Dennis Tuuri

Joshua 19:24 and following.

And the fifth lot came out for the tribe of the children of Asher according to their families. And their border was Helkath and Halley and Betan and Akshaf and Alamc and Amdai, and Mishiel, and reached to Carmel westward, and to Shihore Libnath, and turned toward the sunrise to Beth Dagon, and reached to Zebulun, and to the valley of Jiphthael, toward the north side of Beth Emek, and Neiel, and goeth out to Cabul, on the left hand, and Hebron, and Rehob, and Hammon, and Kanah, even unto Great Sidon.

And then the coast turneth to Rama, and to the strong city Tyre. And the coast turneth to Hosah, and the outgoings thereof are at the sea, from the coast to Achzib. Uma also, and Aphek, and Rehob, 20 cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Asher, according to their families, these cities with their villages.

The sixth lot came out to the children of Naphtali, even for the children of Naphtali, according to their families. And their coast was from Heleph, from Alon to Zaanannim, and Adami, Nekeb, and Jabneel unto Lakum. And the outgoings thereof were at Jordan. And then the coast turneth westward to Aznoth Tabor, and goeth out from there to Hukkok, and reacheth Zebulun on the south side, and reacheth to Asher on the west side, and to Judah upon Jordan toward the sunrising. And the fenced cities are Ziddim, Zer, and Hammath, Rakkath, and Chinnereth, and Adamah, and Ramah and Hazor and Kedesh and Idrei and En Hazor and Iron and Migdal El and Beth Anath and Beth Shemesh, 19 cities with their villages.

This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Naphtali according to their families, the cities and their villages.

And the seventh lot came out for the tribe of the children of Dan according to their families. And the coast of their inheritance was Zorah and Eshtaol and Ir Shemesh. And Shaalabbin and Ajalon and Jethlah and Elon and Timnathah and Ekron and Eltekeh and Gibbethon and Baalath and Jehud and Bene Berak and Gath Rimmon and Me Jarkon and Rakkon with the border before Joppa and the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them.

Therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem and took it and smote it with the edge of the sword and possessed it and dwelt therein and called Leshem Dan after the name of Dan their father. This was the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Dan according to their families these cities with their villages.

When they had made an end of dividing the land for inheritance by their coasts, the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun among them. According to the word of the Lord, they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath Serah in Mount Ephraim. And he built the city and dwelt therein. These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

So they made an end of dividing the country.

We thank God for his word and we pray now that he would open it to our understandings that we may open our mouths to tell the nations of the same word. Please be seated.

Joshua, the 19th chapter. I don’t really have an outline, but I did give you a map and we’re going to kind of use the map as an outline, so to speak. At least get us thinking about all this stuff.

Now, I won’t really deal with the final few verses relative to Joshua and his receiving his final inheritance until next Sunday. I did want to read that portion though because at the end of that reading that we just did, if you were paying attention, you recognize that this spells the end of the division of the inheritances for the tribes of Israel. So we deal now with the portion of the last three tribes and next Sunday we’ll touch briefly in our Christmas service on Joshua’s inheritance as a type of Jesus Christ.

Much as we sang about joy to the world, that the message of Jesus Christ goes out and as far as the curse is found, turns that curse, that howling wilderness into a desert and blessing. Joshua walks into the cursed area of Canaan, inhabited by cursed people, people who were in rebellion against God and in radical, developed, mature rebellion at that. And his church, so to speak—Joshua’s church, his army—goes out and conquers the whole land, possesses it with noticeable successes, some notes of failure, but certainly the thrust of the book of Joshua is the successes of the church under, behind in the ranks of, the greater, or the lesser rather, Jesus Joshua—the Old Testament pointing forward to the victory of Jesus Christ over all the world, who we follow now into all the nations taking his message with us.

So as you look at this map you can look at it as a map of a type, a model of the world. The church goes into that world, possesses it, various inheritances are carved out for it. And we’ve gone through most of these tribes now and we’ll deal with the last three today.

Now it’s interesting—if you look at this, you’ll notice that in the northern portion of your map, you have Asher, Naphtali next to each other at the top of the map. Way to the north is Dan. And that has to do with that verse we just read about how their coast went out too little for them. So they went up to Leshem and took Leshem. That’s way up here. Their actual inheritance is down here, down next to Benjamin. You remember that eventually we’ll see the development of the northern ten tribes and the southern two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And Dan is down here with Judah on the southern end of this map. And Benjamin is in that area as well.

Now, one thing that’s kind of interesting about this map—we’ll talk about this more in a little bit—but you have various pairings of tribes here. Asher and Naphtali, as we’ll look at in a little bit, are looked at together and their land kind of has common borders or a little unit there described for us in this list of inheritance.

Last time we talked a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Zebulun and Issachar, and they’re even linked in one of the blessing portions from, I believe, from the book of Genesis. Remember, we’re looking at these tribes in relationship to where their land lies. But we’re also spending a good deal of time looking at the two lists of prophecies relative to the twelve tribes listed at the end of Genesis and at the end of Deuteronomy.

Genesis is Jacob’s dying words as he puts his blessing upon his children. And at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives the blessing upon the tribes as they’re preparing to go into the land. And so those are keys to understanding these tribes, their particular inheritance in the land. And then we’re looking at history as well as these tribes.

Now this is real good foundational material for understanding all the Old Testament. Most of it happens in the context of these particular environs, these particular people, people that descended from the names that are listed on this map and tribes that have inherited this area. This is great stuff to teach your kids this year in homeschool. Real basic understanding which probably almost none of us have ever had coming from dispensationalist churches which tend not to teach much from the Old Testament.

Well, anyway, look at these pairings. You got Asher and Naphtali. We’ll talk about that some a little bit later. Zebulun and Issachar kind of together. Judah is linked up with Simeon. Remember the story of Simeon cursed, brought back into blessing by associating with the tribe of Judah. They don’t have a separate land, even though that’s what it looks like on this map. They have cities within Judah.

And so they’re kind of linked together that way. Ephraim and Manasseh, of course, are linked together because they’re essentially close relatives of each other. Ephraim and Manasseh being the two sons of Joseph. Benjamin always kind of struggles between the tribes to the north. You know, remember he had the same mother, Rachel, as Joseph, who ended up as the grandparent—Rachel of course was the grandparent of Manasseh and Ephraim. So he kind of links up with them but he also struggles to join Judah and eventually he associates with Judah as well when the division happens between the northern ten tribes and the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

So we have these pairings. Now it’s interesting I mention all this because Dan isn’t really paired with anybody and we’ll get to that in a little bit. Dan could in a sense also be the third pair with Judah, but it doesn’t really happen. It happens typologically, which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes, but essentially Dan is out there on their own and they’re the only one who are kind of divided from themselves here. And that’s not a good thing to be divided from yourself.

We’ll talk about that in a little bit.

This map then is a good way to continue to review. You take a map like this, you take the outlines from the last few weeks, you look at these tribes, see if you can notice and remember the big themes going on: that Benjamin struggles between family loyalties and covenantal loyalties; that Zebulun and Issachar—Zebulun dwells in ships, Issachar dwells in tents—but they both are greatly blessed. Their blessings are linked together in the fertile area that they’re brought into.

Same thing true of Asher and Naphtali. We’ll see they’re both pretty blessed in the accounts we read today.

The separation of Dan on the map is a big reminder to us of a big lesson to the people of God which we should not forget. I’ll mention it now. Dan is the only of these—only one of these tribes—that is not mentioned as having a foundation in the new temple in the book of Revelation. Dan is omitted just like Judas is omitted from the listing of the disciples. And we’ll get into the reason for that later on.

So there’s lots of theology that should come to mind when we look at a map like this given the understanding that God has brought us through in the last few months. Simeon of course being living in the context of Judah—our relationship to Jesus Christ. We’re the ones who were sinned, cut off, and brought back in through incorporation into the greater Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

So there’s lots of lessons here that we could talk about. Let’s go on though to talk about these three tribes specifically today: Asher, Naphtali, and Dan. And we’ll start with Asher’s inheritance.

Of course we have the borders given and the cities and villages listed. And I’ll just read for each of these three tribes, I’ll read the blessings or rather the prophecies about them from Genesis and Deuteronomy.

Jacob said this about Asher. “Out of Asher his bread shall be fat and he shall yield royal dainties.”

Moses said this: “And of Asher, he said, ‘Let Asher be blessed with children. Let him be acceptable to his brethren. Let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass. And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.’”

Five blessings there listed one after the other: children, acceptable to brethren, foot dipped in oil, shoes of brass, and as thy days are, so shall thy strength be. Really blessed stuff coming from Moses about Asher and blessed stuff coming from Jacob as well. His bread shall be fat. He shall yield royal dainties.

Now in our culture today, “his bread is fat”—isn’t that too bad for him? He doesn’t have the right diet. He’s not really a good guy. He’s probably not skinny enough, etc. But the Bible—this is a picture of blessing to Asher. Let his bread be fat and let him yield royal dainties.

Now Asher—remember each of these names are real people who are born to one of four mothers, all who were essentially producing offspring from Jacob. Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. He had to marry Leah first. Had a bunch of kids by Leah, had two by Rachel, and then he had children also by their handmaids. Leah’s handmaiden and Rachel’s handmaid. And when these children are born, their mothers name them. And that name is extremely significant.

A name is important. A name characterizes who an individual is. It identifies them.

Well, Leah said this when Asher was born. “Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed,” and she called his name Asher. Asher means happy. Okay. And we have the blessings listed for him in Deuteronomy and Genesis as being really good, happy blessings. So Asher is a picture of real blessedness to us in the Scripture.

His land is consonant with that blessing. One of the Jewish rabbis wrote that it is easier to grow a legion of olives in this particular land that Asher is given than it is to raise children in Palestine. Lots of olives would grow and flourish in their particular area. Great agricultural resources there. Good fertile land. And olives are the oil—produce the oil of course—that the blessing says “let his foot be dipped in oil.”

So Asher is a picture for us of great blessing and happiness from God.

Now, Asher also, however—we’re told in Judges 1—that Asher didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Acco and nor of Sidon or Ahlab or other towns that are listed as well. Some of the very towns we just read that they were given, they didn’t drive the Canaanites out of. So they sinned. Of course, they fall short. And Judges points that out.

Another very important concept or place where Asher is said to be an error is when Deborah and Barak calls up the tribes of God to battle God’s enemies at that particular place in history. We read in verse 17, “Gilead abode beyond Jordan. And why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the seashore and abode in his breaches.”

Asher didn’t come when called to help the people of God.

And those two correlations—the fact that Asher is very blessed and happy before God and blessed with great material prosperity and yet fails to come to the aid of the rest of the nation, the country, so to speak, the rest of his brothers in covenant that he was supposed to be in covenant with. That’s a real picture for us of the tribe of Asher in this particular place on his on this map, his inheritance, his lot.

His lot was a blessed one. Asher itself is listed as a separate nation almost in Egyptian chronicles at the time. They were that prosperous. They had that much trade going on with other countries, etc. But that prosperity brought with it apparently a sense of self-reliance that they didn’t need the rest of the tribes of Israel and they certainly weren’t going to go out of the way to help them when bad times came.

Now they recovered from that and later under Gideon they did go up against the Amalekites, but the picture for us of Asher given for us in their failure to come forth to help Barak and Deborah is a warning to us: if we walk in relationship with God’s light shining upon us, the light of his presence with us, he’s going to yield blessings to us as he did to Asher. But those blessings bring with them a temptation to forget the source, to forget the covenant God that those blessings are a picture of and to forget the covenant community that we are called to walk in the context of—the greater set of churches and extended churches throughout the region, for instance.

So Asher is a good picture for us of the blessings of God’s people but also of the dangers of temptation.

Now this is Christmas season. We at this church think it’s appropriate to really focus upon the birth of Jesus Christ at this time of the year. One reason for that is because Jesus said all the Old Testament, for instance, taught about him. On the road to Emmaus, and when you open the eyes of the men to see what those prophets were writing about, it was him. And to focus upon the advent, the incarnation, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is a good thing to do all year round because it helps us to understand these portions of Scripture.

In the providence of God, we have one of the stories that will probably be read in your household or maybe other households that you know of when Jesus is brought to the temple to be circumcised. There are people waiting for him there who see him. And one of the people there that sees the Lord Jesus Christ is Anna.

We read in Luke 2 that there was there one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She had waited for long years to see the coming of the Messiah. Now, I bring that up not just as a nice little Christmas correlation, but I bring it up to help us remember that the true Asherite—the one who is really blessed—understands that all other blessings are just images, pictures, symbols of the great blessing of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s what Anna, as a good Asherite, knew would make her happiest was the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I think it is extremely important that we remind ourselves in this country particularly that the blessings that God gives us are good and proper. That’s number one. Asher didn’t cast away the fat or the dainties. They’re God-given blessings. So this verse is an antidote to the kind of stoicism, pharisaism, whatever it is, that says that good food, good drink, good blessings from God, good clothes, etc. are bad things. They’re not bad things. They’re great things. They’re pictures of God’s blessing.

But number two, it’s also a warning to us that those things are only pictures. They’re not the blessings in and of themselves.

Now, when you got up to come to church today, I thought about this as I was putting my suit on. We dress up nice, but we should remember that this dressing up nice is only complete if we put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. If we understand that it’s his imputed righteousness that must clothe us, or else we’re naked before God.

And you can put all the finery you want when you come before God to worship him. If you don’t have the righteousness of Christ and believe that his imputed righteousness is the only way you can stand before him, then you don’t stand dressed before God. You’re naked in your sins.

Clothes are good. When you get up tomorrow and you put on your work clothes, does the Lord Jesus Christ call us to work? You bet he does. Is his presence with us? As surely as you put on those work clothes and prepare for the work that God has given you to do, you should be putting on an understanding of the presence of Christ in the workplace as well. And that’s what these things are given to us as pictures of.

We should tell our children to be very wary of the blessings that God gives us in terms of having them be a temptation to us to forget the real source, the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Essentially the tribe of Asher is a warning then that it is only the blessings of God as understood in relationship to his presence that bring us true joy with God.

I’ll tell you another area of application. I think we are blessed in this church above, I would say, just about any other church in the Pacific Northwest in an understanding of the doctrine of Scripture and a necessity to obey the law of God. Now, that is a great blessing. That’s like that great tasty food. Remember, the food is a picture for us. We talked about this in my tapes from the sin of gluttony. The food is a picture of the goodness of God’s word and the true bread come down from heaven—as we just sang—the true bread that is Jesus Christ himself.

So it’s good that we have that doctrine. It’s good that we have the law of God as a central focus. But it’s not good if we don’t understand that those things are only valid in that they relate us to the presence of God in our lives. It’s a real person behind our faith, not an ideology as such. Now, you got to have an understanding, an intellectual understanding, comprehension of doctrine and ideology, but behind it is the presence of God.

The Psalmist delights in the law of God, not because he thinks the law is so good, but because he loves his Savior. Ultimately, he loves God. And the law, the doctrine that God teaches us, those are the words of our beloved that he speaks to us. And so it’s him, it’s how those things represent the person of Christ himself and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. That’s the real joy to us.

And we’ve got to raise our children not just in an intellectual understanding of God’s word, but a recognition that behind that, God is mediating to us his presence through that secondary means of the word and of the Christian church as well. See what I’m getting at here? There’s a person behind this. And that’s what Christmas reminds us of—the little baby, a baby in a manger, born, circumcised, growing up, the presence of God, Emmanuel, God with us.

And that’s going to be at the core of our understanding of the blessings God gives us in terms of material prosperity and stuff and in terms of his word as well. Idolatry can occur in relationship to either of these things. If we abstract them from the person of Christ, we have a big hole left at the center of our being because that’s what God wants us to primarily rejoice in this time of the year: the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as I said, that presence must relate itself also to an understanding of the corporate body of Christ. Asher, because they didn’t understand—and these blessings became their focus instead of the presence of God behind the blessings—then they didn’t go out and work for Deborah and Barak and the other tribes as well. They thought they were self-sufficient with their prosperity and stuff.

We understand the need of the presence of Christ as the source of our joy and happiness. That will understand the need as well to experience that presence in relationship to helping those outside of our own particular calling.

I saw Jack Kemp on C-SPAN this week and he mentioned the story of the ninety and nine. He was trying to urge conservative Republicans to work in terms of the inner cities and to see the opportunities to preach the gospel, so to speak, of the free enterprise system, private property—ultimately the gospel of Christ, I’m sure you would say—to those who are in the inner cities who are suffering the ravages of socialism, etc.

He said, “We’ve got to leave the ninety-nine for the sake of the one in the inner city to help them out, to help them get their lives related to principles of freedom and liberty and justice. And he said that, you know, the ninety-nine understand that if we do that, that they also should they stray, they’ll also be the source of our action and our help.”

And so if we’re understanding our need to go help other people, we should understand as well that we at once some various points in our lives will stray as well. And we’re hoping that the rest of the flock will help us out when we do that.

Well, Asher is a picture of all those things to us and of the need to understand blessings in relationship to the covenant community, to understand them ultimately in the presence of Jesus Christ.

Naphtali is the second inheritance that is demonstrated for us or sketched out for us in verses 32 and following.

Naphtali has a good region as well. They’re up there in that Galilee region of the country that is blessing to them and that is demonstrated again in the blessings of Jacob and Moses.

Jacob said this about Naphtali: “Naphtali is a hind let loose. He giveth goodly words.”

Moses said of Naphtali: “Oh Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess thou the west and the south.”

The west and the south. That’s an odd thing. They’re correlated to the west. Naphtali is correlated to the tribe that’s right next to him, Asher. But they’re also linked by way of the text with Judah.

Interestingly enough, I don’t know if you caught it when we read the verses of Naphtali’s inheritance. It says in verse 34 that “their coast was from Heleph… And the outgoings thereof were at Jordan.” What does that mean? Could be a little city, but some commentators think that the sun rising is there, where the river Jordan is flowing to the next one on the east. And that river provided commerce between them and Judah. They had the capability to be linked with the praising tribe of Judah down in the south by way of the river.

And so Naphtali possesses the west and the south in that sense.

So Naphtali’s blessing tells us that they also are in a very good agricultural region, a region that would really flourish agriculturally. And it also says that they are described for us as a hind let loose and one that gives goodly words. Again, there we can see this correlated to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Naphtali’s region is the region of Capernaum, Cana, Bethsaida. These are all towns in the inheritance on your map that’s sketched out for Naphtali. And of course, that’s where the Lord Jesus Christ came and did most of his ministry was there in that particular region.

The Lord Jesus Christ, we are told in the Psalms, that he is the hind of the morning. Hind means like a deer. He’s the hind of the morning, it is said. And he of course brought his goodly words, his sermons, his exposition of God and the person and God’s word to that region.

Now in the Psalms when it says that Jesus is the hind of the morning, most commentators mean that he comes anxiously to do the Father’s work. Okay? And he does that through his primarily through his proclamation of the good news and then of course in his suffering and bringing in salvation for his people on the cross.

So Naphtali is correlated to the greater Naphtali that come, the hind of the morning, who gives forth goodly words and produces blessing in that region that produced so many blessings agriculturally.

Now Naphtali—I said the names of these tribes are important. The word Naphtali means wrestling, wrestle. When he is born, Rachel said, “With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister and I have prevailed.” And she called his name Naphtali.

Now it wasn’t really Rachel’s son, of course. It was Rachel’s handmaid’s son, but it belonged to Rachel because it was her handmaid.

But Rachel says “with great wrestlings have I wrestled and I have prevailed.” So Naphtali, that tribe, is a reminder to us that the Christian life involves wrestling, striving, struggling in sin but prevailing in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so it’s a reminder to us the need as well to be as this hind of the morning—anxious to do the work of the Savior.

Naphtali specifically is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 12:40, which we read a couple of weeks ago, where three tribes—Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali—are said to bring forth meat, meal, cakes of figs, bunches of raisins, wine, oil, oxen, sheep in abundance, “for there was joy in Israel.” That’s at the coronation of David in becoming king of all Israel.

So they share of their produce—unlike Asher—they share of their produce and their wealth with the rest of the tribes and rejoicing before God.

Matthew Henry, I believe it was, might have been George Bush. I know I think it was George Bush actually—said the following of this blessing of Naphtali. “Naphtali signals wrestling and the blessing entailed upon it signifies prevailing. It is a hind let loose.”

He says, “It was first of all as the loving hind, for that is her epitaph in Proverbs 5:19. The loving hind—friendly and obliging to one another and to other tribes. Their converse, their conversation, remarkably kind and endearing. As the lucent hind, she was jealous for their liberty. As the swift hind, Psalm 18:33, quick in dispatch of business. And perhaps as the trembling hind, timorous in time of public danger.”

“It is rare that those that are most amiable to their friends are most formidable to their enemies.”

The point is here that the picture given for us in the blessing of Naphtali indicates their friendly disposition, their giving forth of goodly words to their brethren in the context of their own tribe. But the greater extension of the tribes and the rest of Canaan as well.

And so that again is a model for our behavior if we want to understand our need to take our inheritance correctly from God.

So Naphtali is a picture of those blessings.

Now here I’d like us to remember the correlation again at this time of year to Christmas, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to one who was the hind set loose, so to speak, from the mother’s womb and quickly then was hind of the morning, quick to do a Savior’s work.

I was reading some carols and lessons from an Episcopalian Advent service that Doug—a friend, Garrett—went to last year. And it’s interesting how in several of these very old and ancient Advent songs, the theme of Jesus coming quick to run his Father’s race, quick to do that which is assigned to him to do by the Father, comes through over and over and over again. And that’s what Naphtali is like.

Now ultimately the blessing of Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher—this whole area of greater Galilee—comes forth in the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll talk about that some next week.

The Bible in Isaiah 9 refers to some of these tribes as “Galilee of the nations.” We’ll talk about the significance of that next week. But here I want us to remember as we look at the map, we look at Naphtali’s inheritance. The blessing that God gives them, but it’s blessing obtained through struggling and wrestling.

Now, one other verse of Scripture that you may want to read is in Exodus 31, verse 6 and following. We have there the description of another righteous Danite, a man named Aholiab, who was used by God in the construction work that would go on for the tabernacle. And so there’s always a remnant.

But let me focus now on the division that exists in Dan, how there’s some guys up there to the north and then some tribe of Dan down to the south. Now, last week, I wasn’t sure how to deal with this, and I thought about it a lot. In this providence, God gave me an extra week to meditate upon this. And my dilemma came in verse 47 of Joshua 19.

I will mention, by the way, as well that verse 41 is quite important in chapter 19. The coast of their inheritance was Zorah and Eshcol. Remember that for a minute. But then we go down to verse 47.

So the beginning of the list of the cities in Dan is Zorah and Eshcol. Important. Remember that.

Now we go down to verse 47. “And the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them. Therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem and took it and smote it with the edge of the sword and possessed it and dwelt therein and called Leshem Dan after the name of Dan their father.”

Now, if you just read that verse, you think, “Well, these guys were pretty good. The land was a little too small for them. They went out and found more land. They’re really taking the initiative that God wants us to take and taking the land that he hasn’t necessarily assigned to us, but that can be conquered.”

Well, that’s not the way it plays out. The book of Judges—we’ve talked about this before with the Benjamites—but one of the other stories that is appended to the book of Judges to describe the whole period of the Judges and the failure of the tribes to do what they were supposed to do. At the end of that book, they have a large section dealing with this particular verse. You could look at it as a commentary on this verse. And the commentary is not favorable to the Danites.

Judges 18 tells us that there was this man named Micah who wanted a Levite. Got a wandering Levite who should have been ministering to where God had placed him, but instead was walking around away from his inheritance. Ended up there by Micah up toward the north. And Micah—not the Micah of the prophet Micah, obviously—a bad, idolatrous Micah—had this Levite then minister to him and his family.

And the text tells us specifically four different names for idols that was used in Micah’s house and the worship that went on there. They were idolatrous, Micah was.

Then along come a band of Danites. And these Danites—what, if you look at your map, they had been given this land down here next to Judah. Now that’s significant because see Dan was a big tribe. They were only second largest tribe in terms of numbers. They were powerful. They had the rear guard as they marched through the wilderness. That’s an important position that you want strong guys—it’s your rear guard to prevent attacks from the back.

And in a sense, God assigned them the rear guard here with Judah on this map as well. Judah and Dan are the two strongest tribes numerically that Israel has. And they’re both positioned to the south. Because down here behind them, down below them on the south are Philistines. The worst, the most warlike of the Canaanites. And the Philistines, of course, are going to plague Israel because the guarding job that Dan and Judah were supposed to do was not fulfilled correctly. And primarily was the fault of Dan.

They couldn’t take this territory. That’s what this verse actually means. The coast went out for them. It went away from them. They couldn’t hold it. The Philistines held this territory. And the Danites instead of toughening it out and instead of fighting the enemies that God had given them to fight, said, “Well, let’s be righteous in a little different way. Let’s be zealous to do God’s work of conquering, but not with these guys. Let’s go find somebody else.”

And so they wander around and they actually—what they do is they send up spies into the land to spy out a nice peaceable tribe of Canaanites, which is what Judges tells us the people in Leshem were. They were quiet and peaceable. Now, they were still Canaanites. They did have to be dispossessed eventually, but they were quiet. They weren’t warlike like the Philistines.

So the Danites say, “Yeah, that’s where we’re going to go. We’re going to go to that town that’s easy to take.” On the way there, they run across Micah and they take his Levite. They steal his Levite and the idols and say, “Hey, you don’t want to just be a good idolatry to a family. Why don’t you come and help us in our idolatry as a tribe?” They don’t actually say that, but that’s what’s going on.

Dan—the large, the significant portion of the tribe of Dan—goes northward to Leshem, and on the way there God makes it very clear to us what these men are doing: they’re rejecting his call to conquest in terms of the Philistines, they’re rejecting his command word, they are idolators, and as a result they take a city God didn’t tell him to take.

Now I think that’s the reason why Dan is written out of the book of life, so to speak, as tribe by not being mentioned in the listing of the tribes in the book of Revelation. The only one that isn’t.

Now, later on, you remember if you know your history, the northern tribes apostasize, right? Solomon—he sends God splits up the kingdom: ten to the north, two to the south. Israel—later on, Israel means the northern tribes. Judah means the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. And remember, he gives the northern tribes to Jeroboam. He calls Jeroboam, graciously gives him the kingdom over the ten tribes.

And what does Jeroboam do? He’s afraid that the people are going to want to go down to Jerusalem to worship, which is where they’re supposed to be worshiping. That’ll draw their allegiance away from his political entity in the north. So he sets up two centers of calf worship, idolatry, just like they did when they came out of Egypt, a golden calf. He sets two up: one at Bethel down at the south, and one at Dan up in the north.

Now, you read about Dan a lot in the Bible because you read “from Dan to Beersheba,” meaning the whole of Israel. But that northern portion is where Jeroboam set up a golden calf worship.

Now, probably that wasn’t too tough to do because for a long time there they had been set up there with this idolatrous Levite who had ministered to Micah and his four different kinds of shrines. They were already idolators, is what I’m saying. Jeroboam didn’t have to pervert him. He used them for his own end.

Eventually, Ben-Hadad comes through and is attacking northern tribes. Wipes the city of Dan out. That city has never been rebuilt. There is a mound of dirt there to this day that’s called the mound of the judge. That’s interesting name because Dan means judge. Remember we said the title of Dan is important. The names are important and the name Dan means judge.

Well, Dan should have judged and evaluated according to God’s word and command in terms of where they should be, but they didn’t. And as a result, they were the subject of the greater Judge’s wrath and displeasure against them.

Now, I got a little ahead of myself because I didn’t read the blessing portions from Jacob and Moses. And I’ll do that now.

In verse 16 of Genesis 49: “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the horse’s heels that his rider shall fall backwards. I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.”

That’s an interjection there by Jacob in this list of blessings he’s handing out. It’s as if he knew here—well, this is the blessing that goes to Dan. Most of them will experience it in a negative way. There will be a remnant and I wait for your salvation, oh Lord.

Now, I say that because some of the Danites didn’t apostasize. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

In Deuteronomy, Moses says of Dan: “Dan is a lion’s whelp. He shall leap from Bashan.”

Well, these things aren’t really indicative of Dan’s triumph over Leshem. They didn’t need any kind of strength or anything else. This is a quiet, peaceful people they just wiped out. This should have been their strength down there against the Philistines. And indeed, it was by a remnant.

Samson, we are told, was born to a woman who was barren and a man who came from those first two words, Zorah and Eshcol, that I said were important at the beginning of the description of Dan’s inheritance in verse 41. “The coast of their inheritance, Zorah, Eshcol.” That’s where Samson’s father and mother lived. They’re Danites.

And so the remnant of Dan, the small people that were left, produce Samson, who does indeed fulfill these prophecies in a glorious way. He really does begin the conquest of the Philistines, doesn’t he? And who ends that conquest, by the way? Do you remember?

I mean, Samson comes along. He’s one that starts to throw off the Philistine yoke from the people of Israel, but it isn’t really completed until who? Till David. What tribe is David from? Judah.

Remember I said that? Dan and Judah are down there. They’re the rear guard against the Philistines. And eventually that works. But it comes from a remnant: Samson, particularly in terms of the Danites.

Again, the reminder throughout the Old Testament: God is showing us that man’s hand always is crooked and twisted and never does his work correctly. Only the greater Samson, the greater Joshua, the greater Dan, so to speak—then the greater Asher—the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that will usher in salvation.

And so the Old Testament has that continuing winnowing down of a remnant and it provides hope for us because we’re like those Danites, aren’t we? I mean, they’re pretty bad guys, but so are we, aren’t we?

I mean, don’t we frequently turn away from the hard work that God has given us to do and instead seek our well-being and work that is easier and more enjoyable for us to do? Isn’t that how we are normally? That’s how I am. I know great portion of my life. I say that not proudly. I say that as confession of sin. That’s who we are.

You can’t move away from the problems that you see in the particular place or inheritance that God gives you. That’s another picture here in Dan. Didn’t do them any good not to fight the Philistines. Then hey, a typological Philistine, a symbolic Philistine, comes down and wipes every one of them out.

You can’t run away from your problems. You got to face up to them. And that’s what Dan should have done. They didn’t. And as a result, they were judged. They who should have judged were judged themselves and evaluated and tossed aside by God.

It’s just like us. You know, I’ve seen so many men. I’ve noticed this in counseling. I’ve seen it myself. I’ve seen other men. It’s so hard to manage your household. So, what do you do? You get wrapped up in your work because that’s easy. Now, work’s a good thing. That’s part of the calling God gives us. But part of it, too, are those Philistines in your household, your sons and daughters.

Now, they’re not really Philistines, but they sure act like it a lot of times. And they sure seem like it’s awful difficult to figure out how to get them on the right track. It’s hard work. And it’s hard work with regular wives sometimes and wives with their husbands. That’s tough work to rule in a godly sense a household. It’s like trying to, you know, battle a bunch of Philistines, including yourself.

And so men so frequently get distracted from that calling and do the thing that’s easy: the work at the job place or church. So tough to work through problems at a church. You know, in the Christmas letter we wrote this year—you know, it’s tough ministering in the context of a wheat field that has tears in it. And even the wheat in it are sinning tears, all of us are right? That’s tough work. So people tend to—you know, over time men particularly, most churches—they just don’t deal with that anymore.

They don’t deal with the inheritance, the lot in terms of the church that God calls them to do. They give away, shy away from that because it’s tough work. Well, the key to blessing is his presence. His blessing, his presence has to be found where he places us. And moving away from the difficulties that God gives us, we move away from the Spirit of God as well.

The Spirit of God specifically comes upon Samson because he’s holding the line here. He’s taking the territory that God called him to take, even though the task was too big for one man certainly. But look what God did with him. You know, he stopped moving ten thousand dead. You know, he was a mighty warrior for God.

And if we apply ourselves to the tasks that God gives us to do in our families and the tasks you may shy away from at work, certainly at the church and in the community as well, God will give us the blessings. The Spirit will come upon us and cause us to be blessed in him.

So Dan is a picture of all these things for us. A reminder to man the territory that God gives us and a reminder that the Lord Jesus Christ—again whose birth we celebrate—is the greater Danite who does this successfully.

It’s interesting that Samson is born of a barren woman just like Jesus was. There’s lots of correlations between Samson and Jesus. Psalm 19 where Jesus comes forth as the strong man as the son. That’s the picture of Samson as well.

Jim Jordan’s book—again, the book of Judges. Excellent commentary. You ought to buy it. You better read it. The correlation between Samson and Jesus is a neat thing to read about at this time of the year.

So these are some of the blessings and the inheritance that God gives his people to act in the context of.

I wanted to mention one other thing—hope I’m not running out of time here—but one other thing. And I should have mentioned this before. I don’t mean to distract from what I just said, but one other verse of Scripture that you may want to read is in Exodus 31, verse 6 and following. We have there the description of another righteous Danite, a man named Aholiab, who was used by God in the construction work that would go on for the tabernacle.