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Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Simeon


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Simeon Simeon

There are five Simeons mentioned in the Bible, three of which in the NT. The first and most famous Simeon is the second son of Jacob and Leah.

"Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also." So she named him Simeon. (Gen 29:33)

Simeon forfeits his prominency by revenging the rape of his sister Dinah by Shechem the Hivite.
The only other OT Simeon is mentioned among the men who divorce their foreign wives in the purge of Ezra (Ezr 10:31). The NT Simeons are: the righteous man in Jerusalem who identifies the infant Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 2:25); an ancestor of Jesus (Luke 3:30) and a leader of the church in Antioch (Acts 13:1).
The NT name Simon is a Greek form of the Hebrew name Simeon.

Some scholars (BDB) insist that the name Simeon was around long before Genesis was written (or the verb treated below was invented), and that therefore the etymology and original meaning of the name is lost. Here at Abarim Publications we find these things tremendously clever, but void of any relevance to the story that unfolds in Genesis.

In Genesis 29:33 the name Simeon is directly linked to the verb shama (shama' 2412), to hear, listen to, obey. This verb is used over a thousand times in the Bible, often in the regular way of hearing something, but also in the sense of to obey someone, understand something or examine something. Derivations are: shama (shema' 2412a), sound; shama (shema' 2412b), report; shama (shoma' 2412c), news, fame; shemua (shemu'a 2412d), news, rumor; hashmaut (hashma'ut 2412e), communication; mishma (mishma 2412f), rumor; mishmaat (mishma'at 2412g), subject (obeyer), body guard.

To a Hebrew audience the name Simeon was most likely seen as a personified or localized form (achieved by the waw-nun extension) of the verb shama, and means He Who Hears or Man Of Hearing.

Related names are Ishmael and Shimea.



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