Concise Bible Dictionary:
1. The second son of Jacob and Leah, and head of the tribe bearing his name. Except the attack that he, with Levi, made on Shechem, and his being kept by Joseph as a hostage, nothing personally is recorded of Simeon. He entered Egypt with Jacob, taking his six sons with him. On leaving Egypt, those numbered of the tribe were 59,300, but on entering the land after the forty years’ wanderings, there were only 22,200.
When Jacob blessed his sons he said, “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.... in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. 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” (Gen. 49:5-7). This scattering seems also intimated by the circumstance that when Moses blessed the tribes, Simeon is not mentioned.
The lot of Simeon was in the extreme south, having the Philistines on their west and the desert of Paran on their east. On the division of the kingdom they nominally belonged to the ten tribes, but were completely isolated from the other nine, so that they would have had either to coalesce with the two tribes (and of this we read nothing), or, according to the prophecy of Jacob, be “scattered in Israel.” They were, in a sense, lost in the land. In the future day of which Ezekiel prophesies, when the twelve tribes will be restored and the land be re-divided, the tribe of Simeon has its portion (Ezek. 48:24-35). They are also mentioned in Revelation 7:7, when a remnant of them will be sealed for blessing.
2. A “just and devout” man at Jerusalem, to whom it was revealed that he should not die until he had seen “the Lord’s Christ.” When the “child Jesus” was presented in the temple Simeon took Him up in his arms, blessed God and asked that he might depart in peace, for he had seen God’s salvation (Luke 2:25, 34). He was one of those that looked for redemption in Israel.
3. Son of Juda, in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus (Luke 3:30).
4. A disciple and prophet at Antioch, designated NIGER (Acts 13:1).
5. Name by which Simon Peter is called by James in Acts 15:14. In 2 Peter 1:1 also the name is Simeon in the Greek.
Potts’ Bible Proper Names:
Gracious hearing:―name mentioned in genealogy of Jesus [SIMON], Luke 3:30. {Exauditio gratiosa}