Dan (Jacob's son living at the time of the Patriarchs)

This record is Strong's H1835, the Hebrew name Dan, filed here under the spelling “Daniel”; its canonical references are all to Jacob's fifth son and the tribe and city named after him, not to the prophet Daniel (whose own record is Strong's H1840/H1841). Dan was Jacob's son by Rachel's servant Bilhah, and his tribe, finding its original allotment near Philistine territory too cramped, migrated north to conquer the city of Laish, renaming it Dan and making it Israel's northernmost town, the far end of the phrase “from Dan to Beersheba.” Jeroboam I later set up one of his golden calves there. A basalt stele fragment excavated at Tel Dan in 1993, inscribed by a ninth century BC Aramean king, records a victory over the “king of Israel” and the “House of David,” making it one of the earliest confirmed extra-biblical references to David's dynasty.