Numbers 9:15

it used to be upon the Dwelling]om elsewhere used only of a small number (see on Deuteronomy 4:27) so that the suggested let his men be numerous(cp. LXX) is improbable. In Genesis 49:4 Reuben though the firstborn shall not have the excellency; see the notes there. In Judges 5:16 the tribe is scorned for its failure to join the others against the Canaanites, and except for 1 Chronicles 5:3-10 does not again appear in Israel's history. Nor does Mesha of Moab, 9th cent. b.c., name it. The oracle is therefore probably earlier than that date.

LXX A, etc., read Let Simeon be many in number, and Heilprin (Hist. Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews. i. 113 ff.) supported by Bacon (Triple Tradition of the Exodus, 271 f.) conjectures that the first couplet of the next blessing in Judah was originally of Simeon with a play upon his name: Hearshema- the voice of Shime-on and bring him in unto his people, and takes the rest of 7 along with Deuteronomy 33:11 as the original oracle on Judah, in a place more suitable to that tribe, after Levi and immediately before Benjamin. The hypothesis is clever. Yet the introduction of Simeon in a few codd. of the LXX may be a later attempt to fill up the number of the 12 tribes; while on the other hand the absence of Simeon from the poem is explicable by the fortunes of the tribe; cursed in Genesis 49:7; absorbed in Judah, Jos 19:1-9, 1 Chronicles 4:24 ff., and otherwise absent from the history of Israel. Had Simeon been mentioned originally, he could hardly have dropped out.

7  And this of Judah, and he said:

Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah!

And bring him in to his people.

His own hands have striven for him,

But Thou shalt be help from his foes.