JUDGES - Christian Identity Forum

The Levites’Failure: Religious Apostasy 289
because they were indeed included in God’s command that all
Canaanites be driven out or exterminated. The point here, however,
is that the Danite tough guys were really cowards. Ezekiel
later on compares Gog and Magog to these Danites (Ezk. 38:11,
14).
29. And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name
of Dan their father who was born in Israel; however, the name of
the city formerly was Laish.
We already know that Dan their father “was born in Israel.”
Why mention it here? Because by doing so the writer is able to
introduce a subtle contrast between Dan and his descendants.
He was born in Israel. They have, for all intents and purposes,
left the nation. In leaving God, they have forsaken the
kingdom.
30. And the sons of Dan setup for themselves the graven image;
and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh
[MOSESI, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites
until the day of the captivity of the land.
31. So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image
which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at
Shiloh.
The captivity of the land spoken of here is the Philistine captivity
delineated in 1 Samuel 4 and 7:3, 4. This to me is another
slight indication that Samuel probably wrote the book of
Judges. It was apparently written when he was judging Israel, at
least.
The city of Dan became a center of idolatrous worship,
under the leadership of Moses’ descendants! Jeroboam I of
Northern Israel (Ephraim) put one of his golden calves there.
Jeroboam’s program was as follows: Rather than trust the
promise of the Lord for his protection (1 Ki. 11:38), Jeroboam
feared that if the people worshiped the Lord in Jerusalem they
would eventually reject him as their king and kill him (1 Ki.
12:27). To prevent that, he created a separate religion. He setup
two golden calves, one at Bethel near the border with Judah,
and one at Dan for obvious reasons (1 Ki. 12:29.). He created a
new theology, based on the original golden calf incident. He