Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/629

 '''16-21. Dan, Gad, Asher, and Naphtali.'''

$16$ Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel. $17$ Be Dan a serpent on the way, A horned snake on the path, That bites the hoofs of the horse, And the rider tumbles backwards!

$18$    [I wait for thy salvation, Yahwe!]

$19$ Gad—raiders shall raid him, But he shall raid their rear!

$20$ Asher—his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield dainties for kings.

$21$ Naphtali is a branching terebinth (?) Producing comely tops (?).

16. Dân judge] See on 30$6$.—his people] Not Israel, but his own tribesmen. The meaning is not that Dan will produce a judge (Samson) as well as the other tribes (T$OJ$), nor that he will champion the national cause (Ew. De. Di. al.); but that he will successfully assert an equal status with the other tribes. Note that in Ju. 18$2. 11. 19$ the Danites are spoken of as a 'clan' .—17. The little snake, concealed by the wayside, may unhorse the rider as effectually as a fully armed antagonist: by such insidious, but not ignoble, warfare Dan in spite of his weakness may succeed.—] is probably the cerastes cornutus, whose habits are here accurately described (see Dri., and Tristram, NHB, 274).—18. An interpolation, marking (as nearly as possible) the middle of the poem (so Ols. Ba. Siev. al.). The attempts to defend its genuineness as a sigh of exhaustion on Jacob's part, or an utterance of the nation's dependence on Yahwe's help in such unequal conflicts as those predicted for Dan, are inept.—Dan was one of the weakest of the tribes, and perhaps the latest to secure a permanent settlement (Ju. 1$34f.$, Jos. 19$47$, Ju. 18). Its migration northward, and conquest of Laish, must have

17. ] G, taking the as an adj.—] Ba. (after S ).