2. The great-grandfather of Judas MaccabiBns, 1 Mac 2'. 3. An ancestor of Jesus, Lk S^". 4. The 'righteous and devout' (6(/coios xal cuXa/?^!) man who took the infant Jesus in his arms and blessed Him, on the occasion of the presentation in the temple (Lk ^''■). The notion that this Simeon is to be identified with a Rabbi who was the son of Hillel and the father of Gamaliel I. is as precarious as the apocryphal legends about his two sons Charimis and Leucius ; see Nicodemus (Gospel OF). The ven* existence of a Rabbi Simon ben Hillel is doubtful (see Schiirer, HJP II. i. 363), and in any case he was not, as late legends assert, piesident of the Sanhedrin, an office which in the time of Christ was always held by the high priest (see Sanhedrin, p. 401). If the Simeon of St. Luke had been HiHel's son, is it conceivable that he would have been introduced simply as ' a man in Jenisalem whose name was Simeon'? 5. A prophet and teacher at Antioch, whose surname was Niger (Ac 13'). 6. Ac 15", 2 P 1' (RVm). See Peter (Simon), vol. liL p. 756.
J. A. Selbik.
SIMEON (Tribe).— The history of this tribe, which theoretically traced its descent to the second son of Jacob and Leah, is involved in considerable obscurity. From the fact that Shanl, the eponym- ous head of one of its families, is called ' the son of the Canaanitish woman ' (Gn 46'", Ex 6"), we may infer that it contained a considerable admix- ture of non-Israelitish elements. From Jg !'• " we learn that, at the beginning of the conquest of Canaan, Simeon joined his forces with those of Judah. It was probably not long thereafter that Simeon and Le^^ together sought to gain a settle- ment in Mount Ephraim, which was then occupied by the Canaanites. Such at least is a plausible interpretation of the tradition which underlies the narrative of Gn 34. Upon any theory it is dithcnlt to disentangle the details of that storj', for the chapter in question is, in its present form, not homogeneous, and the different narratives date from did'erent periods, and are inspired by different motives (cf. artt. Hamor, and Jacob in vol. ii. p. 530 f.). None of these narratives is at all suitable to pre-Mosaic times, and there is much plausibility in the theory of Wellhausen, that we have here a reminiscence of an attempt on the part of Dinah b.at-Leah (a branch of Simeon) and the other Simeonites, in conjunction with Levi, to possess themselves of the town of Shechem by treacher- ously taking advantage of the friendly relations
that had hitherto subsisted between them aad th« Canaanites.
Whatever degree of success may have attended the enterprise at first, its ultimate consequences were most tlisastrous, for the Canaanites of the surrounding districts appear to have attacked and practically annihilated the invaders '(cf. Moore, Judges, 240). Tliis explains the insignificance or the entire ab.sence of Simeon in the subsequent history of Israel. The shattered remnants of this tribe, which liad begun its warlike activity in alliance ^vith Judah, now fell back upon tlie latter for protection and a share of the land (Jos 19").
In the Song of Deborah (Jg 5), in which the tribes of Israel are praised or blamed according to the part they had played in the struggle, both Judah and .Simeon are passed over — judah probably because at this period it pursued its own aims in complete separation from the northern tribes (cf. Gn 38), Simeon because it was practically part of Judaii.
The absence of Simeon in the Blessing of Moses (Dt 33) has been felt to be more surprising, and various explanations have been offered, or attempts made to supply the omission. A and some other MSS of the TA'X, indeed, insert Simeon in v.6b ' Let Reuben live and not die, and let Simeon be many in number' {^vfiiatv irrTot jreXw? iv ccpSfj.!^). This, however, may be simply a deliberate correction of the text, devoid of any support from Heb. MSS. Other solutions of the difficulty have been proposed by Kobler {Der Segeji Jacob's, 5) and Graetz ('ics-r/j. d. Jtulen, il. i. 4S6f.) which have been accepted with modifications by Heil- prin (Hist Poetry/ of the Hebrews, i. 113 IT.) and Bacon (Triple Tradition of the Exodus, 270 f.). Founding upon the unnatural shortness of the blessing of Judah, and tlie character of Levi's blessing, which seems too warlike for a non.secular tribe, Kohler conjectures that v.' has fallen out of its place and should follow v. 10, 80 that wX II would form the blessing of Judah. Graetz boldlj' substitutes ' Simeon ' for ' Judah ' in v.7, a method of procedure which is approved by Heilprin and Bacon as far aa v.7i» is concerned, while at the same time they change the order of the verses as Kohler proposed. We thus obtain (v. -■») as the blessing of Simeon, ' Hear, O Jehovah, the voice of Simeon, and bring him to his people ' (the latter prayer perhaps referring to the Simeonites who, according t^ 1 Ch 4^21., found a settlement in Mt. Seir). The blessing of Judah would then be contained in v.Tb' Judah with his bauds contends," etc., and v. n 'Bless, Lord, his substance,' eto. — But, however plausible these explana- tions may be, there will probably be little hesitation in assenting to the judgment of Dillmann (approved by Driver), that the corrections of the text which they involve are ' too violent * to he probable. The death-blow whicli Simeon received so earlj- in his career is quite surticient to account for the non-mention of him in Dt 33, even if we ascribe a considerable antiquity to that chapter.