The dispersion of these two tribes must have taken place at a very early period of the national history. As regards Simeon, it is doubtful if it ever existed as a separate geographical unit. P is only able to assign to it an inheritance scooped out of the territory of Judah (cf. Jos. 191-9 with 1526-32. 42: see also 1 Ch. 428-33); and so-called Simeonite cities are assigned to Judah as early as the time of David (1 Sa. 276 3030, 2 Sa. 247; cf. 1 Ki. 193). In the Blessing of Moses it is passed over in silence. Traces of its dispersion may be found in such Simeonite names as Shime'i, Shāûl, Yāmîn in other tribes (Rob. Sm. J Ph. ix. 96); and we may assume that the tribe had disappeared before the establishment of the monarchy (see Steuer. 70 ff.; Meyer, INS, 75 ff.).—Very different was the fate of Levi. Like Simeon, it lost its independence and, as a secular tribe, ceased to exist. But its scattered members had a spiritual bond of unity in the possession of the Mosaic tradition and the sacred lot (Dt. 338ff.), in virtue of which it secured a privileged position in the Israelite sanctuaries (Ju. 17 f.), and was eventually reconstituted on a sacerdotal basis. The contrast between this passage, where Levi is the subject of a curse, and Dt. 33, where its prerogatives are celebrated with enthusiasm, depends on the distinction just indicated: here Levi is the secular tribe, destroyed by its own ferocity, whose religious importance has not yet emerged; there, it is the Priestly tribe, which, although scattered, yet holds the sacra and the Tôrāh of the Yahwe-religion (We. Comp.6 136 ff.).—The Metre is regular, except that in the last two lines the trimeters are replaced by a binary couplet. That is no sufficient reason for deleting them as an interpolation (Siev.).
8-12. Judah.
8 Judah! Thee shall thy brethren praise—
Thy hand on the neck of thy foes—
Bow down to thee shall thy father's sons.
9 A lion's whelp is Judah,
From the prey, my son, thou'rt gone up!
He crouched, he couched like a lion,
And an old lion—who shall arouse him?
10 Departs not the sceptre from Judah,
Nor staff from between his feet,
Until . . . come . . . (?),
And to him the peoples obey.
11 Binding his ass to the vine,
And his foal to the choicest vine!
He washes his raiment in wine,
And his clothes in the blood of the grape!
12 With eyes made dull by wine,
And teeth whitened with milk!
