallelism. The first, Shim'on ve-Levi achim ("Simeon and Levi [are] brothers"), simply states a familial relationship using a noun predicate with no verb. The second clause, kelei chamas mekherotehem, uses a construct chain: kelei ("weapons/vessels of") is grammatically bound to chamas ("violence"), producing "weapons of violence." This phrase then stands appositionally or predicately next to mekherotehem ("their swords" or "their [uncertain noun]"), itself a construct form carrying the pronominal suffix -hem ("their"). The resulting sense, built purely from the grammar, is roughly "weapons of violence are their swords" — two noun phrases set side by side without a linking verb, a common feature of Hebrew poetic verse that requires the reader to infer the predicate relationship.

The word rendered "swords" (mekherotei, H4380) is grammatically clear in form (feminine plural construct plus suffix) but its lexical root is not transparent from the data given beyond the gloss "swords," making its precise semantic range less certain than the other nouns in the verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX restructures the second clause as a finite verbal statement, synetelesan adikian ex haireseos autōn ("they completed injustice out of their own choice/faction"), rather than preserving the Hebrew's noun-based construct chain "weapons of violence, their swords." The Vulgate renders kelei chamas as "vasa iniquitatis" ("vessels of iniquity"), matching the Hebrew construct sense, but translates mekherotehem not as a noun ("their swords") but as a participle, "bellantia" ("warring/fighting"), turning the pronominal-suffixed noun into a descriptive verbal form modifying "vasa."