The NT Jacob reminds us, “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (Jas 1:20).
Before we think about the tribal allotment to Simeon (Jos 19:1-9), a little history might help. Jacob had just received a new name after wrestling with the Lord at Jabbok—Israel, a prince with God. But at Shechem, their first stop in the Promised Land, Simeon and Levi had conspired to avenge the forcing of their sister by the son of the local chieftain. Their father would later call them “instruments of cruelty” (Gen 49:5), and, because they had made his name “obnoxious among the inhabitants” (34:30), he determined that neither of them would be memorialized by having a region named after them in the Land: “I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (49:7). Now Levi caught on, and when judgment was to be executed for immorality at the time of the golden calf, Levi sided with God and did it His way. For this, God said He would be their inheritance. He scattered them in Israel all right, giving them priestly cities throughout the land, turning their curse into a blessing! But Simeon never seemed to learn. Now, at the border of Canaan, what will become of them? Enter Judah, the tribe of grace-receiving David and his grace-providing Greater Son. Judah means “praise,” and praising people always have more than enough. Thus we read, “their inheritance was within the inheritance of the children of Judah” (Jos 19:1). Their territory in the extreme south was grazing land between the mountains and the Negev. Including Beersheba, Hormah, Gerar, and Ziklag, in this frontier country, the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac sojourned and David lived out of Saul’s reach. Moses, the Lawgiver, excluded Simeon in the blessings of Deuteronomy 33, but grace still found a way to bring him in!