Judges 18:12

12 They went up and encamped at Kiriath Jearim in Judah. Therefore they called this place Camp of Dan to this day; 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Judges 18:12 In-Context

10 When you go you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land {is spread out on all sides}; God has given a place into your hands where there is no lack of anything that [is] on the earth."

11 Six hundred men from the clan of the Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed [with] weapons of war, set out from there.

12 They went up and encamped at Kiriath Jearim in Judah. Therefore they called this place Camp of Dan to this day; it is west of Kiriath Jearim.

13 From there they crossed [over to] the hill country of Ephraim, and they came to the house of Micah.

14 And the five men that went out to spy out the land ([that is], Laish) responded and said to their relatives, "Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod, teraphim, and an idol of cast metal? So then, consider what you must do."

Footnotes

• [a]. That is "Mahaneh-dan"