In Revelation 7 John tells us that four angels are told to withhold judgment until the servants of God are sealed. There are 144,000 servants to seal from the children of Israel. In John’s vision he received an enumeration of the tribes and he recorded it by the Holy Spirit’s direction. So there is something of importance in this enumeration.
Interestingly the list does not have anybody from the tribe of Dan. Not only that but it specifically enumerates Manasseh and Joseph. Israel had 12 sons including Joseph (in this post I will use son in the sense of being a direct child and not a later descendant). However in dividing up the land, Joseph’s two sons Ephraim and Manasseh each received their own portion of land. Manasseh is the only tribe in this list that is not a son of Israel. I don’t know what significance, if any, there is to enumerating both Manasseh and Joseph in this list. Nor do I know the significance of leaving Dan out of the list. It is just an interesting observation that I made.
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David V