Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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16:28), but the tribe in general appears not to have been entirely destitute of the treacherous and formidable characteristics here depicted (Judges 18:27). "It is certainly observable that the first introduction of idolatry in Israel is ascribed to the tribe of Dan (Judges 18.), and that in the numbering of the tribes in Revelation 7 the name of Dan is omitted. From these or other causes many of the Fathers (Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine, Theodoret) were led to believe that Antichrist should spring from the tribe of Dan" ('Speaker's Commentary').
17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way,
an adder in the path,
that biteth the horse heels,
so that his rider shall fall backward.
18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. 19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him:
but he shall overcome at the last.
Concerning Gad, Ge 49:19. He alludes to his name, which signifies a troop, foresees the character of that tribe, that it should be a warlike tribe, and so we find (1Ch 12:8); the Gadites were men of war fit for the battle. He foresees that the situation of that tribe on the other side Jordan would expose it to the incursions of its neighbours, the Moabites and Ammonites; and, that they might not be proud of their strength and valour, he foretells that the troops of their enemies should, in many skirmishes, overcome them; yet, that they might not be discouraged by their defeats, he assures them that they should overcome at the last, which was fulfilled when, in Saul's time and David's, the Moabites and Ammonites were wholly subdued: see 1Ch 5:18-22, &c.
Note, The cause of God and his people, though it may seem for a time to be baffled and run down, will yet be victorious at last. Vincimur in prælio, sed non in bello--We are foiled in a battle, but not in a campaign. Grace in the soul is often foiled in its conflicts, troops of corruption overcome it, but the cause is God's, and grace will in the issue come off conqueror, yea, more than conqueror, Ro 8:37.