Bible Strands
Judges 18:2
So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Danite clans dispatch five warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to scout the hill country of Ephraim after failing to secure an inheritance among the other tribes. The men enter Micah’s house and spend the night upon arriving in the region.
The words — וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ (va-yishlechu) translates to "and they sent," marking the initiation of a deliberate reconnaissance mission. בְּנֵי דָן (benei Dan) means "sons of Dan," identifying the specific tribal faction initiating the expedition.
The thread — This dispatch mirrors earlier reconnaissance missions in Joshua 2:1 and Numbers 13:17, where leaders send agents to survey territory before settlement. The geographic markers of Zorah and Eshtaol also reappear in Judges 13:25 as the starting point for the Spirit’s stirring of a future judge.
Why it lands — The text records a tribal faction acting autonomously to secure land without royal or priestly authorization. It asks the reader to trace how decentralized leadership enables independent military planning and how the narrative consistently places such actions before divine judgment.
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 children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, men of valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who when they came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there.
Cross-references
- Judges 13:25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
- Joshua 2:1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
- Numbers 13:17 When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.
- Judges 18:8 When the men returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “What did you find?”
- Judges 18:11 So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.
- Genesis 42:9 Joseph remembered his dreams about them and said, “You are spies! You have come to see if our land is vulnerable.”
- Joshua 17:15 Joshua answered them, “If you have so many people that the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go to the forest and clear for yourself an area in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim.”
- Joshua 19:41 The territory of their inheritance included Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir-shemesh,
- 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 16:31 Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.