Levi/Levy ( /ˈliːvaɪ/, Hebrew: לֵּוִי; Levy Lēwî ; "joining") was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the levites). Certain religious and political functions were reserved for the Levites, and the early sources of the Torah—the Jahwist and Elohist—appear to treat the term Levi as just being a word meaning priest; scholars therefore suspect that "levi" was originally a general term for a priest, and had no connection to ancestry, and that it was only later, for example in the priestly source and Blessing of Moses, that the existence of a tribe named Levi became assumed, in order to explain the origin of the priestly caste.
Read more about Levi: Origins, The Family of Levi, In Post-Torah Tradition, Levi and The "Blessing of Jacob"
Famous quotes containing the word levi:
“The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.”
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