Dan in Easton's Bible Dictionary
a judge. (1.) The fifth son of Jacob. His mother was Bilhah,
Rachel's maid (Gen. 30:6, "God hath judged me", Heb.
dananni).
The blessing pronounced on him by his father was,
"Dan shall
judge his people" (49:16), probably in allusion to
the judgeship
of Samson, who was of the tribe of Dan.
The tribe of Dan had their place in the march
through the
wilderness on the north side of the tabernacle (Num.
2:25, 31;
10:25). It was the last of the tribes to receive a
portion in
the Land of Promise. Its position and extent are
described in
Josh. 19:40-48.
The territory of Dan extended from the west of that
of Ephraim
and Benjamin to the sea. It was a small territory,
but was very
fertile. It included in it, among others, the cities
of Lydda,
Ekron, and Joppa, which formed its northern
boundary. But this
district was too limited. "Squeezed into the narrow
strip
between the mountains and the sea, its energies were
great
beyond its numbers." Being pressed by the Amorites
and the
Philistines, whom they were unable to conquer, they
longed for a
wider space. They accordingly sent out five spies
from two of
their towns, who went north to the sources of the
Jordan, and
brought back a favourable report regarding that
region. "Arise,"
they said, "be not slothful to go, and to possess
the land," for
it is "a place where there is no want of any thing
that is in
the earth" (Judg. 18:10). On receiving this report,
600 Danites
girded on their weapons of war, and taking with them
their wives
and their children, marched to the foot of Hermon,
and fought
against Leshem, and took it from the Sidonians, and
dwelt
therein, and changed the name of the conquered town
to Dan
(Josh. 19:47). This new city of Dan became to them a
new home,
and was wont to be spoken of as the northern limit
of Israel,
the length of which came to be denoted by the
expression "from
Dan to Beersheba", i.e., about 144 miles.
"But like Lot under a similar temptation, they seem
to have
succumbed to the evil influences around them, and to
have sunk
down into a condition of semi-heathenism from which
they never
emerged. The mounds of ruins which mark the site of
the city
show that it covered a considerable extent of
ground. But there
remains no record of any noble deed wrought by the
degenerate
tribe. Their name disappears from the roll-book of
the natural
and the spiritual Israel.", Manning's Those Holy
Fields.
This old border city was originally called Laish.
Its modern
name is Tell el-Kady, "Hill of the Judge." It stands
about four
miles below Caesarea Philippi, in the midst of a
region of
surpassing richness and beauty.
(2.) This name occurs in Ezek 27:19, Authorize
Version; but
the words there, "Dan also," should be simply, as in
the Revised
Version, "Vedan," an Arabian city, from which
various kinds of
merchandise were brought to Tyre. Some suppose it to
have been
the city of Aden in Arabia. (See MAHANEH-DAN
-T0002375.)
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