Genesis 49:17

Dan shall be a serpent] or, 'May Dan be,' etc., a wish for the tribe's success in war: cp. the conquest of Laish, Judges 18:27. The territory of Dan lay between Ephraim and Simeon. The Danites were hard pressed by the Philistines, and part of the tribe emigrated to Laish in the N. of the Holy Land, and called it Dan. An adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels] 'What the poet portrays is not as in the case of Judah an open contest decided by superior strength, but the insidious efforts of the weaker against the stronger' (D.).