Genesis 49:16-18 Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan will be a serpent in the way, a viper on the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward. I have waited for Your salvation, O Jehovah. (Holy Bible, Recovery Version)
Dan did not care for the other tribes; he cared only for his own tribe. After he won the victory and gained the expansion, the enlargement, he did something for himself. This was the source of his apostasy. According to the Old Testament, the Lord never forgot Dan’s apostasy. In the eyes of God it was the worst sin in His economy….Nothing is more destructive than division among God’s people. Divisive worship centers are often related to idols. Because the devil lurks behind idols, by setting up an idol Dan became a serpent. Whenever you become divisive, no matter how good your reason may be, there will be something behind you—the serpent, the subtle one….Whenever you do not care for others, but only for your interests, doing something merely for yourself, the serpent is at hand. The best way to be safeguarded from falling into apostasy is taking care of others….If Dan had consulted the other tribes, he would have been kept from apostasy.
Dan not only set up a divisive center, but also ordained the hired “priests” (Judg. 18:30; 1 Kings 12:31). To hire the common people to be priests was profane because it destroyed God’s holy ordination. In the downfall of the church, many unsaved ones have been hired to do the service of God. This is apostasy. In God’s New Testament economy, all true believers are made priests of God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10). But degraded Christianity has built up a system to ordain some of the believers to do the service of God, making them a clerical hierarchy and leaving the rest of the believers as laymen. This also is a form of apostasy. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Genesis, msg. 102)
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