Levi

Levi’s puns in a nutshell

So far, i have found 2 puns for the Biblical character לוי lwy Levi:

• Levi puns with לעב lˁb for mocking & playing. This chimes perfectly with all other Bible names & spook names, as almost all mean “disguised” or “faked” in some sense. This is what spookery is about! Levi is one of the few pun “patriarchs” who gets his own story, and he is paired with Simeon, whose name also puns with another word for “mockery”. “Mockery” also explains Levi’s association with Kohen & Aaron, whose names are also theatrical puns. So, this meaning is likely the main one that the ancient spook authors had in mind. It also works in Greek with λωβευω lobeuo for “mockery”. These puns could explain modern spook names like Monica Lewinsky, which may be a “actor’s mock moniker”.
• Levi also puns לוי lwy / לוה lwh for moneylending. It’s not even a pun, but the same word, derived from “joining”. I haven’t yet found any Biblical cross-evidence for this meaning, as the Bible seems to be more about general deception than finance. But actual aristocratis power was probably first achieved via finance & trade, with deception added on top to increse revenue. So, I think this is a valid pun meaning.

Levi as pun with lˁb for “playing” & “mocking”

Levi puns with the word root לעב lˁb leav for “playing” & “mocking”. This works because Bet & Waw are interchangeable, and both can denote a V. You can still see this interchangeability in Levi-like spook names such as Löwenstein, Löbenstein & Lövenstein, or Lewistein, Lebistein & Levistein.

This “mockery” pun of Levi even works in Greek, where the name is close to λωβα loba for “ridicule”, and to λωβευω lobeuo / loveyo for “mockery”. These may even be etymologically related.

This is likely the main meaning in the Biblical story of Simeon & Levi, since Simeon also means “playing”. It also explains Levi’s styling as a “priestly” name and his association with Kohen & Aaron, since those names also seem to be theatrical puns. I suppose the Levites also often stand for “mockers” in the Biblical story.

This chimes with the general theme of the entire Bible, and spook culture in general. Most other Bible names & spook names also seem to be puns with deception & fakery.

Levi as “moneylender”

One important derivation of the word root לוה lwh for “joining” is the meaning of “moneylending”. The name Levi thus means “moneylender”. It’s not even a pun, but the same word.

Official derivation of Levi from lwh for “joining”

The proliferation of the name Levi is officially explained with an ancient caste of priests who are all sons of a single patriarch named Levi. Oddly, there is no story or explanation what was so special about these people, that it would warrant such widespread usage of the name.

According to Strong, the word is “of uncertain derivation”, but it is usually linked to the root לוה lwh which means “to join”, with H and Y being suffixes.

The name is also introduced in the Bible with an official pun about “joining”, in Genesis 29:34.

Since V as in Levi can be written with both Bet & Waw, the root also occurs in the form לבב lbb.

Hebrew lwh meaning “moneylending”

The meanings of the root לוה lwh include many specific things that are “joined” to a person, among them financial debt. The same spelling לוה lwh can thus also mean debt, loan, borrowing, lending, debtor, creditor. These terms use both suffixes H and Y (which are typically interchangeable), so they are often written exactly like the name Levi. The difference could only be guessed from the context in the original consonantal script.

The grammatical difference between debtor & creditor is merely that between passive & causative: “being joined” to a debt-contract vs. “making others join” a debt-contract.

We can get a feeling for the derivation of “lending” from “joining” in English, where people are also bound or tied to a bond or contract.

Semitic & Sumerian lwh for “surrounding” & “twisting”

When we check other Semitic languages, we see that the most basic meaning of the root is “surrounding”, “binding” & “twisting”. All of these are spook concepts, so Levi may include other puns, especially since the “Sons of Levi” are often paired with other concepts.

We can also see that the middle letter was sometimes W, and sometimes B. We can also see that the H or Y are simply grammatical endings of the respective language, and not part of the word root. The word root consonants would be lw & lb.

Note that the cuneiform sign 𒆸 LAGAB used to write Akkadian lawû & labû is a symbol of an enclosing fence, supporting the meaning of “surrounding”.

The Akkadians are said to have inherited their cuneiform signs from the Sumerians. When we check how the 𒆸 LAGAB sign was used in Sumerian, we see that it also meant “fence” there, even with a presumed pronunciation close to Levi! But what’s more, we can see that the meaning of “debt contract” already existed in Sumerian, for the same sign & word, similar to Levi!

The ePSD dictionary cites hišû as Akkadian for “debt-note”. The Yale Cuneiform Commentaries Project (headed by a Mr. Levi) states that hišû was also written with the sign 𒆸 LAGAB, as in lawû & labû. So it’s possible the Akkadian readings for “debt-note” were also lawû & labû!

We even find the “financial” Levi in English, though here derived from Latin levo for “lifting”.

Biblical occurrences of lwh for “moneylending”

There are many Biblical occurrences for the forms לוה lwh & לוי lwy in the meaning of “borrowing” & “lending”. Some grammar forms even use a Y vowelization, as in Levi. This is seen in Deuteronomy 28:12 as לוית lwy-t for “you lend”, and in Nehemiah 5:4 as לוינו lwy-nw for “we borrowed”.

You’ll also notice that “lender” & “borrower” are easily mixed up in their similar grammar forms. That is why many spooks don’t like to call themselves Levi, but HaLevi. To them, HaLevi does not mean “the Levite”. Rather, it’s the H-prefixed active-causative Hif‘il form, meaning “he who actively causes others borrow”, i.e. the creditor.

Again, it is easy to see that לוי lwy Levi is indeed derived from לוה lwh lavah for “joining” & “debt”.

If you lend money to one of my people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him any interest.

אם כסף תלוה את עמי את העני עמך לא תהיה לו כנשה לא תשימון עליו נשך

Exodus 22:25

The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain to your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

יפתח יהוה לך את אוצרו הטוב את השמים לתת מטר ארצך בעתו ולברך את כל מעשה ידך והלוית גוים רבים ואתה לא תלוה

Deuteronomy 28:12

Levi in the 12 tribes parable

Oddly, in the 12 tribes parable, Levi does not seem to stand for a mode of spookery like most other tribes, but is slapped onto the name Simeon as an attribute. Together, they seem to denote spook enemies from among the populace, probably as a pun with “joined troublemakers” (see Genesis 49:5. This is strange since we’d expect each tribe to be tool of spookery, but apparently the 12 tribes parable was written differently. Gad & Benjamin also do not stand for spookery here.

There is another Levi-like pun in Judah’s verse Genesis 49:9, where lavi “lion” apparently puns with alav “oppressed”.

If Levi is still generally seen as one of 12 methods of spookery, then it would probably be “mockery”, see above.

If there was ever an original 12 tribes parable before spookery, as 12 scepters of regular rulership maybe, then Levi would perhaps have been the “retinue” of the ruler. In Aramaic, “retinue” is written lwy, exactly like Levi, also derived from “encircling”.

Punny symbols for Levi

The name Levi is found in many prominent aristocratic symbols. All are pronounced similar to Levi, and thus like “creditor” & “oppressor”, and also like generally “twisting”, “binding” & “surrounding” everything. There may also be more meanings to the name.

• If you combine the H and Y suffixes, you get לויה lwyh livyah, which means wreath.
• If you spell the V sound with a B instead of a W, you get לבי lby lavi, which means lion.
• Related to the lion is probably לבה lbh labbah for “flame”. (The lion may have been named for being “flame-colored” or having a “blaze-like” mane.)
• A similar spelling is לבה lbh libbah, which means heart.
• If you double the word root, you get לבלב lblb livlev, which means blossom, perhaps derived from the heart.
• If you use an N suffix, as in the name Levin, you get לבן lbn lavan, which is the color white.
• The color white is said to be derived from “bleaching” & “drying”, and therefore related to לבן lbn laban, which means brick.