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According to theHebrew Bible, theTribe of Simeon (/ˈsɪmiən/;Hebrew:שִׁמְעוֹןŠīm‘ōn, "hearkening/listening/understanding/empathizing") was one of thetwelve tribes of Israel.[1] TheBook of Joshua locates its territory inside the boundaries of theTribe of Judah (Joshua 19:9). It has been usually counted as one of theten lost tribes, although its territory was surrounded by and gradually being absorbed by Judah from the start. For any Simeonites to be of theNorthern Kingdom of Israel or to be affected by theAssyrian sack of the kingdom (future lost tribes) would imply a northward migration at some point in time, with support perhaps from 2 Chronicles (15:9 and 34:6,7).
The biblical narrative has it coming into theLand of Israel followingthe Exodus, while scholarly reconstructions have offered a variety of opinions as to its origins and early history. From theBook of Genesis until theBabylonian captivity, the Bible provides various details about its history, after which point it disappears from the record. A variety of extrabiblical traditional Jewish sources also provide additional material on the tribe.
At its height, the territory occupied by the Tribe of Simeon was in the southwest ofCanaan, bordered on the east and south by thetribe of Judah; the boundaries with the tribe of Judah are vague, and it seems that Simeon may have been anenclave within the west of the territory of the tribe of Judah.[2] Simeon was one of the less significant tribes in theKingdom of Judah.
Attempts to reconstruct the territory of Simeon work with three biblical lists:Book of Joshua 19:2-9,1 Chronicles 4:28-32, which list towns belonging to Simeon, and Joshua 15:20-30, which lists these same towns as part of the territory of Judah.[3] Nadav Na'aman divides scholarly work on the subject into two "schools of thought," which he calls "the Alt school" (followingAlbrecht Alt) and the "other school."[3] The Alt school takes the list in Joshua 15 as reflecting the historical situation during the reign ofJosiah, and sees the other two as later, and less reliable, attempts by editors to work out the earlier Simeonite territory. The "other school" sees the first two lists as reflecting the actual historical situation in the time ofDavid (compare 1 Chronicles 4:31), and Joshua 15 as reflecting the situation at a later date.[3] According to Na'aman, Simeonites settled in a pattern which overlapped Judah: while maintaining a distinct tribal identity and organization throughout the First Temple period (until 586 BC), Simeonites and Judahites lived in some of the same areas.[3]
The lot of Simeon, which was the second, included that part ofIdumea which bordered uponEgypt andArabia.[4]
According to theHebrew Bible, the tribe consisted of descendants ofSimeon, the second son ofJacob and ofLeah, from whom it took its name.[5] However, Arthur Peake (1919) suggested that the narratives about the twelve sons of Jacob in Genesis might include later tribal history "disguised as personal history," in which the later histories of these tribal groups are recast in the form of narratives about supposed ancestors.[6] Likewise, the consensus position of contemporary scholarship is that "there is little or no historical memory of pre-Israelite events or circumstances in Genesis."[7] In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest ofCanaan by theIsraelites,Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. Kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BCE.[8] However, the consensus view of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in the Book of Joshua never occurred.[9][10][11]
Martin Noth argued that the six tribes that the Bible traces toLeah, including Simeon, were once part of anamphictyony prior to the later coalition of twelve tribes.[12][13] According to Niels Peter Lemche, "Noth's amphictyonic hypothesis determined a whole generation of Old Testament scholars' way of thinking."[14] However, more recently a large number of scholars have dissented from Noth's theory.[15]
In the opening words of theBook of Judges, following the death ofJoshua, the Israelites "asked the Lord" which tribe should be first to go to occupy its allotted territory, and the tribe of Judah was identified as the first tribe.[16] According to this narrative, the tribe of Judah invited the tribe of Simeon to fight with them inalliance to secure each of their allotted territories.
However, the tribe of Simeon is not mentioned in the ancientSong of Deborah, generally considered one of the earliest-written parts of the Hebrew Bible,[17][18] and theJewish Encyclopedia (1906) claims that Simeon was probably "not always counted as a tribe."[19] According toIsrael Finkelstein, the south of Canaan, in which Simeon was situated, was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written.[20][page needed] Another possibility is that Simeon, along with Judah, had simply not joined the Israelite confederacy at this point,[21][22] or that they had seceded.[23]
| Simeon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jemuel | Jamin | Ohad | Jakin | Zohar | Shaul | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Towns belonging to Simeon are listed in theBook of Joshua;[24] elsewhere in Joshua these towns are ascribed to Judah.[19][25] Most modern scholars view theBook of Joshua as being spliced together from several different source texts, in this particular case, the lists of towns being different documents, from different periods to each other.[26][3][27]
The tribe seems to have dwindled in size, and the size of the tribe dramatically drops by over half between the twocensuses recorded in theBook of Numbers.[28] Although the Bible places these censuses duringthe Exodus, some source-critical scholars place their authorship in the period ofPriestly Source, which Richard Elliot Freedman dates to between 722 and 609 BC.[29][30] Other scholars usually place the Priestly Source in the post-exilic period, and some deny its existence altogether.[31][32] The tribe is included in theBlessing of Moses (DEU 33:6) as found in theSeptuagint, whereas the name is omitted from theMasoretic Text.
The impression gained from theBooks of Chronicles is that the tribe was not entirely fixed in location; at one point it is mentioned that some members of the tribe migrated southwards toGedor, so as to find suitablepasture for theirsheep.[33] In the following verse, which may or may not be related,[19] it is mentioned that during the reign ofHezekiah, part of the tribe came to the land of someMeunim, and slaughtered them, taking the land in their place.[34] Further verses state that about 500 men from the tribe migrated toMount Seir, slaughtering theAmalekites who had previously settled there.[35]
As part of theKingdom of Judah, whatever remained of Simeon was ultimately subjected to theBabylonian captivity; when the captivity ended, all remaining distinctions between Simeon and the other tribes in the kingdom of Judah had been lost in favour of a common identity asJews.
InRevelation 7:7, the Tribe of Simeon is once again listed among the Twelve Tribes of Israel with 12,000 of the sons of Israel from the tribe sealed on the forehead.
According to aMidrash, many Simeonite widows were married into other Israelite tribes, after the death of 24,000 Simeonite men following the scandal involvingZimri.[19]
Amidrash claims that the tribe was deported by theBabylonians to theKingdom of Aksum (in what is nowEthiopia), to a place behindthe dark mountains.[19] Conversely,Eldad ha-Dani held that the tribe of Simeon had become quite powerful, taking tribute from 25 other kingdoms, some of which wereArabians; though he names their location, surviving versions of his manuscripts differ as to whether it was the land of theKhazars or of theChaldeans (Chaldeans would be ananachronism, though it could possibly refer toBuyid DynastyPersia).
Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Simeon, Tribe of".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Joshua, Book of".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Priestly Code".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.