The sons of Dan

Who Dan was

The son of Bilhah

Dan was the fifth son of Jacob. His mother was Bilhah, the maid of Rachel. Rachel named him.

And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.

Genesis 30:5–6 (KJV)

The name comes from the Hebrew verb din, “to judge”. Genesis lists only one son of Dan: “And the sons of Dan; Hushim” (Genesis 46:23). Numbers calls the same clan Shuham (Numbers 26:42).

The site’s overview of the tribes is on The 12 Tribes. It lists Dan as “first son of Jacob and Bilhah (Rachel’s maid)”.

Two blessings

Jacob’s blessing gives Dan a double image: a judge and a snake.

Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

Genesis 49:16–17 (KJV)

Moses’ blessing makes him a lion.

And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.

Deuteronomy 33:22 (KJV)

Bashan lies east of the Jordan, far from Dan’s first land. To me the verse fits better with the later, northern Dan.

A large tribe in the desert

In the first census Dan has 62,700 fighting men (Numbers 1:39). In the second census it has 64,400 (Numbers 26:43). Only Judah is larger in the first count.

In the camp Dan leads the northern side (Numbers 2:25). On the march Dan is “the rereward of all the camps”, the rear guard (Numbers 10:25). Its leader is Ahiezer, son of Ammishaddai. On the census and the order of march, see Transport of the Ark of the Covenant.

Craftsmen

Two master craftsmen in the Bible come from Dan. Aholiab helps build the tabernacle. He is “the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan” (Exodus 31:6). Huram, who works for Solomon’s temple, is “the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre” (2 Chronicles 2:14).

The land Dan lost

The first territory

Dan received the seventh lot, between Judah, Ephraim and the coast (Joshua 19:40). It did not hold it.

And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley:

Judges 1:34 (KJV)

On the Amorites, see Amorite.

Samson

Samson was a Danite. His father Manoah was “of the family of the Danites” (Judges 13:2). Samson fights the Philistines alone and is buried “between Zorah and Eshtaol” (Judges 16:31). That is Dan’s first territory.

The site’s summary of Biglino’s talk Samson’s Birth and Blessing notes his interest in Dan: “Biglino expresses interest in the mention of the tribe of Dan, as it is connected to broader Mediterranean stories, including those of the Greeks and the Shardana.” The Shardana, or Sherden, were one of the Sea Peoples. That line is a summary, not Biglino’s own words. On the judges, see Judges.

The move to Laish

Judges 18 tells how Dan found a new home. Five spies go north and find a quiet town.

And they took the things which Micah had made, and the priest which he had, and came unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure: and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with fire. And there was no deliverer, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with any man; and it was in the valley that lieth by Beth-rehob. And they built a city, and dwelt therein. And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first.

Judges 18:27–29 (KJV)

Joshua 19:47 tells the same story. There the town is called Leshem.

The priest who was Moses’ grandson

The next verse names Dan’s priest.

And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

Judges 18:30 (KJV)

In the Hebrew text, “Manasseh” is written with a small raised letter nun. Without it the name reads Moshe, Moses. Gershom was the son of Moses. The Talmud says Jonathan was indeed Moses’ grandson, and the letter was added to spare Moses the shame (Bava Batra 109b, Sefaria).

So the shrine at Dan was run by the family of Moses himself. Later, King Jeroboam set up one of his two golden calves there.

And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

1 Kings 12:29–30 (KJV)

The tribe in ships

The Song of Deborah lists the tribes that came to the battle and those that stayed home.

Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches.

Judges 5:17 (KJV)

Dan in ships is strange. Its first land barely touched the sea, and the northern Dan lies inland. Biglino points this out too. In the site’s summary of Confirmation from the Deep, he “mentions the tribe of Dan, which was associated with seafaring, as noted in the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges.”

The archaeologist Yigael Yadin took the verse literally. In a 1968 article he concluded that it “refers to a stage at which Dan dwelt by the shores of the Great Sea and engaged in ships” (Yadin, Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology).

Dan disappears

Missing in Chronicles

Chronicles gives long family lists for the tribes of Israel. Dan has no clear section. Chronicles does count “the Danites expert in war”, 28,600 of them (1 Chronicles 12:35). One line in 1 Chronicles 7:12 names “Hushim, the sons of Aher”. Genesis names Hushim as the son of Dan. That may be a trace of Dan’s list, but this is my own reading.

Missing in Revelation

Revelation 7 lists the twelve tribes of the 144,000. Joseph and Manasseh are in. Dan is not.

Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

Revelation 7:5–8 (KJV)

The church father Irenaeus, around 180 AD, gave a reason. He connected Dan with the Antichrist through a verse in Jeremiah (“The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan”, Jeremiah 8:16). Irenaeus wrote:

This, too, is the reason that this tribe is not reckoned in the Apocalypse along with those which are saved.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.30.2

Ezekiel, by contrast, keeps Dan. In his vision of the future land, Dan gets the first portion, at the northern end (Ezekiel 48:1).

The Tel Dan stele

The city of Dan is now the excavation site Tel Dan, in the north of Israel. In 1993 and 1994 the team of Avraham Biran found pieces of an Aramaic inscription there. It dates to the 9th century BC and was probably set up by Hazael, a king of Aram-Damascus. Most scholars read one phrase as “House of David”, the oldest mention of David outside the Bible. A minority disputes that reading (Wikipedia, “Tel Dan stele”).

The theories

These are other people’s ideas. I give each one with its author.

Dan and the Denyen

The Egyptian records of the Sea Peoples name a group called the Denyen. The site’s page The Sea Peoples and the Philistines notes that the Denyen are “Sometimes linked to the Danaoi, one of the Greek tribes mentioned in Homeric epics”. Yadin went a step further and linked the Denyen with the tribe of Dan. Scholars such as Othniel Margalith and Michael Astour supported a link. Others, such as Mark Bartusch, call it speculative (Wikipedia, “Tribe of Dan”). The Israeli scholar Pnina Galpaz-Feller has read the Samson story in the same light.

Dan and the Danaans

In Greek myth Danaus, son of Belus, fled Egypt and became king of Argos. Homer calls the Greeks Danaans, as in The Catalogue of Ships. The site’s page Libya, daughter of Epaphus traces Danaus back to Belus, king of Egypt. Some writers see Danaus and Dan as one memory of an eastern Mediterranean people. That rests on the similar name and the shared link to ships and Egypt. I find it suggestive, not proven.

Dan and Western Europe

From the late Middle Ages on, writers linked Dan to the Danes. British Israelism, a 19th century movement, went further. Writers such as J. H. Allen and Edward Hine traced Dan to Denmark, and Hine also to Ulster (Wikipedia, “Tribe of Dan”). These links rest on place names with “dan” or “don” in them.

The Irish Tuatha Dé Danann have a similar name. On this site, Ignatius Donnelly treats them as colonists from Atlantis, not as Danites (The Irish Colonies from Atlantis). I see no evidence for a link beyond the sound.

Dan in Ethiopia

The Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia, have their own tradition of descent from Dan. The Sephardi chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef accepted them as descendants of the tribe of Dan (Wikipedia, “Tribe of Dan”).

Dan in Wolter’s “fragment”

Scott Wolter has read out a text he presents as part of the lost Book of the Wars of the Lord. In it, Moses sends “the sons of Dan” against Edom, and a “silver beast” fights for them from a cloud. The text is unverified. I discuss it on The Book of the Wars of the Lord.

Thirteen tribes from Atlantis

In A Hypnotist’s Journey to Avalon, quoted on The 12 Tribes, the question is asked:

Can you tell me about the thirteen tribes of Israel? I’ve always wanted to know about them. Y:These tribes are descendants of the original priestesses of Atlantis. Each tribe carries a piece of the wisdom necessary for ascension. Once all the pieces are remembered, collective ascension will be triggered.

A hypnotist’s journey to Avalon

That answer is about all the tribes, not about Dan in particular.

How I use this in my research

Dan is the tribe that does not fit. It has the family of Moses as its priests, yet it worships an image. It lives inland, yet it stays in ships. It is counted in the desert and dropped in Revelation. To me that looks like a group with a history of its own, joined to Israel and never fully absorbed. The Sea Peoples link is the theory I take most seriously, because it starts from a verse and an archaeologist, not from a sound-alike name.

About the source

Most of what we know about Dan comes from the Book of Judges. Judges covers the time between Joshua and the first kings. It ends with Dan’s move north and the line “In those days there was no king in Israel” (Judges 18:1). The Song of Deborah in Judges 5 is often counted among the oldest poems in the Bible.

For books on Atlantis and early peoples, see Books about Atlantis.

Sources

Scholarship and reference works

• Yigael Yadin, “And Dan, why did he remain in ships”, Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 1.1 (1968): 9–23
• “Tribe of Dan”, Wikipedia
• “Tel Dan stele”, Wikipedia
• Bava Batra 109b, Babylonian Talmud, Sefaria
• Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 30, New Advent

Pages on this site

• The 12 Tribes
• Judges
• Amorite
• Transport of the Ark of the Covenant
• The Sea Peoples and the Philistines
• The Catalogue of Ships
• Libya, daughter of Epaphus
• The Irish Colonies from Atlantis
• Samson’s Birth and Blessing (Biglino)
• Confirmation from the Deep (Biglino)
• The Book of the Wars of the Lord

Bible text (KJV)

• Genesis 30:5–6, Genesis 46:23, Genesis 49:16–17
• Exodus 31:6
• Numbers 1:38–39, Numbers 2:25, Numbers 10:25, Numbers 26:42–43
• Deuteronomy 33:22
• Joshua 19:40–48
• Judges 1:34, Judges 5:17, Judges 13, Judges 16:31, Judges 18
• 1 Kings 12:28–30
• 1 Chronicles 7:12, 1 Chronicles 12:35, 2 Chronicles 2:13–14
• Jeremiah 8:16
• Ezekiel 48:1–2
• Revelation 7:4–8