In the time of David Dan still kept its place among the tribes (1 Chron. xii, 35). Asher is omitted, but the "prince of the tribe of Dan" is mentioned in th6 list of 1 Chron. xxvii, 22. But firom this time for- ward the name as applied to the tribe vanishes ; it is kept alive only by the northern city. In the geneal- ogies of 1 Chron. ii to xii Dan is omitted entirely, which is remarlcable when the great fame of Samson and the warlike character of the tribe are considered, and can only be accounted for by supposing that its genealogies had perished. It is perhaps allowable to suppose that little care would be taken to preserve the records of a tribo which had left its original seat near ^he head-quarters of the nation, and given its name to
a distant city notorkfos only as fbe seat of a imll a forbidden worship. Lastly, Daa b onBttedftsI list of those who were sealed by the angel iatbi^ ion of John (Rev. vU, 5-7).~Smith, DieL itfBdk ^ Perhaps the portion of the tribe wfe^di i was in time smalgamsted with the tribe < appears in the cities enmnetated aiter 1 xi, 85), while the northern secthm mUed «^j northern oonfodeimcy, and shared id its dispom.
Town.
rata.
do.
da
BamUhf
da
Deir^Asfuibr
do.
DeirBatta.
do.
BwxOxL
HiU.
BeUFort
Town.
AinShems.
Valley.
iWadvMauinKt
Town.
AHr,
do.
iBeUSmtkiil
da
lEl'Mangurdilf
da
rakuaf
da
{RitfiML^
da
lSaiAm]f
da
Jimzv,
da
See Abduhxa.
da
El'H<tdia^
Ifap of the Tribe of Dan.
The following is a list of aU the places in tktr^ of Dan mentioned in Scripture, witii their pnb^ identification:
AJBlon.
AUon.
Arimathna.
Ataroth.Joab.
Baalath.
Bene-berak.
BeUi-oar.
Bekh-ahemeah.
Charaahim.
Ekron.
Elon.
Eltekoo.
Eahtad.
Gath-rimmmL
Otbbelhon.
Gimzo.
OitUim.
Hadid.
Heres. Moantain. Pee Jsamm.
Ir-Bhemesh. Town. See BaxB-flsiaiK-
JabnleI,«rJabneh. da YeimtiL
Japha do. Y<if>aL ^^ a_/a-.^
Jehnd. Town. El.Yl»mdi^f9l^ ,,
Jethlah. da dUMV.oflatnua]!
Joppa. da SeeJAPoa
LofLorLvdda. da Lmdd. ^.
Mahaneh-dan. Plain. W. of Kh^atb^eiiiB^
Makao. District. E.orEkrQnt
Me-jarkon. Town. iDamd9at]f
Neballat. da Beit NM/L
Ona da Kifr-AvncL
HakkoiL da [Kkea>eh}f
Selr Cor Setrath ?]. Mountain. Sari$.
ShaalblQ. Town. IBeU Sdrenf .
Sharon. Plain. Vkdnity dtTjaOi.
Shicron. Town. [fieitSWQT
TlmnahfOrTlmnath. da Silnth.
Zorah, or Zoreah. do. 8unu
The mention of thfa tribe In the "Mfl8ringi"«'j*] cob and Moses must not be overlooked, bat it »^ cult to extract any satbfiMstory meaning fi^ ^ According to Jewish tradition, Jacob's W«*«^fr\ is a prophetic allusion to Samson, the great "pj? of the tribe ; and the ejaculation with whick ft^ ^^as that actually uttered by Samson wlwn bw*
DAN
655
DAN
the temple at Gasa. (See the Tar^m Pb. Jona- i on Oen. xlix, 16, 17 ; and the quotations in Ka- l's Gemeeit ad loc.) ifodem critics likewise see illaskyii to Samson in the terms of the blessings eh tlaey presume on that account to have been ten softer the days of the Judges (Ewald, Oetch, i, Jerome^s obsearvations (Qa> *n Gm,) on this pas- ) Are very interesting. H^er's interpretation as m by Stanley {Pale$tme, p. 888) is as foUows : " It oubtfdl -whether the delineation of Dan in Jacob's »ing^ relates to the original setUement on the west- outskirts of Judah, or .to the northern outpost rder's escplanation will apply almost equally to both. m, ' the judge, * shall judge his people ;' he the son he concubine no less than the sons of Leah ; he the itier tribe no less than those In the places of honor U be ' as one of the tribes of Israel.* ' Dan shall a serpent by the way, an adder in the path,* that is, the in-vading enemy by the north or by the west, tat biteth the heels of the horse,* the indigenous ser- It biting the foieign horse unknown to Israelite rfiare, ' so that his rider shall fall backwards.* And ; war-cry as fh)m the frontier fortresses shall be, or Thy salvation, 0 Lord, I have waited!* In the tssincp of Hoses the southern Dan is lost sight of. ifi northern Dan alone appears, with the same char- teristics, though under a difierent image; 'a lion*s lelp* in the tax north, as Judah in the &r south: le shall leap from Basban* — from the slopes of Her- >n, where, he is couched watching for his prey.** 2. (Josephus t6 Aaviov.) The city so familiar as e most northern landmark of Palestine in the com> on expression ** from Dan even to Beersheba.** The ivae of the place was originally Laish or Leshem osh. xix, 47). Its inhabitants Uved ' * after the man- sr of the Zidonians,*' i. e. engaged in commerce, and ithout defence. But it is nowhere said that they ere Phoenicians, though this may perhaps be inferred om the parentage of Huram— his mother "of the lughters of Dan,*' his father "a man of Tyre*' (2 liron. ii, 14). They seem to have derived their secu- ity from the absence of any adverse powers in their eighborhood, and. from confidence in the protection f Sidon, which was, however, too far off to render aid A the case of such a sudden assault as that by which bey were overpowered. This distance of Sidon was areAilly noted by the Danite spies as a circumstance avorable to the enterprise; and it does not appear hat Sidon ever made any effort to dispossess the in- rudera. Living thus "quiet and secure," they fell in easy prey to the active and practised freebooters of he Danites. These conferred upon their new acquisi- »on the name of their own tribe, '* after the name of their father who was bom unto Israel" (Judg. xviii, 29 ; Josh, xix, 47), and Laish became Dan. The grav- m hnage which the wandering Danites had stolen from BGcah they set up in their new home, and a line of priests was established, which, though belonging to ^e tribe of Levi and even descended fh>m Moses, was not of the fyaauly of Aaron, and therefore not belong- hig to the regular priesthood. To the form of this im- age and the nature of the idoUttry we have no clew, nor to the special relation which existed between it and the calf-worship afterwards instituted there by Jeroboam (1 Kmgs xii, 29, 80). It only appears that Jeroboam took advantage of the confirmed idolatry of the Danites (Judg. xviii, 80), erected a temple in their ^7i and set up there one of his golden calves for the heneflt of those to whom a pilgrimage to Jerusalem would not have been politic, and a pilgrimage to Beth- el might have been irksome (1 Kings xii, 28). The J*tter worship is sllnded to by Amos (viii, 14) in a pas- sage which possibly preserves a formula of invocation or adjuration in use among the worshippers ; but the passage is very obscure. The worship of the calf may ^ traced to this day in the secret rites of the Nosai- ^^ Druse saints of the vicinity (Newbold, Jour, A$.