Levi

Levi (/ˈliːvaɪ/ LEE-vy; Hebrew: לֵוִי, Modern: Levī, Tiberian: Lēwī) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and Miriam. Certain religious and political functions were reserved for the Levites.

Most scholars view the Torah as projecting the origins of the Levites into the past to explain their role as landless cultic functionaries.

The Torah suggests that the name Levi refers to Leah's hope for Jacob to join with her, implying a derivation from Hebrew yillaweh, meaning he will join, but scholars suspect that it may simply mean "priest", either as a loanword or by referring to those people who were joined to the Ark of the Covenant. Another possibility is that the Levites were a tribe of Judah not from the clan of Moses or Aaron and that the name "Levites" indicates their joining - either with the Israelites in general or with the earlier Israelite priesthood in particular.

The Book of Jubilees states that Levi was born "in the new moon of the first month", which means that he was born on 1 Nisan.

In the Book of Genesis, Levi and his brother, Simeon, raid the city of Shechem in revenge for the rape of Dinah, seizing the wealth of the city and massacring the men. The brothers had earlier misled the inhabitants by consenting to Dinah's rapist marrying her in exchange for the men of the city to be circumcised. When Jacob hears about their deceit and destruction of Shechem, he scolds them since they've endangered their own family to the wrath of neighbouring societies. In the Blessing of Jacob, Jacob is described as imposing a curse on the Levites, by which they would be scattered, in punishment for Levi's actions in Shechem.

Some textual scholars date the Blessing of Jacob to a period between one and two centuries before the Babylonian captivity, and some Biblical scholars regard the curse, and Dinah herself, as an aetiological postdiction to explain the fates of the tribe of Simeon and the Levites, with one possible explanation of the Levites' scattered nature being that the priesthood was originally open to any tribe but gradually became seen as a distinct tribe itself. Nevertheless, Isaac, Levi's grandfather, gives a special blessing about the lineage of priests of God.

In the Book of Genesis, Levi is described as having fathered three sons—Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. A similar genealogy is given in the Book of Exodus, where it is added that among Kohath's sons was one—Amram—who married a woman named Jochebed, who was closely related to his father, and they were the biological parents of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; though some Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Torah state that Jochebed was Amram's father's cousin, the Masoretic Text states that she was his father's sister, and the Septuagint mentions that she was one of his father's sisters. The Masoretic Text's version of Levi's genealogy thus implies (and in Numbers 26:59, explicitly states) that Levi also had a daughter (Jochebed), and the Septuagint implies further daughters. The names of Levi's sons, and possible daughter, are interpreted in classical rabbinical literature as being reflections on their future destiny. In some apocryphal texts such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Jubilees, Levi's wife, his children's mother, is named as Milkah, a daughter of Aram, but according to the Book of Jasher, the name of Levi's wife was Adinah.

In accordance with his role as founder of the Levites, Levi is referred to as being particularly pious. The Blessing of Moses, which some textual scholars attribute to a period just before the deuteronomist, speaks about Levi via an allegorical comparison to Moses himself, which haggadah take to support the characterization of Levi (and his progeny) as being by far the greatest of his brothers in respect to piety. The apocryphal Prayer of Asenath, which textual scholars believe dates from some time after the first century AD, describes Levi as a prophet and saint who is able to forecast the future and understand heavenly writings, and as someone who admonishes the people to forgive and to be in awe of God. The Book of Malachi argues that Yahweh chose the Levites to be priests because Levi, as God's minister, embodied true religious principles, possessed reverence for Yahweh, held the divine name in awe, upheld peace, provided a model of good morality, and turned many people away from sin.