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Dan -
Twelve Tribes of Israel
 The
Tribe of Dan (דָּן "Judge", Standard Hebrew
Dan, Tiberian Hebrew Dān) is one of the Hebrew tribes,
which the bible claims was founded by Dan, son of Jacob
and Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant (Genesis 30:4).
The tribe originally settled in the central coastal area
of the promised land (Joshua 19), in proximity to the
area controlled by the Philistines. Samson, the
legendary warrior against the Philistines, was said to
be a member of this tribe. Later, the bible claims that
the tribe moved to the northern part of the land (Judges
18), apparently due to military pressure by the
Philistines. There, its principal settlement was Tel
Dan. The move involved a religious act of defiance, when
the Dan people installed their own independent legacy of
Levite clergy.
When Jeroboam led the revolt of the northern tribes and
established the Kingdom of Israel, Dan was one of the
tribes in it, and so would count as one of the Lost
Tribes exiled by the Assyrians.
The original territory of Dan, before the move to the
north, is approximately the metropolitan area of Tel
Aviv. Hence this metropolis is known in Hebrew as Gush
Dan - the Dan area.
The Beta Israel, a group of Jews living in Ethiopia
which was isolated from
Israel until the 19th
century claim to be descendants of the Tribe of Dan,
though it is not clear how they got there.
The name of Dan means to
judge, to minister judgment or to plead a cause. It is
most significant that this name is engraved in the Beryl
stone which represents a subduing or a breaking. Dan was
to judge his own house as an equal, judge his tribe. |
