View source for Page:EB1911 - Volume 25.djvu/137

<noinclude><pagequality level="1" user="Slowking4" />{{EB1911 Page Heading|  |SIMEON||121}}</noinclude><section begin="s1" />1782 he married Elizabeth Posthuma, only child of Colonel 
Thomas Gwillim of Old Court, Herefordshire. In 1790 he was 
elected member of parliament for St Mawes in Cornwall, and 
at the close of his first session was appointed lieutenant-governor 
of the new province of Upper Canada created under the Constitutional Act of 1791. He reached Kingston, Upper Canada, 
on the 1st of July 1792. There the first council was assembled, 
the government of the new province proclaimed, and the oaths of office taken. Immediately afterwards preparations were made for the election of the first house of assembly, which opened at Newark near the mouth of the Niagara river, on the 17th of September 1792. Simcoe’s ideas of colonial government were dominated by military and aristocratic conceptions quite unsuited to the pioneer conditions of Upper Canada. Thus, while his administration was characterized by the most dis-interested devotion to what he conceived to be for the best 
interests of the province, it was rendered ineffective by the 
impracticable character of his projects and the friction which 
developed between himself and Lord Dorchester, the governor-general.
He left Canada in September 1796, and was immediately 
afterwards sent on a mission to San Domingo, from which, 
however, he returned in a few months on account of ill-health. 
In October 1798 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant- 
general, and appointed colonel of the 22nd foot. During 
1800–1801 he was in command at Plymouth. Desiring more 
active service, he was designated commander-in-chief for India 
to succeed Lord Lake, but before taking the appointment his 
health broke and he died at Exeter on the 26th of October 1806. 

{{EB1911 Fine Print|See D. C. Scott, ''John Graves Simcoe'' (1905).}}

<section end="s1" />
<section begin="s2" />'''SIMEON,''' in the Old Testament, the name of a tribe of Israel, 
named after the second son of Jacob by Leah (Gen. xxix. 33). 
According to Gen. xxxiv., the brothers Simeon and Levi massacred 
the males of Shechem to avenge the -violation of their sister 
Dinah (" judgment ") by. Shechem the son of Hamor. Jacob 
disavowed the act, and on his deathbed solemnly cursed their 
ferocity, condemning the two to be divided in Jacob and 
scattered in Israel (xlix. 5-7). Subsequently the priestly Levites 
are found distributed throughout Israel without portion or 
inheritance (Deut. xviii. 1, Josh. xiii. 14). The career of Simeon, 
on the other hand, raises numerous questions. Simeon is reckoned 
among the N. tribes in 2 Chron. xv. 9, xxxiv. 6, but is elsewhere 
assigned a district in S. Palestine, the cities of which are otherwise ascribed to Judah (cf. Josh. xix. 1-9 with xv. 26-32).<ref name=f1/> A gloss in 1 Chron. iv. 31 (which breaks the connexion) states that the latter was their seat in David’s time, but there is no support for this in other records (see 1 Sam. xxvii., xxx.). In fact, Simeon is not mentioned in the “blessing of Moses” (Deut. xxxiii.," see S. R. Driver, ''Deut''. p. 397 seq.), or in the stories of the “judges”; and notwithstanding references to it in the chronicler’s history of the monarchy, it is not named in 
the earlier books of Samuel and Kings. But is Gen. xxxiv. to 
be taken literally? Shechem is the famous holy city, Hamor a 
well-known native family, Jacob talks of himself as being “few 
in number,” and the deeds of Simeon and Levi are those of 
communities, not of individuals. What historical facts are thus 
represented, and how they are to be brought into line with the 
early history of Israel, are problems which have defied solution 
(see J. Skinner, Genesis, p. 421 seq.). It is conjectured that 
Dinah represents a clan or group (cf. Dan) which settled in 
Shechem and was exposed to danger (''e.g.'' oppression or absorption);
the tribes Simeon and Levi intervened on its behalf, 
the ensuing massacre was avenged by the Canaanites, and the 
two were broken up. These events would belong to an early 
stage in the invasion of Palestine by the Israelites (15th-13th 
century {{asc|B.C.}}), perhaps to a preliminary settlement by the 
“sons” of Leah (Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah), previous 
to the entrance of the “son” of Rachel, Joseph, the “father”<ref follow=f1>
It is difficult to determine whether the writers included Simeon 
among the ten N. tribes (2 Sam. xix. 43, 1 Kings xi. 31, 35) which are 
contrasted with the one (Judah, I Kings xi. 32, 36, xii. 20), or two 
(plus Benjamin; ib. xii. 21-23) which remained faithful to the 
Davidic dynasty.</ref>
of Ephraim and Manasseh.<ref name=f2/> The internal biblical evidence 
has forced all independent investigators to adopt some reconstruction,
but the above theory is in many respects precarious.<ref name=f3/>
It may explain the disappearance of a secular tribe of Levi, 
but not the rise of the sacred Levites. Even in Judges ix. 28 
Shechem is still held by the family of Hamor (cf. Gen. xxxiii. 
19), and if Simeon was scattered and divided at any early date, its 
appearance in tradition many centuries later is inexplicable. On 
the other hand, the latter feature is significant for its vitality 
in post-exilic traditions. Gen. xxxiv. and the narratives upon 
which the above reconstruction depends are preserved by 
compilers of the 6th century and later, and the correlation 
of Simeon and Levi points to a time when the latter had 
at length become the recognized eponym of the well-known 
ecclesiastical body. 

{{EB1911 Fine Print|Gen. xxxiv. has been heavily revised and is in a post-exilic dress. 
The original story must have concerned Simeon and Levi alone 
(vv. 25 seq., 30, cf. xlix. 7), but it has been adapted to tribal history, to 
the spoliation of Shechem by all the “sons” of Jacob (xxxiv. 27-29) 
Both forms have lost their true sequel, and when Jacob and his sons 
journey S. they are protected from pursuit by a mysterious panic 
which seizes the district (Gen. xxxv. 5). As the narrative now 
stands, the conduct of Simeon and Levi is judged far less unfavourably 
than in Jacob’s curse, and the editor evidently shared that aversion 
from foreign marriages (especially with the Samaritans of Shechem) 
which is characteristic of the post-exilic age (cf. Neh. xiii. 27-29). 
It is the attitude of the story of the zeal of Phinehas (Num. xxv. 1-15). 
and of the terrible extermination of Midian (ib. xxxi.), and it becomes 
more pronounced as early Judaism extolled the two brothers.<ref name=f4/> 
In these circumstances the original narrative can scarcely be re- 
covered, and one can only point to the traditions of the {{EB1911 lkpl|Levites}}
(''q.v.'' §&nbsp;3) and the hints of fierce religious reforms which, in certain 
circles and at an intermediate stage in the literary growth of the biblical
sources, were condemned. In fact, the Levites are connected by 
the genealogical evidence with S. Palestine, the district which is 
associated with the scene of their divine selection, with the seat of 
the tribe Simeon, and with the life of Israel around Kadesh previous 
to Joshua's invasion. Herein lies the peculiar complexity of the 
problem. Underlying Gen. xxxiv. and other portions of Genesis 
may be recognized the tradition of a settlement of Jacob, which 
belongs to a cycle quite independent of the descent into Egypt and the Exodus (cf. E. Meyer, op. cit., and J. Skinner, Genesis, p. 418). But the story of the entrance of Jacob and his “sons” finds a parallel in the entrance of the tribes under Joshua and in the S. move of Judah and Simeon (see Genesis). With the conquest of Zephath (renamed Hormah, Judg. i. 17) by these tribes, compare not only Judah’s settlement (Gen. xxxviii., cf. Skinner p. 450), but also that of Simeon (Gen. xlvi. 10), and the related tradition that Simeon married a Zephathite (Jubilees, xliv. 13). 1 Chron. iv. 39 sqq. mentions a Simeonite occupation of Gedor, or rather Gerar, which would bring this tribe into the district of Kadesh (cf. Gen. xx. 1 seq., xxvi. 1), and adds a raid upon Mount Seir (Edom) ending in the overthrow of Amalek (1 Chron. iv. 39-43).<ref name=f5/> S. Palestine, associated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and with the separation of the non-Israelite Ishmael and Esau (Edom), is the district whence Jacob departed to his Aramaean relatives (Gen. xxviii. sqq.). Hormah, too, is the scene of an Israelite victory in the story of the Exodus (Num. xxi. 1-3), and is connected with evidence suggesting that this victory at the very gate of the promised land belongs to a tradition of some movement from Kadesh into Judah (Wellhausen, G. F. Moore, H. P. Smith, and others; see {{EB1911 article link|Exodus, The}}). The other tradition, that the Israelites were defeated there by Amalekites and Canaanites, explains the detour by Edom and Moab (ib. xiv. 25, 40-45), and the appearance of the tribes E. of the Jordan to invade the land of their ancestors. Obviously these represent fundamentally differing views, which cannot be woven into a single outline; and they cannot be isolated from more profound questions which really affect all ordinary conceptions of the structure of biblical history. 

See S. A. Cook, ''Amer. Journ. of Theol.'' xiii. 370-388 (1909); {{EB1911 article link|Jews}}, §§ 5-8, 22; {{EB1911 article link|Levites}}; {{EB1911 article link|Palestine}}: ''History''. {{Fs|108%|{{EB1911 footer initials|Stanley Arthur Cook|S. A. C.}}}}}}
{{clear}}
<ref follow=f2>
So in general, the favourite interpretation (Wellhausen, Stade, Guthe and many others) with some variation of detail, see especially Gunkel’s commentary (Handkommentar, 1901, pp. 335 sqq.).</ref><ref follow=f3>

See the instructive study by E. Meyer, ''Die Israeliten und ihre'' ''Nachbarstämme'' (1906), pp. 409-428 (especially his criticisms, p. 421 seq.) ; cf. also I. Benzinger, Hebr. Archaologie (1907), pp. 345 sqq. (whose astral interpretation of the narrative, however, is quite inadequate).</ref><ref follow=f4>

See Judith ix. 2, Philo, De Migr. Abrahami, 39, and, for fuller details of the trend of Jewish opinion, R. H. Charles, ''Book of Jubilees'', p. 179, id., “Test, of xii. Patriarchs,” p. 22.</ref><ref follow=f5>

On these wars, see the criticisms of H. W. Hogg in his elaborate study of Simeon, ''Ency. Bib.'' col. 4524-34.</ref><section end="s2" /><noinclude>{{rule}}
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