Dan (Hebrew: דָּן, Standard Dan Tiberian Dān; "Judge") was, according to the Book of Genesis, a son of Jacob and Bilhah (the first son of Bilhah, but the fifth son of Jacob), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Dan¹; however some biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation²; in the biblical account, Dan's mother is only a handmaid, rather than a wife of Jacob, which scholars see as indicating that the authors saw the tribe of Dan as being not of entirely Israelite origin³. The tribe of Dan is suspected by some biblical scholars to have evolved from the Denyen, one of the groups of Sea Peoples, the name Dan being a corruption of Denyen⁴; the Song of Deborah, for example, which is regarded by textual scholars as among the most ancient parts of the Bible⁵, describes the tribe as still residing in ships.

The text of the Torah argues that the name of Dan derives from dananni, meaning he has judged me, in reference to Rachel's belief that she had gained a child as the result of a judgement from God⁶. Apart from the view among modern scholars that the name Dan originates from Denyen, a number of scholars have suggested that, like Gad deriving from Gad and Asher deriving from Assur, Dan derives from the name of a deity that was originally worshipped by the tribe⁷; according to this view, the name Daniel is interpreted as meaning Dan is El, rather than meaning El is my judge or God is my judge⁸.

Owing to the Book of Judges, in the account of Micah's Idol, describing the tribe of Dan as having used ephod and teraphim in worship, and Samson (a member of the tribe of Dan) being described as failing to adhere to the rules of a Nazirate, classical rabbinical writers concluded that Dan was very much a black sheep⁹; in the Book of Jeremiah, the north of Canaan is associated with darkness and evil¹⁰, and so rabbinical sources treated Dan as the archetype of wickedness¹¹. In the apocryphal Testaments of the Patriarchs, Dan is portrayed as having hated Joseph, and having been the one that invented the idea of deceiving Jacob by the smearing of Joseph's coat with the blood of a kid¹²¹³¹⁴; in the apocryphal Prayer of Asenath, Dan is portrayed as plotting with the Egyptian crown prince, against Joseph and Asenath¹⁵. In the Blessing of Jacob, Dan is described as a serpent, which seems to have been interpreted as connecting Dan to Belial¹⁶, a connection made, for example, in the apocryphal Testament of Dan¹⁷; early Christian writers, such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus, even believed that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan¹⁸¹⁹, drawing the belief from a verse from the Book of Jeremiah which states the snorting of [the enemy's] horses was heard from Dan²⁰²¹. It is worth to mention that John the apostle omits the tribe of Dan when mentioning the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel, in regard to the 144000 sealed saints. (Rev:7:5-8) Perhaps this is a testimmony of the unworthiness of Dan. Instead of Dan, the tribe of Joseph appears twice.

References

1. ^ Genesis 30:3-4
2. ^ Peake's commentary on the Bible
3. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
4. ^ Yigael Yadin And Dan, Why Did He Remain in Ships
5. ^ Richard Elliott Friedman, Who wrote the Bible
6. ^ Genesis 30:6
7. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
8. ^ ibid
9. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
10. ^ Jeremiah 1:14
11. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
12. ^ Testament of Dan 1
13. ^ Testament of Zebulun 4
14. ^ Testament of Gad 1
15. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
16. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
17. ^ Testament of Dan, 5
18. ^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses
19. ^ Hippolytus, Of Christ and Antichrist
20. ^ Jeremiah 8:16
21. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia

See also

• Tribe of Dan
• City of Dan
• Sea Peoples

Citations