הָאֹמֵ֞ר לְאָבִ֤יו וּלְאִמּוֹ֙ לֹ֣א רְאִיתִ֔יו וְאֶת־אֶחָיו֙ לֹ֣א הִכִּ֔יר וְאֶת־בנו [בָּנָ֖יו] לֹ֣א יָדָ֑ע כִּ֤י שָֽׁמְרוּ֙ אִמְרָתֶ֔ךָ וּבְרִֽיתְךָ֖ יִנְצֹֽרוּ׃
qui dit de son père et de sa mère: "Je ne les considère point ", qui n’a pas égard à ses frères et ne connaît pas ses enfants. Uniquement fidèle à ta parole, gardien de ton alliance,
On Mating with the Preliminary Studies
§ 133. The founder of this tribe. Wendland gives as reference for the saying “God alone must I honour” Ex. 20:3, i.e. the First Commandment, and therefore presumably took the γενάρχης to be Moses. But the reference is, I think, to the Blessing of Levi (Deut. 33:9) “who saith to his father and his mother I have not seen thee, and his brothers he knew not and his sons he disclaimed.” In Leg. All. ii. 51 Philo has made a very similar use of this text (though there the father and the mother are mind and body), inferring from it that the Levi-mind rejects all such things for the sake of having God as his portion, in accordance with the words of Deut. 10:9, which he again quotes here. And the same interpretation of Deut. 33:9 is given in De Fug. 89, where Levi is called ὁ ἀρχηγέτης τοῦ θιάσου τούτου.
Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis
[51] But there is a different man, one who has made the contrary choice, even Levi, who “said to his father and his mother ‘I have not seen thee,’ and knew not his brethren, and disclaimed his sons” (Deut. 33:9). This man forsakes father and mother, his mind and material body, for the sake of having as his portion the one God, “for the Lord Himself is his portion” (Deut. 10:9).
Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis
In 51 f. the danger of the drawing down of Mind from the love of God by its cleaving to Sense-perception is brought out by a reference to Levi’s noble choice (Deut. 33:9) making the Lord his portion (10:9), and to the two goats of Lev. 16:8.