This is an expression you will find within the pages of the Bible, and more than just a few times. A full 9 times to be exact. And, it goes like a little something like this, in the lands of ancient Israel, that stretched from Dan to Beersheba. What a great way to surmise it if that was all you had to say, from here to there. And everyone would immediately know what endpoints you were talking about. The thing is, It is not like that anymore. So lets change that, lets make it simple again. Lets bring back this Biblical saying. So all will know the true whereabouts of the Promised Land.
Now, Scholars say this saying explains the Biblical lands or area from the north to the south, we think i'ts not quite like that. We will go through the verses below. But know, that these are directions and we think, are on opposite sides of a map. We aim to take these and use them as markings on The Borders of The Promised Lands. Endpoints if you like. And if we place the Scriptural Berseba in the region of ǁKaras in Nambia, also including the region of ǃNamiǂNûs as being the home of what could have been known as the town of Berseba in ancient times. Things do pan out as far as the Tribe of Dan goes, remember from Dan to Berseba, and the possible locations reveals themselves. Now in placing this village or grand old city, we may have found our one endpoint, in fact, our most western point. And THEN we need to find our outermost point to the East right? From East To West the saying went. And Dan seems to be the first thing SoNiNi sees when He looks down upon the Promised Land. Remember the throne is indeed in the East (Ezekiel 46,1), That is why Dan is mentioned first as it would be seen first from Heaven. And there, right there, we have our outlines from the Biblical saying from Dan to Berseba. From East to West. So lets dive !
Now Berseba is today a mere constituency in the Karas region, where the settlement is called Berseba. Now the village Berseba, and how it got its name does not give much historical credibility. Its fraught with herder clans from Orlam, basically running from European settlers (and involvements from Dutch East India "Naughty" Company). Now all of these stories may be very much true, and of course filled with many atrocious events in recent times. However, we are looking at events that happened much further back than these rather recent historical events. No doubt the Khoekhoe (also a people mentioned in the Bible) have been in the area for a long time, but it was not always so. And we will go further into the reason it has the name it used to have when the area was not so much deserted, it became known as Bersheeba. Well of Seven or Well of Oaths, as we remember from our Scriptures. Now this would have become one of the great cities in the desert of the South (Negev) or Kalahari as we call it today. Often called the Wilderness or the Great Wildnerness in our Bibles.
We see that the original Hebrew, seems to relate to the Well of Oaths, and the oath made between Abimelech and Abraham (Genesis 21,31), OR the oath made between Isaak and Abimelech (Genesis 26,33). And in the Well of Seven or the Seventh Well if you will, we see them reopened by Isaac (Esek, Sitna and Rehoboth) then Isaac went to Beersheba, which was the Seventh Well. We see another mention of Shiba and Beersheba in Joshua 19,2 - However, if you read the Greek text (Septuagint) it reads Beersheba and Zamaa (Samaa) which is different from the Hebrew (Masoretic text).
Now this place was mainly mentioned in connection with Abraham and Isaac, as we can read in the Genesis story. Basically at first a peace treaty between King Abimelech and Abraham, then Isaac built an altar there (Genesis 26,23-33) and also had interactions with Abimelech, and Jacob did have the dream of a stairway going into Heaven after he left somewhere around Beersheba.
Now, and this is where it gets interesting, Beersheba was said to be in the territory of the Tribe of SIMEON and JUDA (Joshua 15,28), and we can see this furthermore in Joshua 19,20-63:
20 This is the inheritance of the tribe of Judah, according to its clans:
21 The southernmost towns of the tribe of Judah in the Negev toward the boundary of Edom were:
Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur, 22 Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah, 23 Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan, 24 Ziph, Telem, Bealoth, 25 Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (that is, Hazor), 26 Amam, Shema, Moladah, 27 Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet, 28 Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah, 29 Baalah, Iyim, Ezem, 30 Eltolad, Kesil, Hormah, 31 Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah, 32 Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain and Rimmon—a total of twenty-nine towns and their villages.
33 In the western foothills:
Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah, 34 Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam, 35 Jarmuth, Adullam, Sokoh, Azekah, 36 Shaaraim, Adithaim and Gederah (or Gederothaim)—fourteen towns and their villages.
37 Zenan, Hadashah, Migdal Gad, 38 Dilean, Mizpah, Joktheel, 39 Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon, 40 Kabbon, Lahmas, Kitlish, 41 Gederoth, Beth Dagon, Naamah and Makkedah—sixteen towns and their villages.
42 Libnah, Ether, Ashan, 43 Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib, 44 Keilah, Akzib and Mareshah—nine towns and their villages.
45 Ekron, with its surrounding settlements and villages; 46 west of Ekron, all that were in the vicinity of Ashdod, together with their villages; 47 Ashdod, its surrounding settlements and villages; and Gaza, its settlements and villages, as far as the Desert of Egypt and the coastline of the Ancient Sea.
48 In the hill country:
Shamir, Jattir, Sokoh, 49 Dannah, Kiriath Sannah (that is, Debir), 50 Anab, Eshtemoh, Anim, 51 Goshen, Holon and Giloh—eleven towns and their villages. 52 Arab, Dumah, Eshan, 53 Janim, Beth Tappuah, Aphekah, 54 Humtah, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) and Zior—nine towns and their villages. 55 Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah, 56 Jezreel, Jokdeam, Zanoah, 57 Kain, Gibeah and Timnah—ten towns and their villages. 58 Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor, 59 Maarath, Beth Anoth and Eltekon—six towns and their villages. 60 Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim) and Rabbah—two towns and their villages.
61 In the wilderness:
Beth Arabah, Middin, Sekakah, 62 Nibshan, the City of Salt and En Gedi—six towns and their villages.
63 Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah.
So these tribes would be within these areas, we can confirm that. It seems Juda then would have to stretch all the way over towards Gaza (Land of Moab), with Edom as a boundary in the north (even though it says southernmost cities here), crossing from Namibia, Botswana and perhaps parts of Zimbabwe, and over to Mozambique. We also see Hebron (Gabarone?) and Jerusalem as being in these areas, along with many other great cities. It forces a person to outline things in the mind for sure. We will get back to this in our complete mappings of the lands as we find the 12 Tribes in Joshua. An ever-looming article we keep adding to and postponing, but it is coming. We only do not know what to make of a couple of the half tribes, one on the East of Jordan, and then there is the question of the Jordan and Euphrates River. Remember, these two Rivers will define everything in the Promised Lands. There is So much work to be done here and we will and can only play our part.
More on Beersheba, not far from the mountainous region called Brukkaros mountains, We also know that Saul built a fort up there during one of his wars against the Amalekites (I Samuel 14,48):
47 After Saul had assumed rule over Israel, he fought against their enemies on every side: Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment on them."
And, we also know that Elia took refuge there at Beersheba from Queen Jezebel (I Kings 19,3) and that Samuels's sons were judges in Beersheba (1 Samuel 8,2). So the area had lots of events. Now the Scriptures also say that the town was abandoned after the Babylonians had conquered ancient Israel, but they later resettled it as Bersheeba of the South. The text uses the word south, which we know also means Desert, we think this is talking about The Negev (Kalahari area), as we know negev in ancient Tswana/Hebrew means south. We think this gives us a clear direction, not to the south because in the Promised Land these are northern territories, and Berseba was a northern city of the territories of ancient Israel. So the expression from Dan to Bersheeba, we think could not have meant anything other than from East to West.
So let's say we have found Bersheba out there in the Namibian desert to the West, where is the other outermost point to the East? Where on this earth is Dan or the Tribe of Dana? We will suggest this Tribe and ancient border can be drawn almost straight across as a horizontal line, towards the Zambezi as we know would be the northernmost border under Solomon and it would have been when the Tribes were given their allotment. We will suggest that Tribes, now living in southeastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique, places like Chipinge and Chimanimani, known as NDAU (Dana) would be in the areas of Dana, straight across from Bersheba. Que map, and look at the line that becomes apparent in between these two areas. Might be off a few kms, but it is too much of a coincidence and trace for us is in these modern times, to be able to pretty much draw a line from one to the other. Try it yourself.
Now the Ndau, which are located in the Chipinge (and Chimanimani) districts, do find themselves on the far side (northern side or just at the mouth) of the Zambezi. But they can be found in parts of Bikita in the Zambezi valley, and from central Mozambique and all the way to Malawai. The word Ndau kinda means land. And just like the Manyika in northern Manicaland, Manyika means owners of the land. And indeed they are the rightful owners of the land. And the same can be applied to Tanganyika (Tanzanian and others). Ndau yedu means our land. Now these figures of speech have Nguni traces, beba funa indawo or looking for a place. Ndau is called so by the Ngunis at Gaza. Either way, the name origin of Ndau may simply be a play on words for the old Tribe name of Dan (Ndau) or nDana.
Within the Ndau are the Magova, Mashanga, Vatomboti, Madanda and Teve. The Ndaus has a history that goes back FAR and like with all African tribal history it gets complicated and DEEPLY personal quickly, and we know of meetings with Khoi and San people, during the times of Maphungubwe (contemporary history) we find them there along with Kalangas.
Now historically they could be related to the Karanga tribe, already in Mozambique and Zimbabwe for years and years. But they have since then mixed with Ngunis, which is heard in their language by the plethora of Nguni words. We know this was an event that happened because of the conquest of the Ngunis in the 1800s when northern Nguni armies (Zulus, Swatis, Ndwandwe, Khumalos and Ndebele) - ALL Bantu speakers that migrated from South Africa and into Mozambique. They migrated then like they had done before. Now during these times, many tribes were on the run from the influx of other tribes. Again likely caused by European settlers. But the foreign settlers cant take all the blame, Remember Shaka removed many tribes in his conquest for strength and unity. There is a heavy price to pay for that when large empires assimilate the smaller ones. So, Therefore we have languages like Rhonga, we believe used to be widely spoken in Zulu-land and even in Port Natal, now almost being completely wiped out of the annals of history. Imagine how many more had to leave because of King Shaka? And we have not even started talking about colonialism. So much lost, lets see if it can be found again. We must look and remember.
Now we can go into recent history, and talk about people like Nguni Chief Nxaba, who helped keep Sofala going from its ruins. And then we have Soshangane who established a capital up there by the highlands of the Sabie River, in what today is Zimbabwe. The Gaza Kingdom was either settled or quite violently overtaken by the Nguni Shangaans, in southern Mozambique. The local Ndaus were in all honestly kinda removed and assimilated into the Nguni-Shangaans. So the Ndaus and Ngunis are not that easy to separate these days. It gets complicated very quickly, and we don't want to insult more than absolutely necessary someone's ancestral history. We too are working of second-hand sources. None of us were there. And, History is always convoluted and hard to have an unbiased opinion when there are many sides. And if it was lived it was personal, which makes things even more complicated, because how can you be unbiased then? So let us, doing this research, try to be as accurate as possible.
Now then back to this Biblical phrase, people may or may not have heard about, From Dan to Beersheba, occurs a whole 9 times in our Scriptures. As we said was generally believed to be a direction in saying from North to South, but we say not so. Not so at all. You can't encompass anything by drawing a straight line up or down, what about the sides? What about the width? We think the width (breadth) would be determined by the ocean on all sides. This is the case when placing these two areas from East to West like we have done. Now Biblical Beersheba and Tribe of Dan may have been higher up sure, but then you get the problem of the Rivers. This way, it still works.
Let's look at some verses (Judges 20,1):
Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before SoNiNi in Mizpah.
This one seems to imply that Dan and Beersheba and all down from them, and Gilead (perhaps again another part of the land), came together and worshipped SoNiNi. Not if this entails almost all lands south of the Zambezi, people... That is a lot of people. All in agreement and prayer before SoNiNi. Wonderful read. The quote is in the context of war, however, and during the battle of Gibeah toward the end of Judges. Also, they would have gathered at Mispah, we believe a mountain in the region of Limpopo, not far from Nebo the final resting place of Moses. We are still only within the country of South Africa.
Another there are plenty in the Books of Samuel, like in 1 Samuel 3,20, 2. Samuel 17,11 and in 2 Samuel 3,9-10:
9 May SoNiNi deal with Abner, be it ever so severely, if I do not do for David what SoNiNi promised him on oath 10 and transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and establish David’s throne over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba.”
This last one was during another war between Ish-Bosheth and his brother-in-law David, this was after Saul had died. We see it again, a description of the land, from here to there. From East to West, and Juda. And, you can find the same wording in the following Scriptures, 2. Samuel 24,2, 1 Chronicles 21,2, and again in 2 Samuel 24,15:
15 SoNiNi sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
Another time the phrase appears is mentioned is in I Kings 4,25:
25 During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, everyone under their own vine and under their own fig tree.
And again in 2 Chronicles 30,5:
5 They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, calling the people to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to SoNiNi naNiNi, the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written.
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