5 min read

Moses Blessed Eleven Tribes and Said Nothing About Shimon

Pinchas stood over Zimri with a spear still wet. Moses kept going down the list of tribes and never reached the name that had paid nothing.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Two Brothers, One Sword
  2. Whoever Is for the Lord
  3. The Prince at the Tent
  4. Two Notes in a King's Hand
  5. The Blessing Closed

Moses stood on the plains of Moab with the last of his voice. Behind him a giant king named Sihon already lay dead, taller than any tower, after God had bound the angel of that land and thrown him from his place. Moses had seen a debt collected in full. He turned to the tribes and looked for a word that would fit each one.

Moses Blessed Eleven Tribes and Said Nothing About Shimon Click for full size

He blessed Reuben. He blessed Judah. He blessed Levi. Benjamin. Joseph. Zebulun. Issachar. Gad. Dan. Naphtali. Asher. He stopped. The camp waited. One name never left his mouth.

Two Brothers, One Sword

Years before, two sons of Jacob had shared a single kind of heat. Dinah had been taken in Shechem. Shimon and Levi did not wait for a court or a bargain. Each man took his sword, walked into a city whose men were still sore from circumcision, and killed every male (Genesis 34:25).

Blood ran in the gates. They came out with their sister and with a city emptied of its men. Jacob rebuked them on his deathbed. Weapons of violence, he said, were their kinship. He would not be gathered in their council. Both tribes walked into the wilderness carrying that first mark. Both owed the same debt.

Whoever Is for the Lord

At Sinai the calf shone in the camp. Moses came down with the tablets already broken. He stood in the gate and shouted, "Whoever is for the Lord, come to me" (Exodus 32:26).

The sons of Levi crossed toward him. They took swords again. The blades moved through their own who would not leave the idol. Gold still warm from the fire stuck to fingers. Levi paid. The force that had ruined Shechem now stood up for the covenant.

Later, at Shittim, Pinchas son of Elazar son of Aaron rose from the weeping at the Tent. He drove a spear through a man and a Midianite woman in one thrust (Numbers 25:7-8). God said the rage had been turned away. Levi had paid, then spent zeal again. Heaven still dealt with that tribe as with a man who returns and borrows in the open.

The Prince at the Tent

Shimon did not cross toward Moses at the calf. At Shittim a man walked a Midianite woman into the camp, in full view of Moses and the congregation crying at the door of the Tent. He was Zimri son of Salu, chief of a father's house in Shimon (Numbers 25:14).

He did not hide. He made a show of it. The first debt from Shechem still sat unpaid, and he laid a second on top of it. Pinchas's spear found him. The tribe's name was on the corpse. Cozbi died with him. The weeping at the Tent did not stop at once.

Moses had seen the walk. He had not moved. The spear had moved. The name Shimon had been spoken over a dead prince, not over a blessing.

Two Notes in a King's Hand

A king holds notes on two men. One pays, then borrows again. The king still speaks to him. The other never pays, then borrows again. The king holds two dead claims and no relationship left to honor.

Moses had that ledger in his mouth on the plains. Sihon's angel had already been bound and thrown down. A giant taller than towers had fallen because God collected. Moses knew what a closed account looked like. He could bless Levi, who had answered at the calf and whose grandson still knew how to pick up a spear for heaven. He could not speak Shimon's name in the register of blessing.

The Blessing Closed

The last tribe stood in the sun and heard every other name. Reuben's camp shifted. Judah's banners hung still. Shimon's people waited for a sentence that would put them back inside the family of the blessed.

Moses's mouth opened after Asher. The name rose. He swallowed it. The silence was not a forgotten line. It was the account. Shimon had borrowed at Shechem, failed to repay at the calf, and borrowed again in Zimri's walk. Levi had borrowed, paid, and borrowed again. Only one of those paths still had a name Moses would say while he was dying.

He finished. The blessing was over. One tribe walked away from the plains without a word to carry into the land.

ShimonLeviMosesTribesBaal PeorBlessingMidrash AggadahTanchuma
← All myths

From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Sifrei Devarim 349:1Sifrei Devarim

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Sifrei by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein · CC-BY

A curious absence: Why does Levi get a blessing ("And of Levi he said"), but not Shimon?

The Sifrei Devarim, an early halakhic midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, digs into this very question. It all comes down to a matter of debts, spiritual debts, that is.

The Sifrei paints a picture using a parable: Imagine two people who borrow money from a king. One repays their debt, but then borrows again. The other? They not only fail to repay their initial loan, but they take out another one! Which one is in deeper trouble?

This parable perfectly illustrates the relationship between the tribes of Shimon and Levi, and their actions throughout the Torah. According to the Sifrei, both tribes initially "borrowed" together in the story of Shechem (Genesis 34:25). Remember that harrowing tale? Shimon and Levi, angered by the violation of their sister Dinah, took matters into their own hands. They violently attacked the city of Shechem, killing all the men. The verse reads, "And there took, two sons of Jacob, Shimon and Levi, each man his sword, and came upon the city secure, (in that the men were ailing from the circumcision), and they killed every male." A brutal act,.

So, both tribes started with this shared "debt." But here's where their paths diverge.

Levi, the Sifrei argues, actually repaid his debt, at least partially, during the incident of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:26). When Moses called out, "Whoever is for the L-rd, (let him come) to me!" it was the sons of Levi who rallied to his side, taking a stand against idolatry. This act of loyalty, of righteous zeal, is seen as a repayment of their earlier transgression. Atonement, of sorts. According to this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), this demonstrates that Levi paid back what he borrowed in the desert.

But the story doesn't end there for Levi. The Sifrei then points to the episode of Shittim (Numbers 25:11), where Pinchas (a Levite) acts decisively to stop the Israelites from intermarrying and worshipping foreign gods. The text says, "Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron the Cohein turned My wrath away from the children of Israel when he raged My rage in their midst, and I did not consume the children of Israel in My wrath." This act, too, is seen as a righteous one, but according to the Sifrei, this is a second "borrowing".

What about Shimon? Sadly, the Sifrei suggests that Shimon never made that repayment. Worse, the tribe "borrowed" again in the story of Zimri (Numbers 25:14). Zimri, a prince of the tribe of Shimon, brazenly flaunted his relationship with a Midianite woman, defying God’s law. The Sifrei emphasizes: "And the name of the man of Israel who was smitten, who was smitten together with the Midianite woman, was Zimri the son of Salu, chief of a father's house in the house of Shimon."

So, according to this midrashic reading, Levi, despite some further "borrowing," at least attempted to atone for the sin at Shechem. Shimon, however, doubled down on the initial transgression.

This interpretation in Sifrei Devarim offers a powerful lens through which to view the blessings and curses bestowed upon the tribes. It's not just about singular actions, but about the long-term trajectory of a people. Do they strive to repair their mistakes, or do they continue down a path of transgression? It challenges us to examine our own actions, our own debts, and the kind of legacy we are building.

Full source
Midrash Tanchuma, Devarim 4Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

(Deut. 2:3:) “You have had enough of going about this mountain.” This text is related (to Cant. 2:7=3:5), “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem by gazelles or by hinds of the field….” There are three oaths in the book of Canticles that the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured [Israel]. Why? One in which the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured Israel not to reveal the end; [a second] that they would not force the end; [a third] that they would not rebel against the [other] kingdoms. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, “If you fulfill the oaths, fine; but if not, I will permit your flesh [to be prey], as with gazelles or hinds of the field, [the injury of which] no one makes a claim or demands. So shall I not make a claim about your blood. (Deut. 2:31:) “And the Lord said unto me], ‘See I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you.” It is also written (in Amos 2:9), “Yet I destroyed the Amorite before (you) [them].” By virtue of what? By virtue of the Torah, which the sages had taught. Our masters have said, “Sihon was difficult [to overcome]. His height was like a wall tower, and he was stronger than all creatures. He was taller than any tower on earth, but his feet reached to the earth. So no creature was able to stand before him, just as it says (Amos 2:9, cont.), “yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.” What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He bound the ministering angel that belonged to him and to his land. Then he cast him from his place and handed him over to Israel. Therefore it is written (ibid.), “yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.” Our masters have said, “Sihon and Og were stronger than Pharaoh and his armies. And just as they uttered a song over the fall of Pharaoh, so were they worthy to utter a song at their fall. It is simply that David came and uttered a song over them, as stated (in Ps. 136:17, 19) ‘To the One who smote great kings […]; Sihon, king of the Amorites […].’”

Full source