Yehudah, brother of Shimon (plus project update)

 I started this blog for, among other things, tracking my family tree project, but haven't actually made an update on that in awhile. So here's the update: I've finished Yehudah, Binyamin and almost all of the tribeless, except for people I noticed I had forgotten while working on other tribes. All that's left for V1, which is in Hebrew, is Levi and the last of the tribeless. About a 1/3 of Levi is already complete.

Now to the main subject of the post:

There's an interesting gemara in Temurah 16a:

"תנא הוא עתניאל הוא יעבץ ומה שמו יהודה אחי שמעון שמו עתניאל שענאו אל יעבץ שיעץ וריבץ תורה בישראל"

"A tanna taught in a baraita: The same person is known as Othniel and he is also known as Jabez. And what is his actual name? Judah, brother of Simeon, is his name. He was known as Othniel, as God answered [ana’o El] his prayer. He was also known as Jabez [yabetz] because he advised and spread [ya’atz veribetz] Torah among the Jewish people."

I've been aware of the Ya'avetz=Otniel part for a long time. For those who don't know, Ya'avetz is a man from the tribe of Yehudah mentioned in Chronicles. It's also the name of a city in Chronicles, hence commentary debate on whether that's really a city or referring to Ya'avet's beit midrash (or both). However, I had never really understood the "And what is his actual name? Yehudah, brother of Shimon" bit. Because the gemara doesn't delve further into that bit, only into the meaning of the name Otniel. Until I realized two days ago what it meant. In Shoftim 1 it says:

"After the death of Joshua, the Israelites inquired of the LORD, “Which of us shall be the first to go up against the Canaanites and attack them?” The LORD replied, “Let [the tribe of] Judah go up. I now deliver the land into their hands.” Judah then said to their brother-tribe Simeon, “Come up with us to our allotted territory and let us attack the Canaanites, and then we will go with you to your allotted territory.” So Simeon joined them. When Judah advanced, the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they defeated ten thousand of them at Bezek."

According to this gemara, the English here is a mistranslation. Adding in the word "tribe" is incorrect. True, 99.99% of the world understands these verses, in p'shat, simple reading, to be referring to the tribes of Yehudah and Shimon, but our sages are teaching here an entirely different p'shat that actually fits the text better, for three reasons:

1. Yehudah and Shimon are referred to in singular.

2. The people of Yisrael ask Hashem for a new leader. According to the common understanding, Hashem sends an entire tribe to lead, except the tribe doesn't lead, but only captures some more cities, not really doing anything significant. According to this understanding, this scene makes more sense: Hashem did, in fact, choose a single leader: Yehudah/Otniel/Ya'avetz (by the way, Otniel is described as a judge also a couple of chapters later). This Yehudah then got his brother Shimon to assist him in continuing the conquests of Yehoshua's time.

3. As my Tanach chavruta pointed out, this explanation explains why at first the tribe of Yehudah are referred to singular, and then it changes to "bnei Yehudah" (that's the beginning of the last verse I brought, "When Judah advanced - another mistranslation"), because it shows that the first Yehudah is one person, as opposed to Bnei Yehudah - the whole tribe.

So who's Shimon, Yehudah's brother?

Turning over to Chronicles 1:4:13:

"The sons of Kenaz: Othniel and Seraiah..."

If Yehudah is Otniel and he has a brother, that must mean that Shimon is S'rayah.

This was a truly fantastic discovery for me. It completely changed my understanding of Shoftim 1.

The big question is, though, why was it written this way? Tanach could have used Otniel and S'raya's other names. Why write it in a confusing way?

The two answers I've come up with at the moment are:

1. When Shoftim was written, perhaps everyone knew who was being referred to here.

2. It's possible that it was deliberately written this way, to say something about the tribes of Yehudah and Shimon.