Spies sent out by the tribe of Dan, to seek for a place suitable for a settlement, and their success.
Chap. 18
Verse 1
This took place at a time when Israel had no king, and the tribe of the Danites sought an inheritance for themselves to dwell in, because until that day no such portion had fallen to them among the tribes as an inheritance. To the expression נפלה לא (had not fallen) we must supply נחלה as the subject from the previous clause; and בּנחלה signifies in the character of a nachalah, i.e., of a possession that could be transmitted as hereditary property from father to son. נפל, to fall, is used with reference to the falling of the lot (vid., Num 34:2; Jos 13:6, etc.). The general statement, that as yet no inheritance had fallen to the tribe of Dan by lot, has its limitation in the context. As the Danites, according to Jdg 18:2, sent out five men from Zorea and Eshtaol, and, according to Jdg 18:11, six hundred men equipped for fight went out to Laish, which the spies had discovered to be a place well fitted for a settlement, and had settled there, it is very evident from this that the Danites were not absolutely without an inheritance, but that hitherto they had not received one sufficient for their wants. The emigrants themselves were already settled in Zorea and Eshtaol, two of the towns that had fallen to the tribe of Dan by lot (Jos 19:41). Moreover, the six hundred equipped Danites, who went out of these towns, were only a very small part of the tribe of Danites, which numbered 64,400 males of twenty years old and upwards at the last census (Num 26:43). For a tribe of this size the land assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Dan, with all the towns that it contained, was amply sufficient. But from Jdg 1:34 we learn that the Amorites forced the Danites into the mountains, and would not allow them to come down into the plain. Consequently they were confined to a few towns situated upon the sides or tops of the mountains, which did not supply all the room they required. Feeling themselves too weak to force back the Canaanites and exterminate them, one portion of the Danites preferred to seek an inheritance for themselves somewhere else in the land. This enterprise and emigration are described in Jdg 18:2. The time cannot be determined with perfect certainty, as all that can be clearly inferred from Jdg 18:12, as compared with Jdg 13:25, is, that it took place some time before the days of Samson. Many expositors have therefore assigned it to the period immediately following the defeat of Jabin by Barak (Jdg 4:24), because it was not till after the overthrow of this powerful king of the Canaanites that conquests were possible
