Dan:
Serpent to Israel. Genesis 49:15-16
Up
to this point we have looked at Jacob’s prophecy regarding the first six sons.
The first four of them were the first four sons born to Leah. He covers the
sons of Leah first. Then in verse 15 he shifts from the sons of Leah to the
four sons from the concubine. He begins with Dan and then goes to Gad, Asher
and Naphtali.
Genesis
49:16 NASB “Dan
shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel. [17] Dan shall be a
serpent in the way, A horned snake in the path, That bites the horse’s heels,
So that his rider falls backward.” Those two verses form the core of the
prophecy and then there is a sort of prayerful interlude as Jacob is meditating
upon Dan and upon the prophecies, and in verse 18 he focuses on God’s
redemptive plan. “For Your salvation I wait, O LORD.” This is the first time in the
Old Testament where we have the Hebrew word yeshua, which is the word for salvation or
deliverance. It is used primarily in the Old Testament for physical
deliverance, of rescue, of deliverance of the nation in times of trouble.
The
prophecy to Dan that begins “Dan shall judge
his people” I based on a play on words with the name of the tribe and the
Hebrew word to judge. What is important here is that we have to understand that
there are two different Hebrew words, two synonyms, for this concept of
judging, and they have different emphases. One is a broader term; one is a
narrower term. The first word is shaphat, a word meaning to judge or to govern.
It is more often than not translated as “judge” but it is a much broader term,
much broader than our modern concept of the judiciary. The judge in the Old Testament,
the judges, were men who often ruled, led the nation in the military conquests
of their enemies, they made decisions in disputes between people, but more
often than not it was a word that related to somebody who was ruling or
controlling the nation, the key leader in the nation. This is the word that is
used exclusively in the book of Judges. It is a leadership term. The word that
we find in Genesis 49 is not the word shaphat and is not a word for ruling in that
sense. It is a word that is much more restricted. In the restricted sense the
two words are often used as synonyms but shaphat has a broader sense as well. The word
in Genesis 49 is the Hebrew word bin, and that is where we get the name Dan. The
name is based on the word for justice. The Complete Word Study Dictionary of
the Old Testament says that this is a verb meaning to bring justice, to go to
court, to pass sentence, to contend for something, to act as a judge, to
govern, to plead a cause, to be at strife or to quarrel. The primary idea is of
bringing about justice, so it is a very narrow concept when compared with shaphat.
Halot, the Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament says that the meaning of
this word is to plead one’s cause, to contend with someone over a judicial
issue, or to execute judgment. So this is the basic meaning of the word, it is
not a word that would indicate rulership.
There
are those who have jumped to the illegitimate conclusion that this indicated
the rulership of the Antichrist and that the Antichrist would come from the
tribe of Dan in the Tribulation period. The problem with that is that when we
get into Revelation we see that the Antichrist is the first beast that comes
out of the sea. He is the ruler of the ten-nation confederacy, which is
referred to in Daniel chapter nine and an allusion to the same people who
conquered Jerusalem in AD 70. That is a Gentile, not a Jew. So the Antichrist
can’t come from the tribe of Dan because the Antichrist is going to be a
Gentile who will come from the remnants of the old Roman Empire.
So
the term bin
is a much more narrow term and it emphasises the fact that when Dan’s mother
[Bilhah] Rachel named him she felt that she was being vindicated before God
because Bilhah was serving as her substitute in childbirth.
Summary of Dan’s tribal history
1)
The descendants of Dan displayed wonderful achievements as
well as some gross failures. It is heavier on the gross failure end than it is
on the brilliant achievement end. This tribe is not known because of their
great spiritual interest and their positive volition to God but they do have
some positive achievements, not in the spiritual realm where they have
tremendous failure. They were responsible for leading nation into idolatry many
times in their history.
2)
The Danites were the second most numerous tribe in the
wilderness period, second only to the tribe of Judah. If we look at the tribe
allotment, the inheritance set apart for Dan was not nearly the size of the
allotment for Judah. They failed to take their land and this was due to their
spiritual failure.
3)
One of the better members of this tribe is Aholiab who was
Bezaliel’s assistant. Bezaliel was the chief craftsman on the tabernacle. He is
on the positive end and on the other end is the womanising, self-absorbed
Samson, and these are the two most famous members of this particular tribe.
4)
At the end of the wilderness period as they are about to go
into the land there is another prophetic statement made about Dan by
Moses—Deuteronomy 33:22 where Moses refers to the tribe as a lion’s cub,
using a term and an imagery that is very similar to the imagery that Jacob uses
for the tribe of Judah and the reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is
a difference in the metaphor.
5)
The period of the Judges is when we primarily see a lot of
information about the tribe of Dan, and this involves two key events. One has
to do with Samson and his judgeship—Judges 13-16. That is followed in
chapters 17 & 18 by a focus on the migration that occurs by the Danites
from the south to the north. They conquer the people in Laish and establish
their inheritance in the northern part of the land, but in doing so they pick
up this reprobate Levite priest, an apostate, and take him up to Dan to
establish an alternative worship site and an alternative religion. He is a
descendant of Moses so they think he has some legitimacy and this becomes a
trap and a snare for the Danites throughout the rest of history.
6)
Though some have argued that the Antichrist comes from the
tribe of Dan this cannot be supported biblically. The tribe is omitted later on
from the genealogies in 1 Chronicles 2-10, and it is also omitted from the
twelve tribes that are mentioned in Revelation chapter seven. There is no
Jewish evangelist from the tribe of Dan during the Tribulation period, but
nevertheless God’s grace does provide them with a future and they do have an
inheritance in the land, according to Ezekiel’s layout and apportionment of the
land during the millennial kingdom.
The
birth of Dan occurred after Leah had had four sons. Rachel is still unable to
conceive and is barren so she offers her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob. Genesis
30:1-4 NASB “Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children,
she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or
else I die.’ Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, ‘Am I in
the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’ She said,
‘Here is my maid Bilhah, go in to her that she may bear on my knees, that
through her I too may have children.’ So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a
wife, and Jacob went in to her.” Rachel is unable to fulfil her role and her
place in the family as the one who brings forth the next generation and so she
is completely frustrated and is blaming Jacob. [5] “Bilhah conceived and bore
Jacob a son. [6] Then Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated [bin] me, and has indeed heard my voice
and has given me a son.’ Therefore she named him Dan.”
After
the birth of Dan and the mention of Dan as one of the twelve sons the next time
we have any reference to Dan is in the book of Exodus and at the time of the
Exodus. In Numbers 1:39 we learn that there were 62,700 men in the tribe of Dan
as they left Egypt. In numbers 26:42 after the Exodus generation has died off
and they are about to enter the land they took a second census and the tribe of
Dan had actually increased to 64,400. Dan was situated on the north side of the
encampment, of the tabernacle, and in the marching order Dan would bring up the
rear.
The
next specific reference that we have is Deuteronomy 33:22 after the census.
Moses is giving a blessing to the people and goes through the tribes and here
he gives a blessing to Dan. “Of Dan he said, ‘Dan is a lion’s whelp, That leaps
forth from Bashan.’” Lions were often used as symbols of power, of majesty, of
royalty, as well as just symbols of military strength and prowess, which is the
idea here. Moses is emphasizing that Dan would be strong and would have
military power over its enemies. This is fulfilled in the historical event of
their migration north and the conquest of Laish. The second phrase in the
prophecy, “leaps from Bashan,” doesn’t mean that he is going to come from
Bashan or that military activity is going to occur in Bashan, it is simply an
allusion to the fact that this is an area where there many hills and caves and
a lot of leopards at that particular time in history. It just embellishes on
the imagery of the military power of this lion’s whelp.
The
next time Dan is mentioned is during the conquest, in Joshua and the first
chapter of the book of Judges. Dan was given territory that is adjacent to
Judah. Then we next hear of Dan in Judges chapter thirteen.
There
is such a failure among evangelical Christians to understand what is going on
in the book of Judges and they tend to look at these people through the lens of
Hebrews chapter eleven where there is a list of great heroes of the faith, men
who trusted God at key moments and saw God give them victory in various ways in
the Old Testament. The problem is that people tend to read this to
superficially and they extrapolate from the fact that somebody is mentioned
there so there is some sort of idealized vision that they were tremendously
mature believers whose lives characterized great faith all the time. In many
cases they did not. In many cases they were great failures spiritually but they
managed to trust God and come through in the clinches once in their life.
Hebrews
11:30 NASB “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they
had been encircled for seven days. [31] By faith Rahab the harlot did not
perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies
in peace. [32] And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, [33] who
by faith conquered kingdoms, performed {acts of} righteousness, obtained
promises, shut the mouths of lions.” Gideon was no great valiant warrior. There
is a lot of sarcasm there when the angel of the Lord shows up in Judges chapter
six. Barak failed to really trust
God and to be the leader that God really wanted him to be and so Deborah said
that God was going to take the victory away from him and give it to a woman.
Jephthah is raised out in the wild lands west of the Jordan in a pagan
environment and he doesn’t understand how God operates. Believers have sin
natures and are capable of doing all the horrible things the unbeliever can do
if they don’t have any biblical truth in their souls. The book of Judges is a
very negative book; a book for the study of a culture in relativism because it
shows how relativism seeps into the society at all levels. The leadership
becomes compromised, the people are compromised, and the religious leaders are
compromised. Samson fits into that scenario. He is the last judge; his purpose
is to go against the Philistines. They are the oppressors at that time. But of
we read through the book of Judges we will note that Othniel delivers the
nation, Ehud delivers the nation from Eglon, Deborah is a strong woman who
knows what is right but Barak fails to be the male leader he should be. Then
Gideon leads the nation into idolatry. Samson fits within a deteriorating cycle
and when we get to him everybody else has delivered the nation from the
oppressor but Samson doesn’t. At the end of the Samson story Samson tears down
the temple but he doesn’t defeat the Philistines. It is not until David comes
along that the Philistines are finally defeated. Samson is the failure; Samuel
the last judge will be the success.
Judges
13:2 NASB “There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of
the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no
{children.}” Every time we get
into a story in the Old Testament where the Bible tells us that the wife is
barren ears ought to prick up a little bit because it only happens to six women
in the Old Testament and each one is significant—Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel,
and the mother of Samson. God is doing something; it is no chance thing that
she is barren. She is barren for two reasons. One is that God has a specific
plan for her to be the mother of Samson and He is going to do something to the
nation through Samson, but also because in the Mosaic Law there was the
specific statement that when the nation was disobedient to God the wombs would
be empty. It was a sign of divine discipline on a nation that was disobedient
to God. [3] “Then the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her,
“Behold now, you are barren and have borne no {children,} but you shall
conceive and give birth to a son.” This son is going to be Samson.
Genesis
49:16 NASB “Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of
Israel” This is probably fulfilled in the Samson narrative because he is one
who judges the people. He may be rebellious, apostate and self-absorbed but he
functions as a judge. But then we have a further statement made in Genesis
49:17 NASB “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, A horned snake in the
path, That bites the horse’s heels, So that his rider falls backward.” Notice
the two words “serpent” and “heel.” When was the last time we saw these two
words in the same passage? It takes us back to the promise of the Messiah in
Genesis 3:15. There are two approaches to the interpretation of the metaphor
here. The first approach is to look at this verse as a prophecy related to
Samson. This isn’t a lion attacking with power, this is talking about a serpent
that is camouflaged by the side of the trail and as a horse and rider come by
the viper strokes at the horse and the horse rears up and throws the rider. So
this talks about a subtler, more cunning form of attack. The argument is that
this is fulfilled in Samson who through cunning confounds the Philistines,
topples their horse and tears their house down. Another thing we should note
here is that there is a change in the word for serpent. The first word is the
Hebrew word nachash
which just refers to any generic sort of snake or serpent. It is also used to
refer to Satan in Genesis chapter three. The second word, a viper [horned
snake] by the path, refers to a more specific kind of snake. This is a
poisonous snake, a viper or an adder, possibly a horned snake.
The
second option sees the association of the serpent with Dan as reminiscent of
the serpent in the garden. This is reinforced by the use of the terms serpent
and heel, so we have to make a decision. Is this talking about something
positive about Samson or is it talking about something that is rather negative.
In the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation we see this imagery of the serpent.
The great dragon, Revelation 12:9, is cast out of heaven, “the serpent of old
called the devil and Satan.” So which of these two images are we talking about
here? It can be argued that it is not likely that this is a reference to the
cunning of Samson, first of all because the serpent really isn’t known for
cunning. Second, the word for “judge” in the word Dan is din, not shaphat. Shaphat is the word we have for Samson.
It is making too much of the judgeship trying to tie that to Samson when if
there is an allusion to Samson at all, that Dan will judge the other tribes,
there wouldn’t need to be an additional allusion to Samson in verse 17. Here
however, the imagery is overwhelmingly an emphasis on evil. In the book of
Judges we see that there is a lack of spiritual depth or any kind of positive
spiritual attribute for Samson at all. Then in the subsequent chapters we see
that in their migration to the north they established an alternate worship
site, an alternate priesthood, and later on under Jereboam I he has two golden
calves made and tells the people that this is the god that took them out of
Egypt, the god of their fathers, and leads them into idolatry. He sets up one
worship site in Samaria, and the other one is Dan. So it is in the territory of
Dan that we see this ongoing emphasis on idolatry and on their apostasy. So it
is probable that Genesis 49:16 is an allusion to the fact that Dan will be a
tribe in the future that will lead the nation into idolatry and be a source of
evil. It is not until the millennial kingdom that anything positive is said
about Dan.
So
Samson’s birth is announced in Judges 13 and the parents don’t seem to be
really bright for some reason. The angel returns and tells the mother that
Samson will be a Nazirite from birth. To be a Nazarite meant three things.
Usually it was someone who took a vow at some point in their life and during
the period of that vow these conditions would be true. But in the case of
Samson this was true from his birth. First of all, he could not drink any wine
or grape juice, he couldn’t even touch a vine. Second, he couldn’t touch a dead
body at all. Third, a Nazarite could not cut his hair during the time of the
Nazirite vow. Those were the three things that were imposed upon Samson from
the very beginning. What we see, starting from chapter fourteen, is that Samson
doesn’t have any inclination whatsoever to fulfil his vow or to be obedient to
the Lord. He is completely focused on his own personal pleasure and fulfilling
his own lust. He finds a pagan woman and wants to marry outside of Israel.
Notice in 14:5 he goes down to the vineyards of Timnah. Right away there is a
big hint in the text telling us that he seems not at all concerned about his
vow. “…and behold, a young lion {came} roaring toward him. [6] The Spirit of
the LORD came upon him
mightily, so that he tore him as one tears a young goat though he had nothing
in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.”
Question: How is the Spirit of God working in the Old Testament? In the New
Testament we think that when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon somebody or
fills somebody they are in right relationship to the Holy Spirit, and that has
to do with spirituality and spiritual growth. But Samson is a self-absorbed,
disobedient, rebellious adolescent who can’t wait to fulfil his own lust and
the Spirit of God comes upon him. Perhaps the ministry of the Holy Spirit in
the Old Testament in these scenarios is quite different from the way it is in
the New Testament. It is not the same. The Holy Spirit is coming upon him for
the purpose of supplying leadership for the nation Israel—not spiritual
leadership. The Spirit of God comes upon various people in the Old Testament
for various reasons, one of which is to give military commanders military
skills to defeat the enemies of Israel regardless of their spiritual maturity,
their desire to know God or anything else. So he tears the lion apart with his
bare hands, but he doesn’t tell his parents. So we see another element to his
character, that he is rather secretive, because he is not supposed to be where
he was, in the vineyard, and that is where he kills the lion.