Mr. Collins
Thank you.
Isaac Lopez
I read your interesting piece regarding the identity of the tribe of Simeon possibly being the Spartans of antiquity. Where do you believe this tribe inhabits presently? We know Simeon’s descendants were “accursed” for murdering the men of an encampment, where they would never own their own land, or lead a nation, yet the book of Revelation clearly exemplifies 12,000 legitimate Simeonites being selected to fulfill the 144,000 spiritual contingent of Israel. I imagine they can comprise a subgroup living within a modern Israelitish nation. Does any modern people fit the characteristic traits of the Simeonites? More to the point, is it known who the descendants of the Spartans are?
Thank you.
Isaac Lopez
MyReply
Dear Isaac,
Thanks for your positive reaction to my article about the “Missing Simeonites” available at the articles link of my website. Since most of the tribe of Simeon left the wilderness camp under Moses (as revealed in the book of Numbers and explained in my article), they had to go somewhere. Since the Simeonites could be cruel as well as warlike (as cited in Genesis 34:25-29 and 49:5) and they lived by the sword, the city-state of Sparta fits the Simeonite temperament very well. Cementing this linkage is the fact that a Spartan king later wrote a Jewish High-Priest and acknowledged that they were kinsmen to the Jews (the full story is in my article). This article will give excellent background material to anyone who saw the recent movie “300” about 300 Spartans who held the pass of Thermopylae against the vast army of the Persians. Who better to hold back a vast army than 300 warlike Simeonites?
The rivalry of Sparta and Athens lasted for centuries, but Sparta enjoyed some resurgence when its forces fought with the victorious Roman forces of Augustus against the forces of Mark Antony in a Roman Civil War. Sparta was destroyed in 396 by the Goths under Alaric who invaded the Roman Empire. These Goths were themselves descended from the Scythian and Parthian refugees who invaded and populated Europe after the fall of the Parthian Empire in the 3rd century AD.
Genesis 49 offers prophesies about each of the tribes of Israel in the latter days, and verses 5-7 foretell the Simeonites and Levites would be scattered among all the other nations of the modern tribes of Israel. Therefore, there is no one modern nation which can be called mainly “Simeonite.” I offer detailed descriptions of each of the tribes of Israel and their modern locations in my book, Israel’s Tribes Today, available on-line by clicking on the “books” link at this website’s home page.
Steve
