The Tribe of Dan; the Danites: Were They Bad Boys?

 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 situation of the rest of the tribe grew serious after the arrival of the Philistines, despite the heroism of Samson, until the period KINGS started with Saul as the 1st king and then David being the 2nd king.  

Samson  was one of the several Israelite Judges, son of Manoah of the tribe of Dan (Judag.13:-16).  Being young, extremely muscular and handsome, he spent much of his time dreaming about Delilah, a sex symbol of the Philistines, enemy.  He should have known better, being a Nazirite from birth.  Beautiful Delilah was indeed deceitful, cutting his hair which weakened him, making him easy prey for the Philistines who then captured him.  They put out Samson's eyes, blinding him.  Brought to a festival in Gaza in chains, the people mocked him.  He then destroyed their Temple and killed the entire assembly, including himself.  

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

Leah and Jacob's 4th Son, Judah From Which Jews Come From: And Jacob's Prophecy For Us

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Judah the 4th son of Jacob and Leah, is best known as the one who persuaded his brothers to sell their own brother, Joseph to passing Ishmaelites rather than leave him to die in a pit (Gen 37).  They were all so jealous of Joseph as their father, Jacob, had given him special attention by making him the coat of many colors, and the older ones were never given such special treatment.  Joseph was the son of Rachel, who probably also got special treatment since she had been the 1st love to Jacob, so the boys saw Joseph as a half brother.  

Despite the seniority of  Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, he received Jacob's patriarchal blessing (Gen 49:8)  He had saved his brother's life.  Killing was not his first thought to solve a problem.  

When Judah heard Jacob's rebuke of his brothers,  he drew back, afraid that Jacob might chastise him over the affair of Tamar.  So Jacob called him soothingly,  "Judah, YOU are not like them.  YOU, your brothers shall acknowledge!" 

 Judah's oldest son was Er and Er's wife was Tamar.  Judah's 2nd son was Onan, and Tamar had married Onan, too. When Onan died, Judah had refused to allow Tamar to also marry his 3rd son, Shelah, as well.  Judah was breaking tradition by refusing her right to marry Shelah, and she was still a young woman!  So she got even with Judah by dressing up as a prostitute and seduced Judah!  The result was that she conceived twins by Judah.  This story adds reason why the custom was that a son was to marry his deceased brother's wife.   

The famous biblical commentator, RASHI commented in the Midrash that Judah would be the source of all Jewish leadership and royalty of the Davidic dynasty and Messiah.  Now, Rashi (1040-1105) born in France, had a good head start to make such a comment.  The 10 tribes had been lost to the Jews ever since 721 BCE, almost 2,000 years by his time already.  

Jacob had a good prophecy for Judah who was the 4th son, like a middle son who usually has the most problems in a family.  Jacob said, "You, your brothers shall acknowledge;   your hand will be at your enemies nape (of the neck).  Your father's sons will prostrate themselves to you.                                              

A lion cub is Judah;  from the prey, my son, you elevated yourself.  He crouches, lies down like a lion, and like an awesome lion, who dares rouse him?  

The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a scholar from among his descendants until Shiloh arrives and his will be an assemblage of nations.  (By saying "Shiloh", this is saying "Messiah"-Rashi explained that) .  Shiloh was the 1st religious center of the Israelite religion after the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, an Ephraimite, the tribe that had much power as well.  It was 25 miles North of Jerusalem in the mountains of Ephraim.  The Ark and Tabernacle were kept there during the period of the Judges, serving as the central national shrine and object of pilgrimage, especially during the long priesthood of Eli.  The town and the Tabernacle were destroyed by the Philistines after the battle of Aphek in about 1050 BCE when the Ark was captured.  Shilioh then became insignificant.  It was settled form the Hellenistic Period down to the 12th century CE.  The site was excavated by a Danish expedition in 1926-28.  The word, until, does not mean that Judah's ascendency will end with the coming of Messiah.  to the contrary, the sense of the verse is that once Messiah begins to reign, Judah's blessing of kingship will become fully realized (Sh'lah) for all the nations will acknowledge him and pay homage to him.  

He will tie his donkey to the vine.  To the vine branch his donkey's foal;  he will launder his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes.  Red eyed from wine, and white toothed from milk. 

So admired will you be by all your brothers that Jews will not say, "I am a Reubenite or a Simeonite, but  "I am a Yehudi, Judahite, Jew.   (Midrash)

The first census Moses took found Judah with 74,,000 and the last census after the 40 years counted 76,500, an increase of 1,900 men.  

The area received by the tribe of Judah was one of the largest in Canaan and it eventually absorbed also the inheritance of Simeon in the Negev.  David belonged to this tribe and his accession signaled its assuming a leading position over other tribes.  When the kingdom split after the death of Solomon in 920 BCE, Judah supported his son, Rehoboam as king,  who was predominant and did become king for the southern kingdom of Judah.                      

Solomon Souza street art featuring a lion, in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market. Photo by Yehoshua Halevi.  The lion has come to represent Israel-being the Jewish State.  Here, the ancient adage of when the lion lies down with the lamb, there will be peace.  ("The lamb with the lion" – often a paraphrase from Isaiah, and more closely quoted as "the lion and lamb", "a child will lead them", and the like – are an artistic and symbolic device, most generally related to peace. The symbol is used in both Christianity and Judaism to represent the Messianic Age.)

The hills of Judah, which came to be called Judaea by the Roman invasion,   was the mountainous region of central Israel.  Fertile and populous in biblical days, they had become neglected and suffered severely from soil erosion.  Modern resettlement of the area began in 1894 with the returning Jews from Russia and elsewhere in the 1st Aliyah and their newly created foundation of MOTSZA,  but from 1948 to 1967, only a small area of the Judean Hills (the Jerusalem Corridor) and some of the foothills  was incorporated into "Israel."  The rest of it was given by the British to the Kingdom of Jordan.  Since the Six Day War of 1967, the entire area has been under Israeli rule.  

The Jerusalem corridor (Hebrew: פרוזדור ירושלים‎, Prozdor Yerushalayim) is a geographical district of hundreds of thousands of dunams between Jerusalem and the Shephelah in Israel. Its northern border is the old road to Jerusalem; its southern border, the Elah Valley; and its western border, Sha'ar HaGai/Bab el-Wad and the road to Beit Shemesh. The largest towns in the Jerusalem corridor are Beit Shemesh, Mevasseret Zion, Abu Ghosh, Tzur Hadassah and Kiryat Ye'arim.

Some researchers figure Jacob was born in 1566 BCE, others saying the Exodus started from 1579-1578 BCE.  We know that Abraham was from the 2nd millennium BCE, and that the family was Abraham, son Isaac, and his son, Jacob.  

Resource:

Tanakh, The Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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