Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 33:22
Concerning Dan he said: “Dan is a lion’s cub, leaping out of Bashan.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses delivers a final tribal blessing over Israel before his death, addressing each tribe in sequence. This unit specifically concerns the tribe of Dan.
The words — The Hebrew text calls Dan gur aryeh (a lion’s cub) and uses yezanek (he leaps forth) to describe his emergence from Bashan.
The thread — This tribal portrait connects to Genesis 49:16, which notes Dan will provide justice for his people, and parallels the territorial shifts recorded in Judges 18:27 and Joshua 19:47.
Why it lands — The text presents Dan as a mobile force tied to a specific geography, requiring the reader to observe how tribal identity is framed through both blessing and historical circumstance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.
Cross-references
- Joshua 19:47 (Later, when the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and put it to the sword. So they took possession of Leshem, settled there, and renamed it after their father Dan.)
- Judges 18:27 After they had taken Micah’s idols and his priest, they went to Laish, to a quiet and unsuspecting people, and they struck them with their swords and burned down the city.
- Genesis 49:16 Dan shall provide justice for his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
- Judges 13:2 Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.
- Judges 13:24 So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him.
- Judges 14:6 and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.
- Judges 14:19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. And burning with anger, Samson returned to his father’s house,
- Judges 15:8 And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.
- Judges 15:15 He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.
- Judges 16:30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people in it. So in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life.