Dan and the Antichrist Tradition

The tradition that the eschatological antichrist would originate from the tribe of Dan first emerged from early church fathers Irenaeus (second century ad) and Hippolytus (ad 170–235). The suspicion of these early Christian thinkers that the antichrist would be connected to the tribe of Dan comes from several places.

The tribe of Dan and its genealogy receive unusual treatment in both the Old and New Testaments. In Revelation 7:4, the writer hears that there are 144,000 sealed servants of God “from every tribe of the sons of Israel.” But in the list that follows, the tribes of Israel appear in a sequence found nowhere else in the Bible: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Judah appears first, whereas Dan does not appear at all. Since this likely did not result from textual corruption, the ordering and omission seems to be deliberate. Judah likely appears first because it was the tribe of the Messiah; the omission of Dan may have been due to Dan’s association with idolatry in the ot (Judg 17–18; compare 1 Kgs 12).

From an early period, the tribe of Dan was affiliated with idolatry (Judg 18–19). Additionally, the migration of Dan also casts the tribe in a negative light. The original tribal allotment under Joshua placed the tribe of Dan in the south, just above Judah. The Danites eventually migrated north and captured the city of Laish, renaming it Dan (Judg 18:29). This site was in Bashan (Judg 17–18), a region associated with cosmic evil in ot times. The infamous ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (who reigned 175–164 bc) came from this region. Antiochus could be considered a prefiguration of the antichrist since he committed the “abomination of desolation” of Dan 9:27 by rededicating the Jerusalem temple to Zeus offering a sacrifice to Zeus there (167 bc).

Further, certain passages in the ot appear to cast Dan as an aggressor. Genesis 49:16–17 states: “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent on the way, a viper on the road that bites the heels of a horse, so that its rider falls backward.”

The church father Hippolytus understood this metaphorical reference as a typological expression of Satanic opposition to Jesus. He found further support for his view in the messianic description of Judah that is also in this chapter (Gen 49:10). In addition, he observed that only the tribes of Judah and Dan are referred to as a “lion’s whelp” in the ot (Gen 49:9; Deut 33:22). He viewed this as a deliberate juxtaposition of Judah and Dan—in his view, one produces the Christ, while the other produces the antichrist.

Finally, Jewish writers during the Second Temple period (fifth century bc–ad 70) also viewed Dan with suspicion for some of the same reasons. For them, the association of Dan with the northern region of Bashan was consistent with the ot “foe from the north” motif. Israel was habitually attacked from the north because of its geographical location along established travel routes. There are multiple passages that describe the threat of invasion from the north (Isa 49:12; Jer 1:13–14; 16:15; 46:6; Ezek 38:6, 15; 39:2). The north (tsaphon in Hebrew) is also laden with religious-mythological significance. In Ugaritic mythology, ts-p-n is the name of the cosmic holy mountain of Baal, the place of the Ugaritic divine council or pantheon.

Michael S. Heiser

Further Reading

Bashan and the Gates of Hell

Divine Council CLBD

Dan, Tribe of CLBD

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Promised Land