Elders Sitting on the Elders’ Seats in the Gates of the City of Dan
The city of Dan was the northern extreme of the kingdom of Israel, and so the entire land could be described as “from Dan even to Beersheba” (Judg. 20:1; 1 Kings 4:25). Originally known by its Canaanite name “Laish,” the tribe of Dan conquered and renamed the city. Tragically, idol-worship and false religion characterized the city of Dan throughout its history.
When the children of Dan marched on the city of Laish to take it, along the way they obtained the idols and priest of a man named Micah. Though God’s law strictly prohibits divine images and requires us to worship only in the way God commands, these Israelites did not hesitate to set up their own form of worship, man-made idols served by a man-made priesthood (Judg. 18:29–31). Apostasy like this moved the author of Judges to write, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; 21:25). Let us learn never to base our worship of God upon the ideas and preferences of man, but always upon the Word of God.
Many years later, when King Jeroboam set up his own religion of the gold calves for the breakaway kingdom of the ten northern tribes of Israel, he placed one idol in Bethel, and another in Dan (1 Kings 12:29–31). This man-made religion clung so closely to the people that even when King Jehu brought religious reform and removed Baal worship from the land, he still did not get rid of the horrible idols of Bethel and Dan (2 Kings 10:29). They led Israel into sin, and provoked the Lord to send the nation into exile and captivity (1 Kings 14:16).
Let us never forget that we worship a holy God. Many churches have a careless attitude toward worship. They replace the pure worship revealed in the Bible with human traditions, human innovations, and human images. Like the sons of Aaron, they bring God worship He has not authorized, and dishonor His holiness (Lev. 10).
However, let us remember as well that the Lord is a God who saves sinners from their idols. The genealogies of Chronicles and the list of tribes in Revelation 7 omit the tribe of Dan, perhaps as a testimony against its wicked departure from true worship. Yet Ezekiel’s symbolic vision of the future of God’s people includes Dan in the land and the holy city (Ezek. 48:1–2, 32). Perhaps Ezekiel is reminding us here that Christ has redeemed worshipers from false religion just as surely as He redeemed sinners from moral corruption. If Christ can save Dan, then He can save anyone from false worship. Let us therefore repent and have hope.
