Jacob and Bilhah's 1st Son Dan, But Jacob's 5th

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

It was after Leah had given birth to Judah and she seemed to stop having children.  At this time Rachel, her sister and great love of Jacob, was envious of Leah being a mother and wanted to have a child.  She felt she was dead if she could not conceive.  That's when she decided that since she hadn't been conceiving, she must give her maidservant, Bilhah,  to Jacob and of course she conceived and had a son, Dan.  It was Rachel who named him because she owned Bilhah.  At the time when Bilhah gave birth, she had to do it while on Rachel's knees and that meant that it was Rachel whose esteem was being built up through Bilhah's children-and in this way through Rachel. It was sort of an adoption plan of the times to become a mother.  She got to experience, in a way, the pain Bilhah had experienced.    Bilhah went on to have another son by Jacob, who was Naphtali. (Gen. 30:18:  35:25-6).  In those days, motherhood was truly an occupation women wanted!   

In those days, people were a commodity to buy and sell or to give to someone as a gift.  A life was of value this way, not to be wasted, for who didn't need help in the home?  We don't know where Rachel's father, Laban, got Bilhah from, but she could have been an Egyptian. She was a commodity that came with Rachel.   Usually people who were not free came from an enemy of a distance away.  They would be treated as a member of the family.  After all, the Israelites will become slaves living in Egypt for 400 years, and will know what it is like to be ill-treated and worked to death.  That will be when Jacob, an old man and his extended family of 70 will go into Egypt during a drought period. They will find out what slavery there was like.  The Exodus itself after the 400 years, led by Moses is thought to have started in 1579-8 BCE, or around 1445 BCE.  The Exodus was at least 3,600 years ago, so Jacob's story took place almost 4,000 years ago.     

Laban, Leah and Rachel lived in the town of Haran in Aram Naharaim (Aram of the Two Rivers). Could this be the Tigris and Euphrates reference?  Then it would correstpond being close to Ur, where Abraham came from.    Aram were the Arameans, a group of Semitic tribes who had a common ancestry as the Israelite patriarchs were of Aramaic origin and maintained ties of marriage with the tribes of Aram.   Haran was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia, a center of a moon cult. It's also described as being in the NE area of Mesopotamia, the land of origin of the patriarchs.   Assyrian inscriptions from this time mention a Habiru (Hebrew) settlement  in the vicinity which could be where Abraham's father, Terah had lived.  Perhaps Bilhah came from here as well.   

Jacob worked for his uncle Laban to have Rachel as his wife, but was tricked in the wedding and found he had married his cousin, Leah instead!  Leah's younger sister was Rachel who had to wait 7 more years after Leah's wedding in order to wed her love, Jacob. 

 Jacob and Bilhah, the maidservant of Rachel who became Jacob's concubine,  was the mother of Dan.  Dan was actually Jacob's 5th son to be born to him.  In the picture above, Dan is the  little boy with a green skirt on, the tallest one.  Rachel is the lady in the middle dressed in red with Jacob.  

Rachel was Jacob's 1st and truest love, but he was forced to marry her older sister, Leah, first.  Rachel then married Jacob but couldn't conceive, and in those days, was something most important for a wife to do.  So she gave her maid to her husband to produce a son.  In this way she would get all the credit for the birth.  

On the Exodus, Dan started out in the 1st Census with 62,700 men.  In the last census they had 64,400.  with an increase of 1,700 men by the time they reached Canaan.   The tribe of Dan is portrayed as the second largest Israelite tribe (after Judah)

The Tribe of Dan, meaning, "Judge", was one of the tribes of Israel, according to the Torah. They were allocated a coastal portion of land when the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, later moving northwards.  Samson, a Danite, was a judge.   

After the conquest of Canaan, Dan was the last tribe to receive its territorial inheritance. The land originally allocated to Dan was a small enclave in the central coastal area of Canaan, between Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and the Philistines.  Dan was allotted a portion South of Jaffa, but was thrust back into the hill country by the Amorites, only a part of the tribe remaining in the coastal region. Jaffa/Joppa/Yapho is now joined to Tel Aviv.  It's an ancient town, mentioned in Egyptian documents from the time of the  19th Egyptian dynasty of the 16th century BCE.   The Amorites were eventually annihilated or assimilated by the Israelites.  They were found on both sides of the Jordan River, especially in mountainous regions.  

The greater part of Dan was forced to migrate northward where it eventually wrested from the Phoenicians a settlement area around Laish/Dan (Judg. 18:27-9;  also mentioned in the MARI tablets) (Mari was an ancient Mesopotamian city.  Excavations in 1933-8 revealed a palace of the 18th century BCE containing a rich Akkadian library which throws valuable light on the events and conditions of life depicted in Genesis.)or Leshem (Jos. 19:47), the name of which became Dan.  The situation of the rest of the tribe grew serious after the arrival of the Philistines, despite the heroism of Samson of the tribe of Dan, son of Manoah, until the period of Saul and David.  Philistines were a Mediterranean people, originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities, reaching Canaan in various waves from the sea.  They became the worst enemy of the Israelites.  

The northern part of Dan was the site of a temple (Judg. 18:26) at which the descendants of Manasseh (or perhaps of Moses) acted as priests. I would say Moses, because priests, (Cohens, were the descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses-J1 in DNA.   This became one of the chief cult centers in the kingdom of the tribe of Ephraim, and Jeroboam I (king from 930-910 BCE) erected in it the image of a calf to deflect worshipers from the sanctuary at Jerusalem.  That was a terrible thing to do, going against the Mosaic law completely.  He was not of the line of David, knew nothing about the Mosaic laws to do this.  

The nearby tel site of the biblical city of Dan (Laish), has been excavated by Avraham Biran.  

Dan was captured by Ben Hadad of Syria during the rule of King Baasha of Israel (from 908-885 BCE).  He had declared himself king after killing Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, and exterminating the latter's family.  He waged war on King Asa of Judah (915-875 BCE) son of Abijam in alliance with  Ben Hadad of Aran (Syria), who, however, changed sides, so that Baasha was defeated and had to cede some territory. 

Dan is prophesied to "leap from Bashan"; scholars are uncertain why this should be since the tribe did not live in the Bashan plain, east of the Jordan River, in Transjordan.  Actually, half of the tribe of Manassah were settled here.  (Deut. 33:22) This was said by Moses when blessing Dan during the Exodus:  "22Concerning Dan he said: “Dan is a lion’s cub, leaping out of Bashan.”

Jacob said of Dan in his prophesy, "Dan will avenge his people, the tribes of Israel will be united as one.  Dan will be a serpent on the highway, a viper by the path, that bites a horse's heels so its rider falls backward".  

Modern artists use the "scales of justice" to represent the Tribe of Dan due to Genesis 49:16 referencing Dan "shall achieve justice for his kindred". More traditional artists use a snake to represent Dan, based upon Genesis 49:17, "Let Dan be a serpent by the roadside, a horned viper by the path, That bites the horse's heel, so that the rider tumbles backward."

                                                                 

It seems that Samson was a perfect example of this description.  (Judg. 13-16).  He excelled in strength and courage, and his feats against the Philistines--usually for personal reasons, as he was done in by falling in love with someone outside his tribe:  the Philistinian woman, Delilah, who betrayed the secrets of his strength to her own people.  Samson ended up being mocked by the Philistines at a festival at Gaza after being held prisoner and tortured, but the story goes that his strength returned to him in his frustration and he destroyed a building and killed the entire assembly including himself by doing this.  The movie of Samson and Delilah is excellent.   

Claims of descent from Dan

Simon Magus, also known as Simon the Sorcerer and Simon the Magician, came from the village of Gitta (also spelled Getta) in Samaria, according to Justin Martyr; a site settled by the tribe of Dan according to Josephus. Justin, who was himself a 2nd-century native of Samaria, wrote that nearly all the Samaritans in his time were adherents of Simon. Surviving orthodox texts, such as those of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, regarded Simon as the source of all heresies, including Gnosticism.

Ethiopian Jews, also known as Beta Israel, claim descent from the Tribe of Dan, whose members migrated south along with members of the tribes of Gad, Asher, and Naphtali, into the Kingdom of Kush, now Ethiopia and Sudan, during the destruction of the First Temple. This position is supported by former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. They are said to have fought with the natives.

                                               

As far as I know, no Ethiopian has shown any DNA connection to Jews-and that may be because they came from Dan-a lost tribe, but Dan should show the Y haplogroup being J1 or some branch of it (the levite branch of the Cohens from Aaron, brother of Moses.)  It could be that they were not with the group or had died out and other males had to take over the position. ". 

                                                      

The story I remember was that The Queen of Sheba had come to see Solomon for herself and tests Solomon's wisdom, asking him many questions and giving him riddles to solve. He answers to her satisfaction and then he teaches her about his unseen god and what they believe, and she becomes a follower.  She and her handmaids go back home, many of who are now pregnant.  It could be that no Cohen accompanied them back.  By coincidence, the Y line faded out.   Because the Jewish haplotypes VII and VIII are not represented in the Falasha population, we conclude that the Falasha people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism.."

 Charles Upton relates the serpent voodoo God Danbhala as derived in part from a heterodox form of Ethiopian Judaism. Hmmm.  

Resource: 

Tanakh, The Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Dan

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41465797?seq=1 (DNA)