Dan

The Person: The name of Jacob's fifth son and the first by Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant, and of the tribe descended from him.

Dan's birth and name bore witness to the tragic jealousies between the two sisters Leah and Rachel who were Jacob's wife. After four consecutive sons by Leah, Rachel

. . . became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!"

Jacob became angry with her and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?"

Then she said, "Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family."

So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son." Because of this she named him Dan.

The Tribe: One of the few sons of the tribe singled out for his contribution to the nation was Oholiah son of Ahisamach; he was appointed by Moses as assistant to Bezalel ben Uri, the master-craftsman responsible for the construction of the Tent of Meeting (Exo 31:-16).

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The tribe of Dan, however, did not fare well as a whole in the later history of Israel. They failed, e.g., to take full possession of the land allotted to them in the armpit of the Shephelah formed by Ephraim in the north and Benamin and Judah on the east (Jos 19:40-48). While Samson, their most famous son, could have greatly advanced their territorial advantage, he was too distracted by his self-centered lack of discipline. Though 3000 Philistines were killed in his last act of vengence, it contributed nothing to the territorial cause of the tribe. Deborah's sad demur, "And Dan, why did he linger by the ships?"—however one understands the details of the demurral—reflects the tribe's indifference to the rest of their brethren at a time of dire national needs (Judg 5:17).

The most prominent event recorded in Scriptures concerning the tribe is the story of their migration from their originally allotted territory—together with their theft of Micah's priest, ephod, and gods along the way—and establishment of their idolotous city of Dan (formerly known as Laish or Leshem) near the sources of the River Jordan in northern Galilee (Judg 18). Some scholars believe that this migration involved only a small portion of the tribe and occurred before the time of Samson (the order of events were thus reversed in the book of Judges). During the united monarchy the city became the point of reference for the extreme north of the country, and the expression "from Dan to Beersheba" became the proverbial way of referring to the entire length of the country. It was almost natural that Jeroboam ben Nebat should choose the city to set up one of the two golden calves when he became king of Israel upon the death of Solomon and the nation split (1 Ki 12:26-30).

The tribe of Dan disappeared, together with the rest of the northern kingdom, in the Assyrian exile in the 8th Cent BC.

In one of the few places in the NT where the tribes of Israel are mentioned, in the list of 144,000 whose numbers were sealed, Rev 7:5-8, Dan is conspicuously absent. No satisfactory reason have been found for the ommision.

Tel Dan : The archaeological site of the ancient city of Dan in northern Galilee, where excavations have been on-going since 1966. One of the most significant finds at the site is the Tel Dan stele or David's Stele, the first extrabiblical reference to the house of David. Click here to read about the stele (NB: this article will replace the one currently displayed on the left).