The reason
I love studying the Bible with a group of people is that they teach me things I
don’t know. I love it when I don’t know
the answer to a question. That is how I
learn. So when someone recounted the
ugly tail of Dan’s idolatry in Judges 18 concluding with the passage in Judges
18:30-31:
There the Danites set up for themselves the idol, and
Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the
tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land. They continued to use the idol Micah had made, all
the time the house of God was in Shiloh. I wanted
to know if that could possibly be true that the Danites never ever worshiped
God! How could that be?
Before
I had a chance to settle that question, someone in the class read the passage
from Revelation 7 where the tribe of Dan was omitted. I never considered that! I never realized that a whole tribe of Israel
was not found in the New Testament. What
could that mean? As an avid reader of
the Old Testament, I am constantly trying to help people see that is not that
God is so mean; it is that man is so depraved.
In
the case of the missing tribe of Dan, the answers are worth finding out. Actually, two tribes are not mentioned;
Ephraim and Dan. Some wonder if the
Revelation 7 omit is a textual issue and that the tribe Manasseh (the son of
Joseph) was meant to be Dan (just spelled wrong through the ages) and in fact
Ephraim and Manasseh are combined into the name Joseph (since he was the son of
Jacob and Ephraim and Manasseh were the grandsons). However,
Ephraim’s tribe was the one who had the idols that the Danites
stole. I think it is striking that these
two names specifically are not mentioned in Revelation 7. They are idolaters and because of that reason
they are not part of the promises of heaven.
It also gives me a deeper understanding of the Samaritans (the ancestors
of Dan and Ephraim) that we encounter so often in the Gospels. It helps me see how they got so far from
God. It is even more meaningful to me
that Jesus reached out to them and some Samaritans responded to the Good
News.
I
will never completely understand the Bible and especially Revelation and what
the 144,000 list in Revelation 7 means exactly.
What I can know is that the missing names cause me to reflect on the
fact that idolatry is worship of Satan and I don’t want any part of it. I must constantly stand on guard against
idolatry if I don’t want to take a chance that I will be left off an important
spiritual list.
The
missing tribes of Dan and Ephraim are indeed a lesson to me. They are a warning I must heed. They teach me that God is amazingly faithful
to amazingly unfaithful people. I know
that idolatry is a grievous sin. This particular strain of idolatry was took
root when a mother overlooked her own son’s stealing. Rather than rebuke him, she gave him free
reign and encouraged his path to idolatry.
The missing tribes make me want to stay eager to examine my life and be
ever mindful of how easy it was for these tribes to walk away from the beauty
and truth of God and exchange it for an idol made of stolen gold.
What
have you learned that you never knew about the Bible lately?
Since Ezekiel 48 specifically mentions tribe of Dan's land boundaries in the millennial reign, and the Gate named for the tribe of Dan in the City of Jerusalem for millennial reign, and the two half tribes of Joseph share one gate, then the "missing tribe" is based on nothing that has any foundational proof in all Scripture. Even Rev 21 shows the gate named Dan is there...with the other 11 gates.
ReplyDeleteIn the above, correction: the Revelation 21 twelve gates to the City of God, New Jerusalem, are in the New creation and the Ezekiel 48 gates are to the millennial City of God, Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me reply.
Terrie