16Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
17Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward.
18I wait for your salvation, O Lord.
Investigating the name “Dan” first
Leah married Jacob first and gave him sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah
Rachel was barren and gave Jacob her servant Bilhah to conceive for her. The name of Bilhah’s first son was “Dan”. Dan was the 5th son to Jacob. When he was born Rachel said “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.” After Dan was born the next son born of Bilhah was Naphtali.
The Hebrew word for Dan sounds like the word “Judged” and Naphtali sounds like “wrestling”
Jacob had 13 children in this order (12 sons and 1 daughter):
1) Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn. He was the son of Leah, Jacob’s first wife.
2) Simeon was next, and he was also a son of Leah.
3) Levi was the third of Jacob and Leah’s children.
4) Judah was the next. After bearing Judah, Leah stopped bearing children for a time.
5) Dan was born to Jacob by Bilhah, his wife Rachel’s handmaid.
6) Naphtali was the next child, also through Bilhah.
7) Gad was number seven. He was the child of Jacob and Zilpah, the handmaid of Leah.
8) Asher was next. He was the second son of Zilpah.
9) Issachar was another son granted to Leah.
10) Zebulun was the next child, Leah’s sixth.
11) Dinah was Jacob’s only daughter, and her mother was Leah.
12) Joseph was Jacob’s twelfth child and Rachel’s first
13) Benjamin was Jacob’s last child from Rachel who died in childbirth
Dan had only a single son “Hushim or Shuham” in Genesis 46:23 and Numbers 26:42. “These are the sons of Dan according to their families: of Shuham, the family of the Shuhamites. These are the families of Dan according to their families. All the families of the Shuhamites, according to those who were numbered of them, were sixty-four thousand four hundred. (64,400).”
When thinking about who Dan is, or who the tribe would become we might identify a person or persons of great significance that came from the tribe. One such person would be that of Samson. Samson had for a time the Spirit of God ‘stirring him’ and his birth was divinely predicted (Judges 13). However, it is debatable whether we will see him in heaven or not due to his consistently rebellious and immoral behavior. However, prior to his death he does call out unto God asking that “God remember me…that I may avenge the Philistines for my two eyes”. God grants him the strength and he kills more Philistines with his death that throughout his entire life.
Joshua 19:40-47 describes the episode in the tribes life after it had lost all of it’s land possession. The loss of land could have taken part over a long period of time and due to many invasions from the north. The point being that Dan was without a territory sometime after the time of Samson. Also keep in mind that Samson was a judge of Israel, as this is at least a part of the prophesy fulfilled from verse 16. Dan was part of the 7th (and last) lot of land that was yet to be divided in the time of Joshua (son of Nun). They divided the land in Shiloh by casting lots. Dan was given the land, but it was later lost and they had to go back up to Leshem and fight against it to recapture it. (Judges 18:7)
In Judges 1:34 it says the Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down into the plain. Judges chapter 18 describes the story of how Dan recaptured the land with 600 armed men. The people of that land were unsuspecting and therefore Dan just ‘slithered’ in and took it unsuspectingly. Dan’s prophesy in Genesis 49 indicates he will have a snakelike behavior. This likely illustrates the later reflection on their assault on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Laish (found in Judges 18-19). The main reason they took the land however was because they wanted the idols of Micah because they had no priest that was fathering (or leading) them. So, they took Micah and made him priest over all their peoples in the tribe of Dan. They renamed the city of Laish (or Leshem), Dan, after their ancestor and set up the carved images for themselves as well. The tribe of Dan therefore took up idols and caused an entire tribe to commit idolatry, not just a single family. This likely has very harsh consequences from God and we will run into some possibilities surrounding this later on. The Danites continued in apostasy and idolatrous worship until the Assyrian Empire took them captive in 722 B.C. (1 Kings 12:28-30; 2 Kings 10:29).
Lastly on the name of Dan we look forward to the book of Revelation. Ironically, you will not find the name of Dan in the book of Revelation. The fact that it is missing is probably more interesting than if it were there as all the other tribes of Israel are mentioned in the book, with only Dan missing.
Revelation chapter 7 describes the tribes of Israel that were numbered on their foreheads (144,000 in all). Below is the birth order number listed before the name as they are described in Revelation.
4 – Judah
1 – Reuben
7 – Gad
8 – Asher
6 – Naphtali
Manasseh – Joseph’s firstborn son (not a son of Jacob directly)
2 – Simeon
3 – Levi
9 – Issachar
10 – Zebulun
12 – Joseph
13 – Benjamin
According to the book of Revelation it does not appear that the tribe will be a part of the 144,000 Jewish witnesses in the tribulation period. However, that does not mean that they were cut out completely as they do show up in Ezekiel’s prophesy about the land allotment in chapter 48:1-2,32 “These are the names of the tribes; beginning at the northern extreme…”, (32) “…on the east side…the gate of Dan”. So, there is no doubt in my mind that we will see Dan in the kingdom of heaven during the end times because Paul writes that “all Israel will be saved” in Romans 11:26. Additionally, prophetically, the families of Israel will repent over their sin as God pours out his grace and mercy on them according to Zechariah 12:10-12. They will realize their mistake in not knowing Jesus as who He was and the salvation that He brought to Jews and Gentiles alike. The Danites will come to the Lord in saving faith. They will also receive their land allotment in the promise land according to Ezekiel 48 as the 1st tribe mentioned. So, it’s a sad time for the tribe of Dan until the very end of the millennial kingdom! Just another illustration in the Bible that we can apply to our own life. It’s best to repent in our sins earlier than later, and seek the Lord while He may be found.
On the 2nd part of that initial verse (sorry as I just spent 2 pages on the name “Dan”), “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.” This was already partially fulfilled when Samson judged Israel back in the book of Judges. However, according to Psalm 50:4, God is the judge of all people and the judges were only setup for part of the time in Israel’s history. Perhaps Dan took advantage of this on a day to day basis and could have been a result of their loss of land and idolatrous worship.
Our God comes, he does not keep silent…He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
We need to remember that God is the judge, not us. I am thinking that Jacob may have had some thoughts about his son Dan that caused him to say “Dan shall judge his people”. Of course his name is rhymes with a Hebrew word “judge”, but did Dan’s character also convey a judgmental attitude? Perhaps this prophesy was more than just divinely inspired and had some real world context to go along with it? Of course he would be considered one of the 12 tribes of Israel, that is implied at the end of the verse. Though the words that God chooses are important so we do not want to look over the fact that God say he will judge his people “AS one of the twelve tribes of Israel”. When would he do this? Or had he already been doing that? Was he that annoying brother that was always pointing out the sins of his brothers? What was he doing when Joseph was being thrown in the well? These are perhaps some of the thoughts that although not present in scripture we can consider as part of our study. In truth however, not much is said about the actual person of Dan. His tribe however can be traced as we have already done, and if perpetual family sin is “a thing” then the qualities, attitudes, and actions we see in the tribe could in theory be shared with the person of Dan.
“Dan shall be a serpent by the way”
I have to think about the serpent in the garden of Eden when I read this verse. One commentary I read had an idea that the antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan, though they didn’t bring much if any evidence to this theory other than the verses above in Revelation where Dan is not mentioned. I am glad I ran across the Romans and Ezekiel verses because that evidence is much more apparent that Dan and all Israel would be saved. It is nearly a mute point to hypothesize where the antichrist would come from as this will only be evident after he has deceived the nations for a time, times, and half a time. This is the first time the word serpent is used in the bible since the garden of Eden, so to think it had any other context outside of what we already know might be a bit presumptuous. However, if we remember that Moses likely wrote the book of Genesis we can bring other references of the word serpent into context as we read them elsewhere in scripture. The first place I think about is in Numbers 21 when the Lord sends fiery serpents to bite and kill those that had spoken against the Lord. The serpents killed, but the serpent on the staff healed anyone that had been bitten if they looked at it.
There are many other contextual evidences related to serpents, and I can see now why perhaps someone thought that antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan. Satan was called “that serpent of old” and thus one might theorize that it is because of this verse where the idea comes from. I think this might be a little far fetched, but an interesting point nonetheless.
So we have to continue on in context with this verse because the “serpent by the way” is not entirely a complete thought. The next portion of the verse says:
“A viper by the path”
This is another instance of partial context but it does also reinforce the first part of the verse doesn’t it? Jacob was really reinforcing the character of Dan I seem to think in this verse. He must have had some pretty strong feelings about Dan to associate him with a serpent and a viper. Vipers were mentioned by John the baptizer in the new testament, and in a very negative context towards the pharisees who were also very judgmental towards any “sinner”. Also interesting to me is that John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees to come to repentance, and it is in Ezekiel that we have already read about the repentance which the tribes exhibit that leads to their salvation. Jesus also used the word vipers in a very negative context and had some very strong words to say about the very same religious leaders that his cousin did earlier. Proverbs 29:32 also associates the serpent and the viper together in the context of being drunk with wine. We know of course that any level of intoxication with alcohol in an attempt to escape reality is a sin. Drunkenness is a sin and it bites like a serpent because often under intoxication we tend to make bad decisions. “I wasn’t always in trouble when I drank, but every time I was in trouble I had been drinking.”
“That bites the horse’s heels”
Here is where the full context of the prophesy I believe comes into better view. It’s negative, of that we can tell. The interesting word for me is “heel”. The word heel shows up in the same context with “serpent” several times over in scripture. It shows up in Genesis 3, 25; Job, Psalms, Hosea, and John. The most interesting part to me in reading about the heel being bitten by the serpent is that it was Jacob that grabbed his brothers heel while still in the womb! Was Jacob coming to terms with his own reality here and recognizing his own sin and cunning schemes against his father in this moment? Did he see the same things in Dan as he saw in himself? I think the possibilities of this are highly likely based on his next verse!
“So that its rider shall fall backward.”
This is the result of Dan’s scheming unrepentant life. Whoever is riding the horse, living in security, riding along in power and strength is suddenly falling off his horse! What a tragic surprise to the rider of the horse this would be! We could go many ways with this portion of the verse but being that we are coming to the end of our time I will leave it at that. It’s tragic that a rider of a horse would fall backwards after his horse got bit by a viper serpent on the heel. This is not meant to happen and only happens as a result of the cunning serpent.
So what happens to Jacob here? I think he takes a long breath and sighs before he speaks again. Is the next verse directed at Dan?
“I have waited for your salvation, O Lord!”
To me, as I read this I can see Jacob processing his life as a whole. All the times he was the heel catcher, and all the times he wrestled with God and prevailed. He was unrepentant, he was absent from his children’s lives, he did not know the Lord and he was not following in the ways of the Lord as he should have been. Perhaps he saw the same behaviors in Dan and it brought to mind his past life. The only response that Jacob has here is to say to the Lord (not to Dan because he understands that Dan must come to this same decision that Jacob ultimately had to come to) “I have waited for your salvation, O Lord!”. Notice the emphasis as well!!! It was a sigh of relief that Jacob had come to that place in his life where he knew of his salvation. It was evident and very near in just a couple of sentences from this point. It was also evident in Dan’s life, that he too would have to make the same decisions later on in life. So, partially prophetic and partially a release of his feelings, Jacob speaks truth towards his son Dan and wishes him the best. Indeed his tribe will have salvation in the last days and Jacob likely was falling back on the promises of God to him and his father and his fathers father. He knew the salvation of the Lord, but he also knew that it requires repentance!
Lastly, it is important to note that Moses also has a blessing for the tribe of Dan. It would be another study in and of itself, however, it is closely related to some aspects that I have already touched on above. Moses’s blessing of Dan goes like this:
Deuteronomy 33:22 – “And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.”
The similarities between Dan and Judah as “the lion of the tribe of Judah” are striking here. Judah is the first tribe mentioned in Revelation, whereas Dan is not mentioned at all. Judah is representative of the Lion and Dan is often portrayed the same in art and historical documents. Moses perhaps saw something different in Dan than Jacob did. Whatever the story is, we know that Dan does have a place in history even though he is not mentioned much at all. Let it be true of us too, that of the few words people speak about us, they would be true and they would represent the Lord and His faithfulness to His people.
Amen.