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| Imagine:
for the forty years of Solomon’s reign, a
Danite and his family could sit in the shade
of their grape arbors and face Phoenicia
(modern-day Lebanon) to the northwest and
Aram-Damascus (Syria) to the northeast,
without having to duck missiles. Just
kidding of course about the missiles, but
this passage makes clear that during all the
days of Solomon, the northern border was
secure. |
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| A century
later, however, about 853 B.C., Ahab, king
of Israel fortified Dan with a wall that
stands in some places ten feet tall to this
very day. This fortification was
apparently deemed necessary, despite Ahab’s
alliance by marriage with the Phoenicians.
Remember, Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, who invited
the prophets of Baal to dine at her royal
table, was the princess of Sidon. |
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Copyright
2012 by Gila Yudkin |
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Map showing Dan (once
Laish) and Phoenician cities Tyre and Sidon |
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When we
visit Dan on tour, one of our highlights is
sitting on the steps of the platform
presumed to be the altar to the golden calf.
We open our Bible to First
Kings 12 and read
about the golden calf and pilgrimage to Dan.
Afterwards, following the line of Ahab’s 9th
century B.C. wall, we skirt the pre-1967
trenches to reach the northern overlook. |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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High altar at Dan,
Israel's northern border |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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High altar at Dan as seen
from the trenches |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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Looking at Lebanon from
above the trenches at Dan |
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| It’s a
singular view towards modern-day Lebanon to
the west and the Golan Heights to the east.
The story of the capture of the village of
Ghajjar by Israel in 1967, one of those
amazing incidents that it seems can happen
only in Israel, conjures up visions of the
ancient conquest of Dan. That’s when
the people of Laish, as Dan was called by
the Canaanites, were lulled into a false
sense of security, for they had no relations
with anyone and were far from Sidon. (Judges
18:7, 28) |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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Golan Heights (formerly
Syria) as seen from Dan |
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| In the Book
of Genesis we read that when Jacob lay on
his deathbed, he called his sons before him.
To Dan, the son of Rachel’s maid-servant, he
bestowed the following blessing, “Dan shall
be a snake by the roadside, a viper along
the path, that bites the horse's heels so
that its rider falls backward.” (Genesis
49:17) |
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| This sounds
a bit obscure unless you know that Dan was
strategically positioned overlooking the
highway Isaiah called the Way of the Sea,
(the Via Maris) which connected the Nile
Delta with the Fertile Crescent between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Some
Bible scholars have called Israel “the land
between,” that is, the land between the two
great ancient civilizations, Egypt and
Mesopotamia. |
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Photo:
Rev. Darrell Mount |
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At Dan with the Israel-Lebanon border
behind Gila |
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| When you
next come to Dan with me, hopefully in the
near future, don’t forget to bring your
Bible! So much modern history has biblical
undertones and you’ll gain unparalleled
insights into biblical geography. In
the meantime, let’s remember the blessing
upon Dan’s great-grandfather, as recorded in
Genesis 12: |
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“I will bless those who
bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse;
And in you all the families of the earth
shall be blessed."
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On your next
pilgrimage, be sure to allow enough time at Dan
because there’s lots to see and
experience -- the gushing Dan springs,
Jereboam's high
altar for the golden calf, Ahab's benches
for the elders, the pistachio tree lookout
and the spectacular mud-brick gate
from the time of Abraham. |
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Photo by A
Pilgrim on tour with Gila |
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Dan Excavator Avraham
Biran answering Gila's questions July 1996 |
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Copyright 2006, 2016 Gila Yudkin. Permission
needed for any reuse. |
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