And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me (i.e. brought trouble upon me) to make me to stink—or, to cause me to become hateful; μισητόν με πεποιήκατε (LXX.)—among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites (vide Genesis 13:7): and I (sc.
with my attendants) being few in number,—literally, men of number, i.e. that can be easily numbered, a small band (cf. Deuteronomy 4:27; Psalms 105:1-45.. 12; Jeremiah 44:28)—they (literally, and they) shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
That Jacob should have spoken to his sons only of his own danger, and not of their guilt, has been ascribed to his belief that this was the only motive which their carnal minds could understand (Keil, Gerlach); to a remembrance of his own deceitfulness, which disqualified him in a measure from being the censor of his sons (Kalisch, Wordsworth); to the lowered moral and spiritual tone of his own mind (Candlish, 'Speaker's Commentary'); to the circumstance that, having indulged his children in their youth, be was now afraid to reprove them (Inglis).
That Jacob afterwards attained to a proper estimate of their bloody deed his last prophetic utterance reveals (Genesis 49:5-7). By some it is supposed that he even now felt the crime in all its heinousness (Kalisch), though his reproach was somewhat leniently expressed in the word "trouble" (Lange); while others, believing Jacob's abhorrence of his sons' fanatical cruelty to have been deep and real, account for its omission by the historian on the ground that he aimed merely at showing "the protection of God (Genesis 35:5), through which Jacob escaped the evil consequences of their conduct" (Hengstenberg, Kurtz).