LEVI (Heb. Lévi). - I. Third of the sons whom Jacob had by Leah.
In Gen. 29, 34 the name is explained by the mother’s phrase: “Now at last my husband will cling to (or become attached to) me.” L., together with Simeon, took fierce vengeance upon the Shechemites after Dinah had been violated (Gen. 34). Their father immediately reproved the deed; in the “Canticle,” before dying, he recalled it with execration, cursing the “fury” of the two brothers and declaring that he had no
complicity whatsoever in the crime (ibid. 50, 5-7). L. died at the age of 137, leaving the sons Gershon, Kohath (father of Amram, who had the two sons Aaron and Moses), and Merari (Ex. 6, 16-20). In Judaism the figure of L. was idealized in exaltation of the priestly class (e.g., in the apocryphal Liber Iubilaeorum, Assumptio Moysis).
2. Name of three persons mentioned in the New Testament: the publican, son of Alphaeus, in the second and third Gospels (Mk. 2, 14; Lk. 5, 27), Matthew (v.) in the first (Mt. 9, 9); the son of Simeon and the son of Melchi, in the genealogy of Jesus in Lk. 3, 29, 34.