t12papocrypha
Testament of Levi 7
Levi addresses Jacob, framing the Shechem slaughter not as an act of rage but as a covenantal execution: the Canaanites who defiled Dinah defiled Israel's seed-line, and by that violation forfeited their claim to the land. Levi anchors the act in Jehovah's standing decree against Canaan, recasting the violence as prophetic instrument. Shechem is renamed in Levi's telling as a city of folly — those who treat Israel's daughters as plunder invite the sword of the covenant. The company departs to Bethel, the house of God, completing the movement from defilement to consecrated ground.
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And I said to my father, Be not angry, sir, because by thee will the Lord bring to nought the Canaanites, and will give their land to thee, and to thy seed after thee. For from this day forward shall Shechem be called a city of them that are without understanding; for as a man mocketh at a fool, so did we mock them, because they wrought folly in Israel to defile our sister. And we took our sister from thence, and departed, and came to Bethel.
