Dan

Benjamin, both wings of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun are once again put together.

And the four tribes that come from the maidservants, Gad and Dan, Naphtali and Asher, all these tribes receive their blessings.

If you read the blessings, you may miss it, but there's one tribe that's not mentioned, and that's Shimon.

Shimon is omitted.

Why is it so important? Because this is actually a national Torah scroll.

Every soul is a letter and thus every soul is positioned exactly where it needs to be because the whole people are spelling out the whole Torah.

And that's why when the blasphemer tries to park himself and pitch his tent amongst the tribe of Dan, they make a big uproar about it.

You can't be here because you're corrupting our national Torah scroll.

Now they really wanted it for the other reason.

The next tribe is the tribe of Dan.

Dan is compared again to a lion.

Rashi tells us he too was on the border and therefore he was encouraged and given the strength to deal with the threats on the border.

Naphtali is satiated with favor.

Rashi tells us that this is not just the physical land, the territory of the land of Israel, but the history of the land.

What happens to it in peace? What happens to it in war? Who are the oppressors that are going to oppress it? And the various different people that it's describing here, these are events in the future history of the Jewish people.

So the verse says he showed Moses the Gilead as far as Dan.

This is the inheritance of the tribe of the sons of Naphtali for their families, the cities, and their villages.

for the tribe of the sons of Dan, for their families, hath the seventh lot gone out.

And the border of their inheritance is Zorah, and Eshtahol, and Irshamesh, and Shalabin, and Aijalon, and Jethla, and Elon, and Timnatha, and Ekron, and El-Tekkeh, and Gibethon, and Baalaf, and Jehud, and Bene-Barak, and Gathrimon, and Majarkon, and Rakon, with the border over against jopho and the border of the sons of dan goeth out from them and the sons of dan go up and fight with leshem and capture it and smite it by the mouth of the sword and possess it and dwell in it and call leshem dan according to the name of dan their father this is the inheritance of the tribe of the sons of dan for their families these cities and their villages and they finish to give the land in inheritance by its borders and the sons of israel give an inheritance to joshua son of nun in their midst by the command of jehovah they have given to him the city which he asked timnath sirah in the hill country of ephraim and he buildeth the city and dwelleth in it these are the inheritances which eleazar the priest and joshua son of nun and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the sons of israel have caused to inherit by lot in shiloh before jehovah at the opening of the tent of meeting and they finish to apportion the land chapter twenty and jehovah speaketh unto joshua saying speak unto the sons of israel saying give for you cities of refuge as i have spoken unto you by the hand of moses for the fleeing thither of a manslayer smiting life inadvertently without knowledge and they have been to you for a refuge from the redeemer of blood when one hath fled unto one of these cities and hath stood at the opening of the gate of the city and hath spoken in the ears of the elders of that city his matter then they have gathered him into the city unto them and have given to him a place and he hath dwelt with them and when the redeemer of blood doth pursue after him then they do not shut up the manslayer into his hand for without knowledge he hath smitten his neighbor and is not hating him hitherto and he hath dwelt in that city till his standing before the company for judgment till the death of the chief priest who is in those days then doth the manslayer turn back and hath come unto his city and unto his house unto the city whence he fled and they sanctify Kadesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba, it is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah.

And beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward they have given Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.