Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/195

Rh those said to have wandered into unknown regions, and become lost to history. Still less can this be said of the Simeonites, of whom we have still later and fuller notices. In the 4th chapter of the 1st Book of Chronicles, which was certainly written or compiled long after the return from Babylon, we find the acts of this tribe particularly detailed (v. 39 to 43): "And they (the Simeonites) went to the entrance of Gedor, to seek pasture for their flocks. And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide and quiet and peaceable, for they of Ham had dwelt there of old. And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents, and the habitations that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their rooms. And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, 500 men, went to Mount Seir; and they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day." Here then we have direct evidence of the Simeonites also remaining in their own land in the time of Ezra, or the compiler of the Books of Chronicles, long after the return from captivity, and 250 years after the common theories suppose them to have been all Carried away by the Assyrians, to become one of the lost tribes of Israel. These however are not the only traces of the Simeonites to which true history may lead us, to save the trouble of seeking them among the Afghans or elsewhere, the which traces may be hereafter more appropriately detailed.

If we examine the narratives of the Assyrian conquests with precision, we cannot but conclude that they were only of partial effect, and fell chiefly on the border tribes of Naphthali and those on the east of the Jordan, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. These were the most exposed to attack and most easily removeable, so that they might be carried away more in a body, and thus be more likely to become permanently settled in the land of their captivity, as these last-mentioned tribes only are said to have been in the time of the compiler of the Chronicles. (1 Chron. v. ver. 26.) In this case, though the numbers are not in any way specified of those taken away captive, yet these might not have exceeded in any very considerable degree the numbers of those taken away from Jerusalem by the Babylonians. When taken away and distributed among the cities of Mesopotamia and Media, we cannot suppose the conquerors would have paid any regard to classifying them by their tribes, which would be keeping up distinctions such as no nation could prudently permit among