Philistines, whom they were unable to conquer, they longed for a wider
space. They accordingly sent out five spies from two of their towns, who
went north to the sources of the Jordan, and brought back a favourable
report regarding that region. “Arise,” they said, “be not slothful to go, and
to possess the land,” for it is “a place where there is no want of any thing
that is in the earth” (Judges 18:10). On receiving this report, 600 Danites
girded on their weapons of war, and taking with them their wives and their
children, marched to the foot of Hermon, and fought against Leshem, and
took it from the Sidonians, and dwelt therein, and changed the name of the
conquered town to Dan (Joshua 19:47). This new city of Dan became to
them a new home, and was wont to be spoken of as the northern limit of
Palestine, the length of which came to be denoted by the expression “from
Dan to Beersheba”, i.e., about 144 miles.
“But like Lot under a similar temptation, they seem to have succumbed to
the evil influences around them, and to have sunk down into a condition of
semi-heathenism from which they never emerged. The mounds of ruins
which mark the site of the city show that it covered a considerable extent
of ground. But there remains no record of any noble deed wrought by the
degenerate tribe. Their name disappears from the roll-book of the natural
and the spiritual Israel.”, Manning’s Those Holy Fields.
This old border city was originally called Laish. Its modern name is Tell
el-Kady, “Hill of the Judge.” It stands about four miles below Caesarea
Philippi, in the midst of a region of surpassing richness and beauty.
(2.) This name occurs in Ezek 27:19, Authorize Version; but the words
there, “Dan also,” should be simply, as in the Revised Version, “Vedan,”
an Arabian city, from which various kinds of merchandise were brought to
Tyre. Some suppose it to have been the city of Aden in Arabia. (See
MAHANEH-DAN.)
- DANCE found in Judges 21:21, 23; Psalm 30:11; 149:3; 150:4; Jeremiah
31:4, 13, etc., as the translation of hul, which points to the whirling motion
of Oriental sacred dances. It is the rendering of a word (rakad’) which
means to skip or leap for joy, in Ecclesiastes 3:4; Job 21:11; Isaiah 13:21,
etc.
In the New Testament it is in like manner the translation of different Greek
words, circular motion (Luke 15:25); leaping up and down in concert
(Matthew 11:17), and by a single person (Matthew 14:6).