The immense decrease of this tribe, no less than 37,100, renders it highly probable, that, influenced by the bad example of Zimri, the Simeonites had been peculiarly criminal in the late wickedness, and that multitudes of them had died of the plague. It is remarkable, that Moses, in
Deuteronomy 33:1-
29 And this [
is]
the blessing, wherewith Moses
the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. ...
Happy [
art] thou, O Israel: who [
is] like unto thee, O people
saved by the LORD,
the shield of thy help, and who [
is]
the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be
found liars unto thee; and
thou shalt tread upon their high places.
, bestows no blessing upon this tribe.
Numbers 1:22-
23 Of the children of Simeon, by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers, those that were numbered of them, according to the number of the names, by their polls, every male from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war; ... Those that were numbered of them, [
even] of the tribe of Simeon, [
were] fifty and nine thousand and three hundred.
Numbers 2:12-
13 And those which pitch by him [
shall be] the tribe of Simeon: and the captain of the children of Simeon [
shall be]
Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai. ... And his host, and those that were numbered of them, [
were] fifty and nine thousand and three hundred.