Tribe of Dan
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- Tribe of Dan was also a band from the mid 1990s.
The Tribe of Dan (דָּן "Judge", Standard Hebrew Dan, Tiberian Hebrew Dān) is one of the Hebrew tribes, which the Bible claims was founded by Dan, son of Jacob and Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant (Genesis 30:4). In Exodus the tribe of Dan was said to be the most numerous of those leaving Egypt.
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[edit] In the Bible
The tribe originally settled in the central coastal area of Palestine (Joshua 19), in proximity to the area controlled by the Philistines. Samson, the legendary warrior against the Philistines, was said to be a member of this tribe. The inability of the tribe to settle its inheritance in the fertile valleys already occupied by the Philistines, led the group to abandon their positions in the Hill Country overlooking the Sorek Valley (Mahaneh Dan = "Camps of Dan") and migrate to an open area. The tribe then moved to the northern part of the land (Judges 18), apparently due to military pressure by the Philistines. In the north, the principal settlement was the ancient site of Luz, later named Dan, whose ruins are located at modern Tel Dan. The move involved a religious act of defiance, when the Dan people installed their own independent legacy of Levite clergy (see Judges 17). The location of the Tribe of Dan, between Ekron and Joppa, would place them in the medial position between the Philistines and the Tjekker, at Acre, according to the tales of Wenamon. If so the tribe of Dan would have perhaps been identified with the Denyen, part of the Sea People's invasion of Egypt. Dan seems to have been added to the Israelite confederation after the period of Deborah, as when this prophet called upon the aid of the people's of Israel, Dan was preoccupied with "his ships" and did not respond to the call.
When Jeroboam led the revolt of the northern tribes and established the Kingdom of Israel, Dan was one of the tribes in it, and so would count as one of the Lost Tribes exiled by the Assyrians.
[edit] Territory
The original territory of Dan, before the move to the north, includes the area as far north as modern Tel Aviv, but extends south into the Shephelah in the area of Timnah and the Sorek Valley. Hence this metropolis is known in Hebrew as Gush Dan - the Dan area.
[edit] Modern communities claiming descendancy
The Beta Israel, a group of Jews living in Ethiopia which was isolated from Israel until the 19th century, claim to be descendants of the Tribe of Dan.
