The Twelve Tribes

On this reading Dan's early idolatry (Judges 18:30; 1 Kings 12:29) marks the tribe, and the list leaves it out on purpose. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies 5.30.2, reads Jeremiah 8:16 as naming Dan as the tribe from which the Antichrist will come, and he gives this as the reason the tribe is not reckoned in the Apocalypse. H. B. Swete records the same reading in Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist 14.

The objection: Jeremiah 8:16 speaks of an invader's horses heard from Dan and names no person, and Ezekiel 48:1 and 48:32 give Dan both a portion of the land and a gate of the city.

On this reading the tribe had died out before John wrote. John Wesley, on Revelation 7:8, says Dan was early reduced to a single family. He adds that the Chronicles omit Dan where they recite the descendants of the patriarchs.

The objection: the census of Numbers 26 counts Dan at 64,400, the second largest tribe, and Ezekiel 48 still gives Dan a place.

On this reading the list keeps the number twelve by the same rule as Joshua's, one name in and one name out. H. B. Swete notes that because Levi is counted in, one of the other tribes had to be left out, and that Dan may be dropped from the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 2 to 8 as well. His textual notes record the few witnesses that read Dan: four minuscules in place of Gad, and the Memphitic version in place of Manasseh.

The objection: the rule explains why one tribe is missing and does not say why the one is Dan, and the text Swete prints reads the list without Dan.

On this reading the northern tribes survived as a people in the lands of their exile. Josephus wrote about AD 93 that two tribes lived under the Romans in Asia and Europe. The ten tribes, he says, were beyond the Euphrates, an immense multitude not to be estimated by numbers.

The objection: Scripture shows members of the northern tribes among the Jews of Judah and of Jesus' day (2 Chronicles 30:11 and Luke 2:36). Paul and James address all twelve tribes (Acts 26:7 and James 1:1).

On this reading the question is whether the exile is final. In Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:3 Rabbi Akiva reads Deuteronomy 29:27, as it is this day, to teach that the ten tribes will not return. Rabbi Eliezer reads the same words to teach that, as a dark day brightens again, the ten tribes will return.

The objection to the first: Ezekiel 37:15 to 22 promises that the stick of Joseph and the stick of Judah will become one in the LORD's hand.

On this reading the tribes of Revelation 7 are Israel, and the great multitude from every nation in Revelation 7:9 stands beside them. John Wesley, on Revelation 7:4, says that a multitude out of all nations will afterwards be joined to these of the children of Israel. The Scofield Reference Bible (1917) heads Revelation 7 the Jewish remnant and the tribulation saints.

The objection: H. B. Swete argues that the Apocalypse treats the church as the true Israel and gives the same number to the followers of the Lamb in Revelation 14:1.

On this reading John's list stands for all the faithful. H. B. Swete records three readings of the 144,000: the elect of Israel, the Jewish Christians, and the whole number of the faithful. Victorinus held the second, Primasius and Bede the third, and Swete supports the third.

The objection: John hears the number of Israel's tribes and then sees a second company that no one could count, from every nation (Revelation 7:4 and 7:9).