Joshua 19:40-48

DAN’S LOT, Joshua 19:40-48.

[The territory assigned to Dan was the smallest of all the tribe divisions. But it was not without advantages. Its border on the northeast and south joined respectively on Ephraim, Benjamin, and Judah, the three most powerful tribes of Israel. Its western border was the Mediterranean. The territory thus enclosed embraced the beautiful plain south of Joppa, the cornfield and garden of Southern Palestine. Dr. Robinson thus describes this district, as seen from the tower of Ramleh: “Towards the north and south, as far as the eye could reach, the beautiful plain was spread out like a carpet at our feet, variegated with tracts of brown, from which the crops had just been taken, and with fields still rich with the yellow of ripe corn, or green with the springing millet. Immediately below us the eye rested on the immense olive groves of Ramleh and Lydda, and the picturesque towers, and minarets, and domes, of these large villages. In the plain itself there were not many villages; but the tract of hills, and the mountain side beyond, especially in the northeast, appeared as if studded with them, and, as now seen in the setting sun, they seemed like white villas and hamlets among the dark hills, presenting an appearance of thriftiness and beauty which certainly would not stand a closer examination.”

But the children of Dan were unable to hold this beautiful plain, for “the Amorites forced them into the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley,” (Judges 1:34,) and they were obliged to receive help from “the hand of the house of Joseph.” Joshua 19:35.

Some time after the allotment this tribe enlarged its possessions by the conquest of Laish in the north. Judges 18:0. In this covert but daring movement Dan fulfilled the prophecies of Jacob and of Moses. Genesis 49:17; Deuteronomy 13:32. Of this tribe was the famous hero Samson, who judged Israel twenty years. By taking Micah’s images, and with them establishing a tribe sanctuary at Dan, (Judges 18:20; Judges 18:30,) they seem to have been the first to adopt and establish an illegal worship in Israel, and as the tribe of Dan is not mentioned in Revelation 7:5-7, among those that were sealed, some of the fathers inclined to believe that from this tribe Antichrist should spring.]