The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Tribe of Dan
Numbers 26:42–43 — The Tribe of Dan. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
42These were the descendants of Dan by their clans: The Shuhamite clan from Shuham. These were the clans of Dan.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’êl·leh ḇə·nê- ḏān lə·miš·pə·ḥō·ṯām haš·šū·ḥā·mî miš·pa·ḥaṯ lə·šū·ḥām ’êl·leh miš·pə·ḥōṯ dān lə·miš·pə·ḥō·ṯām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“These [were] the-sons-of Dan by-their-clans: the-Shuhamite, the-clan from-Shuham. These [were] the-clans-of Dan by-their-clans.”
Where the English smooths the original
The sons of Dan — Under the name of sons his descendants are included, he having but one immediate son. But from him this tribe multiplied into very great divisions and subdivisions of families, and was now increased since the last poll seventeen hundred.
Shuham, called, by transposition, Hushim , Genesis 46:23 . After their families; the greater families subdivided into lesser families.
The descendants of Dan formed only one family, named from a son of Dan, who is called Shuham here, but Hushim in Genesis 46:23 ; though this family no doubt branched out into several smaller families, which are not named here, simply because this list contains only the leading families into which the tribes were divided.
The sons of Dan. These all formed but one family, named alter Shuham (elsewhere Hushim), the only son of Dan that is mentioned. It is possible that Dan had other children, whose descendants were incorporated with the Shuhamites.The Pulpit Commentary’s “alter” is a printing slip for “after”; quoted as printed in the public-domain source.
43All of them were Shuhamite clans, and their registration numbered 64,400.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kāl- haš·šū·ḥā·mî miš·pə·ḥōṯ lip̄·qu·ḏê·hem ’ar·bā·‘āh wə·šiš·šîm ’e·lep̄ wə·’ar·ba‘ mê·’ō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“All [of-them] the-Shuhamite-clans, by-their-numbering: four and-sixty thousand and-four hundreds.”
Where the English smooths the original
All from one son and family; whereas of Benjamin, who had ten sons, and here five families, there were only 45,600, to show that the increase of families depends singly upon God’s blessing and good pleasure.
his son's name was Shuham, and by transposition Hushim, in Genesis 46:23 from him was the family of the Shulamite; and yet, though but one, consisted of 64,400 men; there was an increase of 1700 in this tribe.Gill prints “Shulamite” where the verse reads “Shuhamite”; quoted verbatim as in the public-domain source.
We have here the families registered, as well as the tribes. The total was nearly the same as when numbered at mount Sinai.
Thus God's justice and holiness, as well as His truth and faithfulness, were strikingly displayed: His justice and holiness in the sweeping judgments that reduced the ranks of some tribes; and His truth and faithfulness in the extraordinary increase of others so that the posterity of Israel continued a numerous people.JFB’s note here belongs to the wider chapter (its lemma opens on Simeon, v. 12); included as the source’s own comment carried on this verse’s page, applied to Dan’s increase.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The entry for Dan is the census at its most paradoxical. The header reads “the sons of Dan” — the plural construct בְּנֵי — yet, as Joseph Benson observes, “under the name of sons his descendants are included, he having but one immediate son.” Keil & Delitzsch press the same point with the textual evidence: “The descendants of Dan formed only one family, named from a son of Dan, who is called Shuham here, but Hushim in Genesis 46:23.” The Hebrew itself signals the gap — a single founder (לְשׁוּחָם, Shuham) under one gentilic (הַשּׁוּחָמִי), bracketed front and back by the same word לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם, “by their clans.” Matthew Poole reconciles the spellings frankly: Shuham is “called, by transposition, Hushim,” the very metathesis the manuscript tradition preserves.
Then the count: “four and sixty thousand and four hundreds” — 64,400, all “of one son and family.” Here the bare number turns into theology. Matthew Poole sets the comparison that the chapter invites: “All from one son and family; whereas of Benjamin, who had ten sons… there were only 45,600, to show that the increase of families depends singly upon God’s blessing and good pleasure.” Ten sons yield fewer men than one; fruitfulness is not a function of starting capital. John Gill does the subtraction — Dan “consisted of 64,400 men; there was an increase of 1700 in this tribe.” The governing verb is לִפְקֻדֵיהֶם, from pāqad: not a clerk’s tally but a visitation, God reviewing His own. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, reading the whole chapter, name what the numbers display — “His justice and holiness in the sweeping judgments that reduced the ranks of some tribes; and His truth and faithfulness in the extraordinary increase of others.”
It is easy to skim a genealogy. Matthew Henry resists the impulse: “We have here the families registered, as well as the tribes. The total was nearly the same as when numbered at mount Sinai.” The point of the second census is continuity — the generation that fell in the wilderness has been replaced, person for person, name for name, by a generation God has carried to the Jordan’s edge. Dan’s single clan, swollen to a host, is the wilderness promise made arithmetic: the people who deserved to vanish were instead numbered, and the very act of numbering is the proof they were kept.
Reading under Sola Scriptura — fallible, to be tested. A census is the least likely place to look for grace, and that is exactly why it preaches. The chapter spends two whole verses on the smallest tribal entry in the list — one son, one clan — and then records a number larger than that of the tribe with ten sons. Scripture is not embarrassed by the disproportion; it stages it. The implied claim is the one the human voices already heard: that what makes a people is not its breadth of stock but the blessing and good pleasure of God (Poole), and that to be counted by Him (pāqad) is to be kept by Him. Dan will not always be faithful — the same tribe later carries off a stolen idol and a private priesthood (Judges 18) and is conspicuously absent from the sealed tribes of Revelation 7. So the census is no medal; it is a record of mercy received, not merit proved. The honest reading is sober on both sides: God multiplied a man who had every reason to die out, and the man’s heirs still had to choose, generation by generation, whether to keep the covenant they were counted into. Weigh this against the text itself.
To be numbered by God is not the same as being faithful to God — but it is always the same as being kept by Him.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The second wilderness census deliberately mirrors the first. In Numbers 1:38–39 Dan is mustered at 62,700; here, on the plains of Moab, the one Shuhamite clan stands at 64,400 — Gill’s noted “increase of 1700.” The verbal overlap is the muster-vocabulary itself: pāqad (to number), ’eleph (thousand), mēʼâh (hundred), šiššîm (sixty), and the tribal name Dân. This is the same accounting form applied to the same tribe a generation apart — a structural parallel, not a quotation.
Numbers 1:38 · Numbers 1:39
basis: Verifier: shared H1835 Dân (63 vv), H4940 mishpâchâh (224 vv) with 1:38; and H6485 pâqad, H505 ʼeleph, H8346 shishshîym, H3967 mêʼâh with 1:39 — the recurring census formula, no rare lexeme or citation, so not ‘verbal.’
Verse 43 ends with the chapter’s recurring formula — “these are the clans of [N], by their numbering: … so many.” The identical summation seals Issachar (26:25) and the Joseph tribes (26:27): same nouns, same order, same passive participle of pāqad. The repeated frame is what makes Numbers 26 a single liturgical act of counting rather than a scatter of figures.
Numbers 26:25 · Numbers 26:27
basis: Verifier: shared H4940 mishpâchâh, H6485 pâqad, H505 ʼeleph, H8346 shishshîym, H3967 mêʼâh — a fixed census refrain repeated across tribal entries; structural, not a quotation.
The clans counted here become the tribe allotted in Joshua 19:40–48 — and then the cautionary tale of Judges 18:2, where “the clans of Dan” (מִשְׁפְּחֹת דָּן) send spies and seize Laish, carrying off a graven image. The link is the name Dân plus mishpāḥāh (“clan”): the census names the people; Joshua and Judges record their land and their later faithlessness. A thematic thread across the books, carried by the tribal vocabulary — never a verbal quotation.
Joshua 19:40 · Joshua 19:48 · Judges 18:2
basis: Verifier: shared H1835 Dân (63 vv) + H4940 mishpâchâh (224 vv) — and, with Joshua 19:48, H428 ʼêl-leh; a tribe-name thread, not a rare-lexeme or citation link, so structural.
Every commentator here ties v. 42’s Shuham to the Hushim of Genesis 46:23, Dan’s lone son in the roll of those who went down to Egypt. Poole calls it “by transposition,” Keil & Delitzsch and Gill agree. The shared lexeme is only the tribal name Dân (the personal name is spelled differently in each), so the connection rests on the documented metathesis and the genealogical position, not on a verbal match — a structural link the human voices vouch for.
Genesis 46:23
basis: Verifier: only H1835 Dân (63 vv) shared — the names Shuham/Hushim are spelled differently, so this is a genealogical/structural link argued from the commentators’ noted transposition, not a verbal one.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
To be numbered by God (pāqad) is, in the wider canon, to be claimed and kept: the same root names the LORD’s gracious visiting of His people (Genesis 50:24; Luke 1:68, epeskepsato). The census that records each clan by name anticipates the register the New Testament calls the Lamb’s book of life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 21:27) — a people known one by one, kept not by their numbers but by the One who numbers them. The figural reading is widely held: the mustered tribes are a shadow of the redeemed who are named in Christ.
Numbers 26:43 · Luke 1:68 · Philippians 4:3 · Revelation 21:27
Dan stands robustly in this muster — 64,400 from one son — yet in Revelation 7:4–8, the sealing of the twelve thousand from every tribe, Dan’s name is conspicuously absent (Manasseh fills the gap). Many of the Fathers (Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.30; Hippolytus) read the omission against Dan’s history of idolatry (Judges 18; Genesis 49:17, the serpent by the way). This is a cross-Testament, figural reading — Greek text against Hebrew, with no shared original-language lexeme — so it must be argued, not asserted, and is offered as ancient typology, not as a verbal link. It sharpens the unit’s sober lesson: being counted here is no guarantee of being sealed there. The number is mercy, never merit; only Christ secures the seal.
Numbers 26:42 · Genesis 49:17 · Revelation 7:4-8
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is two verses of a tribal census (the entry for Dan, Numbers 26:42–43), so the public-domain commentary is necessarily thin and largely repeats across the verses; several sources (Matthew Henry, Barnes, JFB) carry a single chapter-level note on every verse of the page rather than a verse-specific comment, and Barnes’ and Henry’s notes here actually treat the sons of Korah (vv. 9–11) — they are not quoted for v. 42–43 because they do not bear on Dan. JFB’s lemma opens on Simeon (v. 12); it is included only for its general statement about God reducing and increasing the tribes, applied to Dan’s growth, and that scope is flagged in its editorial note. Two voices contain printer’s artifacts preserved verbatim from the source: the Pulpit Commentary’s “alter” (for “after”) and Gill’s “Shulamite” (for “Shuhamite”); both are noted. All cross-references are Hebrew↔Hebrew structural links built on the recurring census vocabulary and the tribal name Dân; none rises to a ‘verbal / quotation’ tier, and the lone cross-Testament reading (Dan’s absence in Revelation 7) shares no original-language lexeme and is therefore offered as ancient typology to be tested, not as a confirmed verbal link.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)