Deuteronomy 33 · a question people ask
Why isn't Simeon named?
Moses blesses Reuben (33:6), Judah (33:7), Levi (33:8-11), Benjamin (33:12), Joseph, with his sons Ephraim and Manasseh named (33:13-17), Zebulun and Issachar (33:18-19), Gad (33:20-21), Dan (33:22), Naphtali (33:23) and Asher (33:24-25). Simeon, whom Jacob spoke of with Levi (Genesis 49:5-7), isn't named. The chapter doesn't say why, and no other verse explains it. Other verses tell what became of Simeon, without linking it to this chapter. Jacob had said of Simeon and Levi, "I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel" (Genesis 49:7). In the first count in the wilderness Simeon numbered "fifty-nine thousand three hundred" (Numbers 1:23), and in the second, "twenty-two thousand two hundred" (Numbers 26:14). When the land was given out, "Their inheritance was in the middle of the inheritance of the children of Judah" (Joshua 19:1), and later Judah said to Simeon, "Come up with me into my lot" (Judges 1:3). Readers set these verses beside the gap in different ways; the text itself leaves the silence unexplained.
The verses
““Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are weapons of violence. My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.”
“those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Simeon, were fifty-nine thousand three hundred.”
“These are the families of the Simeonites, twenty-two thousand two hundred.”
“The second lot came out for Simeon, even for the tribe of the children of Simeon according to their families. Their inheritance was in the middle of the inheritance of the children of Judah.”