So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.
Parallel translations
- WEB The children of Dan sent five men of their family from their whole number, men of valor, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it. They said to them, “Go, explore the land!” They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.
- KJV And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, men of valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who when they came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there.
- NKJV So the children of Dan sent five men of their family from their territory, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and search it. They said to them, “Go, search the land.” So they went to the mountains of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.
- NASB So the sons of Dan sent from their family five men out of their whole number, valiant men from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it; and they said to them, “Go, explore the land.” And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and stayed overnight there.
- NLT So the men of Dan chose from their clans five capable warriors from the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol to scout out a land for them to settle in. When these warriors arrived in the hill country of Ephraim, they came to Micah’s house and spent the night there.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Danites send five capable men from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land, and they lodge at Micah's house. The tribe seeks new territory by their own initiative.
Overview
The scouting mission recalls earlier spy missions in Israel's history but here serves the tribe's self-directed quest rather than God's command. Their providential stop at Micah's house links the two stories, drawing his idolatrous shrine into Dan's affairs. The narrative continues exposing how far Israel operated apart from God's guidance.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Judg 13:25And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
- Josh 2:1Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
- Num 13:17When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.
- Judg 18:11So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.
- Judg 18:8When the men returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “What did you find?”
- Judg 13:2Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.
- Luke 14:31Or what king on his way to war with another king will not first sit down and consider whether he can engage with ten thousand men the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
- Judg 19:1Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
- Josh 19:41The territory of their inheritance included Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir-shemesh,
- Gen 42:9Joseph remembered his dreams about them and said, “You are spies! You have come to see if our land is vulnerable.”
- Josh 17:15–18Joshua answered them, “If you have so many people that the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go to the forest and clear for yourself an area in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim.”
- Judg 16:31Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.
- Prov 20:18Set plans by consultation, and wage war under sound guidance.
- Judg 19:18The Levite replied, “We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote hill country of Ephraim, where I am from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, and now I am going to the house of the LORD; but no one has taken me into his home,
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 18:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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