There are two pictures of the tribe of Dan, fraught with danger, like warning signs along the road.
Jacob said, “Dan shall be a serpent by the way” (Gen 49:17). Moses wrote, “Dan is a lion’s whelp; he shall leap from Bashan” (Deut 33:22). Sometimes a slithering serpent; at other times, a leaping lion. Watch out! “The territory of their inheritance was Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh, Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Jethlah, Elon, Timnah, Ekron, Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath, Jehud, Bene Berak, Gath Rimmon, Me Jarkon, and Rakkon, with the region near Joppa” (Jos 19:41-46). Do these names mean anything to you? Well, Zorah was the home of Manoah, father of Samson, whose dealings with the Philistines were either like a sly serpent or a savage lion. Timnah was the place of Tamar’s slippery artifice to capture the lion of Judah (Gen 38:12-26). Ekron was a Philistine stronghold, from which the stolen Ark was returned to Israel. Aijalon gives its name to the valley where the sun stood still, and the Yarkon River was used to transport cedars from Lebanon to Jerusalem for the temple. This region west of Benjamin and sandwiched between Judah and Joseph was the main thoroughfare from Israel’s only seaport at Joppa up to Jerusalem. It included fertile plains (now famous for Jaffa oranges) and should have been enough for Dan. But no. Instead of living around the corner from the worship sites at Shiloh, Gibeon, and Jerusalem, they moved to Israel’s northern extremity. That old serpent, the same who is the roaring lion, struck again, and Dan was the first tribe to institutionalize idolatry in the land. None from Dan stand with God during the Tribulation (Rev 7:4-8), but grace puts them first in the Millennial distribution of land (Ezek 48:1), the same grace that put Samson in Hebrews 11, and puts you and me in heaven.