Secret_History

384 The Secret History of the World
When we search for the source of this tribe, we find many interesting things as
well as things that are conspicuous by their absence. In Genesis 30:1-6, we
discover that Dan was the child of Rachel’s maid, Bilhah:
And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and
said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled
against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the
fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she
shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him
Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived,
and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard
my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.
This story is remarkably similar to the story of Sarai and Hagar in Genesis 16:1-
5
Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had a handmaid, an
Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the
Lord has restrained me from bearing: I ask you, have intercourse with my maid; it
may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram listened to Sarai. And Sarai
Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years
in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he
had intercourse with Hagar and she conceived: and when she saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My
wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that
she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee.
The last lines of both passages, dealing with “judgment”, indicate that they are,
in fact, the same story.
Another interesting connection pops up when we consider the identification of
Hiram as a member of the tribe of Naphtali in the passage describing the creation
of the pillars Jachin and Boaz. From I Chronicles, chapter 7:13:
The sons of Naphtali; Jahziel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah.
Keep the name “Shallum” in mind because we will encounter it again later in the
chapter.
We next come to another clue. In Genesis 49, the patriarch Jacob has called all
his children to gather around his deathbed so that he can pronounce their destiny
upon them. When he gets to Dan, in verses16 -18, he says:
Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by
the way, a horned snake in the path, that bites at the horse’s heels, so that his rider
shall fall backward. I wait for thy salvation, O Lord.
This is said almost as though the activity of Dan that is negative toward Israel, is
the salvation. In Deuteronomy 33:22, Moses blesses the tribe of Dan by saying,
“And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan”. But in the
blessing of Jacob, in Genesis 49:8-9 the attribute of the Lion is given to Judah:
Judah, you are the one whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the
neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you. Judah, a lion’s
cub! With the prey, my son, you have gone high up the mountain; he stooped down,
he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares provoke and rouse him?
Let’s compare that to two additional items: the destiny prescribed by God when
he appears to Hagar at the well when she ran away after Sarai was cruel to her