From the history of Simeon and Levi we learn in many ways the evil consequences of giving reins to our angry passions and wild desires. It is needful to consider this, for these passions and desires have great power over us so great that we cannot depend on anything else to restrain them but the principles of true practical religion made to sink into our hearts by the grace of God.
I. Consider the misery of those who set aside the love of God and the hope of His rewards, that they may gratify any desire of their own. (1) Of this number was Esau, who sold his birthright for a morsel of meat, and became a type of those who lose their heavenly birthright for the sake of worldly gain. (2) The same lesson is to be learned from the history of Shechem and Dinah, who lost the blessing and incurred God's displeasure by giving way to their evil passions. (3) Simeon and Levi formed a plan for executing a terrible vengeance on Shechem and all belonging to him for the disgrace they had sustained. Blinded by their passion, they did not see they were disgracing themselves more by their treachery and cruelty than they had been disgraced already by their sister's dishonour.
II. From this we learn: (1) the necessity of keeping a constant check and restraint upon ourselves; (2) the need of humbling ourselves for the sins of our past lives, and looking carefully into our present practice to see whether they do not still cleave to us in some form or other; (3) the need of God's Spirit to make clean what is within, to put off from us impurity and wrath, that our hearts may be fit for His indwelling.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times"vol. vii. p. 36.
References: Genesis 49:5-7. F. Whitfield, The Blessings of the Tribes,p. 67. Genesis 49:8-12. Ibid.,p. 97; J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses,p. 219.