Simeon was the second son of Jacob by Leah, whose name records a mother's grief: "Yah has heard that I am hated." His defining biographical moment is Genesis 34 — the violation of his sister Dinah by Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite. While Jacob's sons negotiated a covenant of intermarriage contingent on circumcision, Simeon and Levi used the three-day recovery period to enter the city and kill every male (Genesis 34:25–26). They plundered the city, took Dinah, and brought back everything.
Jacob's immediate response was sharp: "You have troubled me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land" (Genesis 34:30). He never forgot it. At his deathbed (Genesis 49:5–7), Jacob grouped Simeon and Levi together: "Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce... I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." This word of scattering fell differently on the two brothers: Levi's scattering became a priestly blessing; Simeon's meant the tribe had no consolidated territory.
In Joshua's allotments, Simeon was given territory within Judah's lot because Judah's portion exceeded what was needed (Joshua 19:1–9). The tribe's census numbers in Numbers 26 (22,200) were far below its Numbers 1 count (59,300), a dramatic decline linked in part to the plague at Baal-Peor — where Zimri ben Salu, a Simeonite leader, was among those killed by Pinchas (Numbers 25:14). Over time Simeon was absorbed into Judah, leaving almost no trace in the later historical record.
"Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men... Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." (Genesis 49:5–7)
