Laish

The name Laish attaches to three distinct items in scripture: a Sidonian city in the far north taken by the Danites and renamed Dan, a man from Gallim whose son receives Saul's daughter Michal as wife, and a town near Jerusalem (in the form Laishah) named in Isaiah's invasion oracle. The umbrella collects all three, since the Hebrew name is shared.

The northern city renamed Dan

The Danites, looking for territory of their own, send five spies who reach a remote settlement at the foot of the northern mountains:

"Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people who were in it, how they dwelt in security, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no one possessing authority that might put [them] to shame in anything in the land, and they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with man." (Jdg 18:7).

The spies report back. The reconnaissance language is repeated when the Danites prepare for the campaign:

"Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered, and said to their brothers, Do you⁺ know that there is in these houses an ephod, and talismans, and a graven image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you⁺ have to do." (Jdg 18:14).

The actual conquest follows the prior characterization of the city as defenseless:

"And they took that which Micah had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and secure, and struck them with the edge of the sword; and they burned the city with fire." (Jdg 18:27).

After the burning the Danites resettle the site under their tribal name, and the narrator preserves the older name as a parenthetical:

"And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born to Israel: nevertheless the name of the city was Laish at the first." (Jdg 18:29).

The same incident is logged in the Joshua tribal-allotment summary, where the city appears under the variant Leshem:

"And the border of the sons of Dan went out beyond them; for the sons of Dan went up and fought against Leshem, and took it, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt in it, and called Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father." (Jos 19:47).

The man from Gallim

A second Laish appears not as a place but as the father of Palti — the man Saul gives Michal to after David has been driven out:

"Now Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim." (1Sa 25:44).

When David later demands Michal's return, the same man is named, with his name lengthened to Paltiel:

"And Ishbosheth sent, and took her from her husband, even from Paltiel the son of Laish." (2Sa 3:15).

Laishah in Isaiah

In Isaiah's account of the Assyrian invader's southward advance toward Jerusalem, a town called Laishah is addressed — apparently distinct from the northern city — alongside Gallim and Anathoth:

"Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! O you poor Anathoth!" (Isa 10:30).

The town is grouped with other small settlements north of Jerusalem in the line of march, sharing a name with the northern city but standing in a different geography.