Judges 18:12

12 They went up and camped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. Therefore * they called that place ¹Mahaneh-dan to this day; behold, it is west of Kiriath-jearim.

Judges 18:12 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 18:12

And they went up and pitched in Kirjathjearim in Judah
Of which place see ( Joshua 15:9 Joshua 15:60 ) . According to Bunting ^F1 it was sixteen miles from Zorah and Eshtaol, and this was their first day's march:

wherefore they called the name of that place Mahanehdan unto this day;
which signifies the camp of Dan, or of the Danites; so it was called in the times of Samson, ( Judges 13:25 ) and is a proof that this expedition was before his time; and it was so called, it seems, in the time of Samuel, the writer of this book:

behold, it is behind Kirjathjearim;
to the west of it; for though they are said to pitch in that place, the meaning is, that they pitched near it, in the fields adjacent to it, which were the most proper and convenient for a camp.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F1 Ut supra. (Travels of the Patriarchs p. 112.)

Judges 18:12 In-Context

10 "When you enter, you will come to a secure people with a spacious land; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth."

11 Then from the family of the Danites, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, six hundred men armed with weapons of war set out.

12 They went up and camped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. Therefore they called that place Mahaneh-dan to this day; behold, it is west of Kiriath-jearim.

13 They passed from there to the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah.

14 Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish said to their kinsmen, "Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod and household idols and a graven image and a molten image? Now therefore, consider what you should do."

Cross References

• 1. Judges 13:25

Footnotes

• [a]. I.e. the camp of Dan
• [b]. Lit "behind"