Who
The first son of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, named because “God has judged me” (Genesis 30:6). Jacob said, “Dan will judge his people” (Genesis 49:16), and also, “Dan will be a serpent on the trail, an adder in the path” (Genesis 49:17). Samson was of his tribe, which later moved north and set up an idol at Laish, renamed Dan (Judges 18), and Jeroboam put a golden calf there. Dan is missing from the twelve tribes sealed in Revelation 7, and Irenaeus, reading Jeremiah 8:16 with it, held that the Antichrist would come from that tribe.
Key verses
- Genesis 30:6
Rachel said, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan.
- Genesis 35:25
The sons of Bilhah (Rachel’s servant): Dan and Naphtali.
- Genesis 49:16
“Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
- Genesis 49:17
Dan will be a serpent on the trail, an adder in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward.
- 1 Chronicles 2:2
Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
Where the Bible names him
Family
Discussed by
Comments on the verses that name him.
- Hippolytus of Rome, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist
Part II.—Dogmatical and Historical. 1. As it was your desire, my beloved brother Theophilus, to be thoroughly informed on those topics which I put summarily before you, I have thought it right to set these matters of…
- Jerome, Against Jovinianus Book 1
Jovinianus, concerning whom we know little more than is to be found in the two following books, had published at Rome a Latin treatise containing all, or part of the opinions here controverted, viz. (1) “That a…
- Hippolytus of Rome, Exegetical Fragments §2
On Genesis. Gen. i. 5 And it was evening, and it was morning, one day. Hippolytus. He did not say “night and day,” but “one day,” with reference to the name of the light. He did not say the “first day;” for if he had…
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures Lecture 16
On the Clause, And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead; Of Whose Kingdom There Shall Be No End. On the Clause, And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead; Of Whose Kingdom There Shall Be…