Simeon, second son of Jacob and Leah, was dying in his hundred and twentieth year. Joseph his brother had already passed. When his sons came to visit, Simeon strengthened himself, sat up, kissed them, and began to speak.
What he confessed was monstrous.
"I was strong exceedingly," he said. "My heart was hard, my liver immovable, my bowels without compassion." In his youth, Simeon had been consumed with jealousy of Joseph, because their father loved Joseph beyond all the others. The prince of deceit sent forth the spirit of envy and blinded Simeon's mind, until he regarded Joseph not as a brother, but as an enemy to be destroyed.
He laid out the events plainly. When Simeon went to Shechem for ointment, and Reuben to Dothan for supplies, Judah sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28). When Reuben heard, he grieved, for he had wished to restore Joseph to their father. But Simeon was furious that Judah had let Joseph go alive. For five months, rage consumed him.
Then God intervened directly. "The Lord restrained me," Simeon said, "and withheld from me the power of my hands. My right hand was half withered for seven days." This was the sign. Simeon understood: because of Joseph, this had befallen him. He repented and wept. He besought the Lord that his hand might be restored and that he might hold himself aloof from all envy and folly.
"Beware of the spirit of deceit and envy," Simeon warned his children. "For envy rules over the whole mind of a man. It suffers him neither to eat nor to drink nor to do any good thing. It ever urges him to destroy the one he envies. And so long as the envied one flourishes, the one who envies fades away." Two years of fasting in the fear of God taught Simeon the cure: if a man flees to the Lord, the evil spirit runs from him, and his mind is lightened.
When the brothers went down to Egypt, Joseph bound Simeon as a spy. Simeon knew he was suffering justly and did not grieve. And Joseph, who had the Spirit of God within him, bore no malice. He loved Simeon as he loved all his brothers. All his days, Joseph never reproached them. He loved them as his own soul, glorified them beyond his own sons, and gave them riches, cattle, and fruits.
"Love each one his brother with a good heart," Simeon pleaded, "and the spirit of envy will withdraw from you. For envy makes savage the soul and destroys the body. It causes anger and war in the mind, stirs up deeds of blood, leads the mind into frenzy. Even in sleep, malicious jealousy gnaws at a man, disturbs his soul with wicked spirits, and wakes him in confusion."
Joseph's beauty of face, Simeon explained, came from the fact that no wickedness dwelt in him. The trouble of the spirit shows itself in the face. A pure heart makes a person radiant.
Looking to the future, Simeon declared that the Mighty One of Israel would glorify Shem, and the Lord God would appear on earth to save humanity. All the spirits of deceit would be trodden underfoot, and men would rule over wicked spirits. He commanded his sons to obey Levi and Judah, for from them would arise the salvation of God: from Levi a High Priest, and from Judah a righteous King.
Simeon slept with his fathers at a hundred and twenty years old. They laid him in a wooden coffin to take his bones to Hebron. They carried them secretly during a war of the Egyptians, for the Egyptians guarded the bones of Joseph in the tombs of their kings. Their sorcerers had prophesied that when Joseph's bones departed, darkness and plague would fall upon all Egypt, so terrible that even with a lamp a man could not recognize his own brother.