Dan

Dan was the fifth son of the patriarch Jacob and the first of the two sons he had with Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant. From him descends the tribe of Dan, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Orthodox Church honours him among the patriarchs and ancestors of the Lord, on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, before the Nativity of the Lord.

Name and birth

The name Dan means in Hebrew "judge," or "he judged." His birth is told in Genesis 30:1-6. Leah, Jacob's first wife, already had four sons, but Rachel, whom Jacob loved more, had none. Full of grief, she asked Jacob, according to the custom of the time, to take her maidservant Bilhah. Bilhah bore a son, and Rachel said, "God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son," and she named him Dan. Then Bilhah bore Naphtali.

Dan and his tribe

Dan went down into Egypt with Jacob and his brothers, together with his son Hushim. When Jacob blessed his sons before his death, he said of Dan: "Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse's heels so that his rider falls backward. I wait for your salvation, O Lord" (Genesis 49:16-18). At the exodus from Egypt the tribe of Dan numbered 62,700 men able to bear arms, the second largest.

After the conquest of Canaan, Dan received a small territory between Judah and the Philistines, near the Mediterranean. From his tribe arose Samson, the judge. Pressed by the Philistines, a part of the tribe set out northward, took the city of Laish and named it Dan; from then on "from Dan to Beersheba" meant the whole land of Israel. Oholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, was chosen by God to help Bezalel in the work of the Tabernacle.

In later writings

In the Book of Judges (chapters 17 and 18) the Danites make idols and a priest of their own, and King Jeroboam set at Dan one of the two golden calves. For this reason later tradition mentioned him less. The tribe of Dan is missing from the list of those sealed in Revelation 7, where Manasseh stands in its place. Some Fathers, such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus, read in Jacob's words a sign that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan, but this is an interpretation and not the teaching of the Church.

Veneration

Dan is remembered with the other patriarchs, the sons of Jacob, as an ancestor of the people of God from whom Christ came. Nothing certain is known of his death or tomb.