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The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Hebrew: מכילתא דרבי שמעון בר יוחאי) is a Halakic midrash on Exodus from the school of Rabbi Akiva, the "Rabbi Shimon" in question being Shimon bar Yochai. No midrash of this name is mentioned in Talmudic literature, but medieval authors refer to one which they call either "Mekilta de-R. Simeon b. Yoḥai," or "Mekilta Aḥrita de-R. Shimon," or simply "Mekilta Aḥeret" = "another mekilta."
Current status
The Mekilta de-R. Shim'on had disappeared, but some extracts from it were preserved in the collection known as Midrash ha-Gadol, as Israel Lewy first pointed out (Ein Wort über die Mechilta des R. Simon). These fragments were collected by David Zvi Hoffman and published under the title Mechilta des R. Simon b. Jochai in the Hebrew monthly Ha-Peles (vols. i. to iv., passim).
This Mekilta compiled from the Midrash ha-Gadol preserves abundant material from the earliest Scriptural commentaries, quoting, for instance, a sentence from the Doreshe Reshumot on Ex. xxi. 12 (Ha-Peles, iii. 258) which is found nowhere else. It contains also much from post-Talmudic literature (comp. Hoffmann, l.c. p. 387, note 19), for the collector and redactor of the Midrash ha-Gadol had a peculiar way of dressing sentences of such medieval authorities as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Aruk, and Maimonides in midrashic garb and presenting them as ancient maxims (comp. S. Schechter, Introduction to Midrash ha-Gadol, p. 13, Cambridge, 1902).
A critical version, using newly discovered fragments of texts, was later published by Yaakov Nahum Epstein and his student Ezra Zion Melamed.