Bible Strands
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.)
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Joshua records the final boundary allocation, noting how the tribe of Dan failed to secure their originally assigned inheritance. When their initial territory was lost, the Danites relocated north and seized the city of Leshem.
The words — The text highlights וַ/יֵּצֵ֥א (va/i.ye.Tze'), meaning "and it went out," and וַ/יִּלָּחֲמ֨וּ (va/i.yi.la.cha.Mu), meaning "and they waged war." These verbs mark the Danites' departure from their original borders and their subsequent military campaign to seize new land.
The thread — This displacement foreshadows the tribe's later struggles in Judges 1:34, where Amorites confined them to the hills, and explains the territorial search described in Judges 18:1. The narrative connects the failed inheritance allocation to the tribe's eventual northern migration.
Why it lands — The verse documents a pragmatic land grab rather than a divine conquest, showing how the tribe adapted to military failure by renaming their new settlement after their patriarch. It requires the reader to acknowledge the gap between the promised inheritance and the historical reality of tribal occupation.
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 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.
Cross-references
- Judges 1:34 The Amorites forced the Danites into the hill country and did not allow them to come down into the plain.
- Judges 18:1 In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites was looking for territory to occupy. For up to that time they had not come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.