Dan-Jaan

Dan-jaan appears once, as a single waypoint on the route the census-takers traveled under David. It sits in the far north of the country, at the turn from the Hittite lands toward the Phoenician coast.

A Stop on the Census Route

The verse traces the surveyors' path through a sequence of regions and cities: "then they came to Gilead, and to the land of the Hittites, to Kadesh; and they came to Dan-jaan, and round about to Sidon" (2Sa 24:6). The geography moves north and then west — Gilead east of the Jordan, the Hittite territory and Kadesh further north, Dan-jaan, then a sweep around toward Sidon on the Mediterranean. The place is named only for its position in this line of march; it marks the northern arc of the count and gives no other detail about itself.