Why is tribe of dan not mentioned in revelation

The tribe of Dan is listed among the descendants of Jacob in the Old Testament on repeated occasions, but it is not listed in Revelation The table below shows that Dan is listed as a son of Jacob in Genesis ; Exodus and 1 Chronicles But in Revelation the tribe of Dan is missing. The question is why did this occur? The question becomes more important when we realize that the tribe of Dan will be present in both the tribulation and the millennial kingdom.

The answer to the question why is the tribe missing in Revelation is that the tribe of Dan became unfaithful to God and turned to idol worship. A brief history of the tribe is essential at this point. The descendants of the patriarch Dan are referred to as the tribe of Dan or Danites. The reader is encouraged to read What does the Bible say about the tribe of Dan?

For example, Judges tells us that the tribe of Dan turned idolatrous and abandoned God after they entered the Promised Land and moved north. Does Judges contradict Joshua ? Since Scripture does not give us a reason why the tribe of Dan is not listed in Revelation , the best explanation is that Dan turned to idolatrous worship and is continuing in that condition and will continue until the end of the tribulation.

Therefore, God could not use them as witnesses in the tribulation period. Robert L. Thomas makes the following comment,. The other tribes were guilty of the same sin, but Dan was the leader in idolatrous practices. Romans tells us that all Israel will be saved. The quick answer to your question is that the Bible does not clearly tell us exactly why the tribe of Dan is omitted from the prophetic listing found in Revelation.

They are certainly found in other lists that delineate the people of Israel Numbers 2, 26, Joshua 19, and so on. Scripture, however, does give us a few clues as to why God might have decided not to list Dan as part of the , Israelites saved during the Great Tribulation.

Because the tribes, minus Dan, are enumerated so specifically in Revelation 7, it is hard to accept the notion that the list in question refers to people who are merely spiritual Israel the church in general.

Instead, it makes sense it refers to Christians given special protection or a special role the Israelite descendants will play in the End Time. Although we may not know who would be part of each tribe that ultimately composes the , or they may not know until it happens , God would. They would be, at least, part of the true Christians who stayed loyal to the Eternal and did not serve Babylon the Great. One quite common speculation as to why the tribe of Dan is not listed in Revelation comes from the fact that they had an enormous difficulty with idolatry.

Their worship of idols began right after they fought for and secured their inheritance in the Promised Land Judges - 2, 29 - Dan became the first Israelites to commit this type of grievous sin.

The idolatry of Dan was further encouraged when they, along with nine other tribes, split from a united Israel after the death of Solomon. The newly formed Northern Kingdom was ruled by King Jeroboam. Right after he took power he became afraid his new subjects would travel to Jerusalem, repent of splitting the kingdom, then kill him.

In Judges we're given two stories of apostasy in Israel. Both stories center on the tribes of Dan and Ephraim and on the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, God's choice for king over Israel. The writer of Judges emphasizes in these chapters that these were the days before Israel had a king. In those chapters of Judges, Dan sinned by viewing the land God allotted to them as unacceptable, so they abandoned it.

While passing through Ephraim, they stole idols from a home and recruited a Levite to serve in a false temple in the new territory. As a result, Dan became the first tribe in Israel to embrace idol worship in Israel. Meanwhile, the tribe of Ephraim, the source of the idols, assumed control over the land originally intended for Dan.

They aided and abetted the Danites in bringing idolatry into the land of Israel. These sins give just cause for God to exclude them from the privilege of preparing Israel and the world for the Messiah's return. Instead, Joseph still represents two tribes, but in this case Joseph replaces Dan and Ephraim, tribes historically and geographically linked by their conspiracy to introduce rebellion and idolatry into Israel. So they were excluded from this list by name with the name Joseph standing in their place.

Such a substitution allowed the Lord to retain the symmetry of twelve tribes while drawing attention to these tribes' joint contribution to idolatry in Israel. If so, then the 12, men of the tribe of Joseph in the Tribulation will actually be Danites and Ephraimites. But there is a deeper message in their exclusion. The apostasy of Dan and Ephraim represented the low point in Israel's history immediately prior to the Lord raising up a king from Bethlehem to deliver Israel from its sin.