Nadene Goldfoot
Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, gathered his 12 sons around him before he died and told them of the future of his grandchildren and their descendants. He had visions of how they were going to be like by the end of days, as if he were a psychologist, and was counseling his sons, perhaps so as to help them be better fathers. (Gen.49). He blessed each son individually each in line with his own character and ability so that they would be directed toward the paths for which G-d had suited them, for his blessings would make clear that each of the tribes had its own unique mission in life.
Dan (Gen.49:16-18) was Jacob's 5th son, born by Bilhah. the handmaid of Rachel, younger sister of Leah and Jacob's 1st and only love. Having concluded his blessings of Leah's 6 sons, Jacob went on to the older son of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant and told Dan of his vision. "Your brothers, Simeon and Levi are comrades. Do not join up with their group of people. That's because in their rage, they murdered people and at their whim, they hamstrung an ox. Accursed is their rage, for it is intense, and their wrath, for it is harsh. I will separate them within Jacob, and I will disperse them in Israel." Simeon was allocated land but Levi was not. They were to be special, to travel from tribe to tribe, teaching. They would have no need for land.
"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".
Dan was allocated a small section north of Naphtali inland, not on the sea. The Tribe of Dan (Hebrew: דָּן), meaning, "Judge", They were allocated a coastal portion of land when the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, later moving northwards. They were in population a slightly larger group than Naphtali who had 53,400 in the Exodus while Dan had 62,700. However, Naphtali ended the excursion with a loss, down to 45,400 and Dan ended with 64,400, a gain of 1,700. Naphtali had lost 8,000.
The conquest of Laish (see 12 on Map 50) by the tribe of Dan took place within about fifty years of the initial conquest of Canaan by Joshua (i.e. between c.1400 and c.1350BC). We know this because the first priest of the newly renamed city of Dan was Jonathan, the grandson of Moses and son of Gershom (who was born some years before the Exodus from Egypt in c.1447BC) (see Judges 18:30).
Judg 18:27-31 On arrival at Laish, they attack the city and destroy it, before re-building it and calling it Dan. The silver idols are set up in Laish during the time when the tent of the Lord’s presence was at Shiloh
The conquest of Laish in the time of the Judges apparently was followed by the gradual removal from there of many or most of the tribe, although there is nothing concerning this in the Bible. Samson was a Danite and in his day there were many Danites still living in the portion assigned to them by Joshua. Zorah, Eshtaol, Timnah, Eltekeh, and Ekron were “Danite” cities (Josh 19:41-46; cf. 21:23), although the last was in the days of Samson one of the five cities of the lords of the Philistines (Judg 13:2, 25) and others were more or less under their control. If the “camp of Dan” (Heb. Mahaneh-dan) (v. 25) is the same as the Mahaneh-dan mentioned in Judges 18:12, the inference is justified that the conquest of Laish took place before the time of Samson. The meaning of Judges 5:17 is too uncertain to be referred to in this connection.
Dan is not listed in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles (1 Chron 1-8), but 28,600 Danites came to David in Hebron to make him king over all Israel (1 Chron 12:35). The listing of the Danites after Issachar, Zebulun and Naphtali and before Asher indicates that by the time of David, the Danites were regarded as a northern tribe, which meant that by the time of David or long before, the Danites had completed the trek, the beginning of which is described in the Book of Judges. A hint of this is the statement in the letter of Hiram king of Tyre to Solomon, that he was sending Solomon a skillful workman whose father was a Tyrian but his mother a Danite (2 Chron 2:14), such a mixed marriage being more likely to take place after the trek to the N.
After reaching Canaan after 40 years of walking from Egypt with 60,000 other freed slaves, Dan was allotted a portion of land South of Jaffa by Joshua, but was thrust back into the hill country by the Amorites with only a part of the tribe remaining in the coastal region. Now, my favorite archaeologist, the Naked archaeologist, has a theory about them having divided and one part sailed away to the Greek islands, separating from their 11 cousins and their people.
They were called the Danoi. 3,000-year-old archaeological finds at Tel Dan suggest that the Danites were Aegean soldiers hired by Canaan's Egyptian overlords to keep order. According to the Bible, after the Israelites conquered Canaan, the land was split between the tribes – with the exception of the tribe of Dan. Bitter at their lot, the tribe went northward, conquered and destroyed the city of Laish (also called Leshem), then rebuilt it and renamed it after their ancestor (Judges 18:1-29). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqumwTKWUE-Naked Archaeologist According to Homer, the Danoi were the ones who rescued Helen of Troy. After the Minoans came the Mycenaean civilisation, from mainland Greece. They were fine builders and traders, but they were also great soldiers. They famously fought in the battle of Troy. Homer, an important Greek writer, told stories of the Mycenaean age in his books The Iliad and The Odyssey. These Mycenaeans were that group of Danites that took to the sea. That's the theory, that the Danites were the Danois.
The greater part of Dan's people were forced to migrate northward where it eventually wrestled from the Phoenicians, a settlement area around Laish. (Judg.18:27-29). This event was also mentioned in MARI tablets) or Leshem (Joshua 19:47), the name of which became DAN.
The northern part of Dan was the site of a temple (Judg.18:26-30) at which the descendants of Manasseh, or perhaps of Moses acted as priests. This became one of the chief cult centers in the kingdom of Ephraim, and Jeroboam erected in it the image of a calf to deflect worshippers from the sanctuary at Jerusalem of THE TEMPLE.
Dan was captured by Ben Hadad of Syria during the rule of Baasha (900 BCE).
The name of Dan was given to an Israeli communal kibbutz at the foot of Mt. Hermon near the source of the River, Dan. It was founded in 1939 when Jews really needed their old home as refuge from the Nazis. Those immigrants were of Romanian origin and withstood a heavy Syrian attack in the War of Independence (1947-1949). Population in 1990 was 554. The nearby tel, site of the biblical city of Dan (Laish) has been excavated by Avraham Biran.
Resource:
Tanakh, the Stone Edition (Old Testament) includes Hebrew text, commentaries
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-tribe-of-dan-sons-of-israel-or-of-greek-mercenaries-hired-by-egypt-1.5468423
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Dan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqumwTKWUE Naked Archaeologist
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Danites
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