Dan: the “missing” tribe of Israel
Why is the tribe of Dan repeatedly mentioned through the Old Testament, but conspicuously absent in John’s vision of heaven while exiled on Patmos? Many theories have emerged about the tribes of Israel and what happened to them. Such discussions are outside the scope of this post. This blog post references an obvious omission, speculates on the reason for that omission, and then posits a conclusion.
Dan was one of the sons of Jacob (aka Israel). He is clearly mentioned in Genesis 30:6 and Genesis 35:25 as being Jacob’s son by Rachel’s servant named Bilhah. The tribe he spawned inherited coastal land and cities according to Joshua 19:40-46. At this point, Dan was clearly mentioned as one of the tribes.
The Apostle John was exiled on Patmos when he saw a vision. He recorded it in the Book of the Bible we call Revelation. In what we call chapter 7, verses 4-8, he lists the twelve tribes of Israel. Without going into all the other details, (such as why the tribe called Ephraim is listed as the tribe of his father Jacob) it is worth noting that the tribe of Dan is the only one missing from this list.
Why did John’s vision not include Dan? This omission certainly could not have been an error in transcription. John wrote down exactly what he saw, and in great detail. It is simply not plausible to think that the omission was erroneous. We can rule that out.
This means the omission was intentional. The fact that the tribe of Dan is not listed here is not widely known or recognized. Those who have noticed it have speculated that it was due to their pagan practices (e.g. – Richard Losch, The Uttermost Parts of the Earth, 2005). This seems at least plausible to us, although all the tribes seemed to fall victim to pagan practices at some point. Is it possible that the tribe of Dan was more egregious in their pagan practices or somehow influenced the other tribes to practice idolatry? Perhaps, although there is no evidence to support that supposition.
We have developed an alternate hypothesis which we think is more plausible. It is based on the Lord’s command to take the land. (Deuteronomy 1:8) Almost all the tribes struggled to follow the Lord’s command. Some of them lost some of their land. No tribe, with one exception, appears to have lost all their land, and moved entirely to take someone else’s land. Who is that one tribe? If you guessed “Dan,” you would be right.
In Genesis 49, Jacob makes specific prophesies in poetic language about the descendants of each of his sons. About Dan, he said that his descendants “…shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward.” (Genesis 49:17) While it is true that Jacob has some negative comments to make about some of his other children and their descendants as well, none of these other prophecies are quite as negative and specific as his words about Dan.
Some have pointed to Samson as the fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy for the descendants of Dan. Samson was notorious for his dealings with the Philistines described in Judges 13-16. The original land described as allocated to Dan according to Joshua 19:40-46 is toward the middle of the land, directly above where the Philistines settled. It makes sense that Dan would be at war with the Philistines.
The problem is, they ultimately appear to have lost this war. Joshua 19:47-48 and especially Judges 18 provide the evidence. Joshua 19:47-48 records that the tribe of Dan lost its allotted land, so that they migrated far to the north and drove the people of Leshem (also called Laish) out and renamed that city to Dan. Incidentally, this seems to be why the land of Israel is referred to as “Dan to Beersheba” nine times in the Bible, but only AFTER this migration took place, starting in Judges chapter 20.
Judges 18 likely gives us more detail of the same incident. This passage records how “the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them” and then “came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.” (Emphasis ours)
The city of Laish may well have been (as most maps show) within the borders of Naphtali as specified in Joshua 19:32-39. Laish is not listed among the “fortified cities” in Naphtali’s territory described in that passage. This fact means that if the city of Laish was part of the territory of the tribe of Naphtali, it almost certainly did not have a wall around it. That would be consistent with the Judges 18 account of how Dan was able to surprise the inhabitants.
We think the reason the tribe of Dan is not mentioned in Revelation 7:4-8 is not idolatry. We think it was not just their warlike nature. One could argue many of the tribes of Israel were just as idolatrous or warlike. Dan is the only tribe that seems to have lost its land (contrary to God’s command to take the land), struggled to find an identity, then used their warlike nature to take other land from a peaceful people, arguably from another tribe of Israel. We see Jacob’s prophecy about Dan’s descendants as being fulfilled by Joshua 19:47-48 and Judges 18. We believe that is why John’s vision also omits Dan in listing the twelve tribes. While we may never know for sure this side of heaven, this remains our best guess here on earth.