From Dan to Beersheba is a biblical phrase used nine times [1] in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the settled areas of the Tribes of Israel between Dan in the North and Beersheba in the South. The term contributed to the position that was used by British politicians during negotiation of the British Mandate for Palestine following World War I.
It is found in the biblical verses: [2]
1. Judges 20:1 during the Battle of Gibeah at the end of the Book of Judges
2. 1 Samuel 3:20 during the "Calling of Samuel"
3. 2 Samuel 3:10 during the war between Ish-bosheth and his brother-in-law David following the death of Saul
4. 2 Samuel 17:11 during the rebellion of David's son Absalom
5. / 6. 2 Samuel 24:2 / 1 Chronicles 21:2 on David's census of Israel and Judah
7. 2 Samuel 24:15 following David's census of Israel and Judah
8. 1 Kings 4:25 following Solomon's ascent to the throne
9. 2 Chronicles 30:5 during Hezekiah's passover
During the peace negotiations following World War I, "from Dan to Beersheba" contributed to the British proposal for the area of Palestine to be carved out of the Ottoman Empire as a League of Nations mandate. [4] On 13 September 1919, a memorandum was handed from Lloyd George to Georges Clemenceau which stated that British Palestine would be "defined in accordance with its ancient boundaries of Dan to Beersheba". [5]
The Book of Samuel is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books that constitute a theological history of the Israelites and that aim to explain God's law for Israel under the guidance of the prophets.
David was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
Ziklag is the biblical name of a town in the Negev region in the southwest of what was the Kingdom of Judah. It was a provincial town in the Philistine kingdom of Gath when Achish was king. Its exact location has not been identified with any certainty.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was the first tribe to take its place in the Land of Israel, occupying its Southern part. Jesse and his sons, including King David, belonged to this tribe.
The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Castle Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. The San Remo Resolution passed on 25 April 1920 determined the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for the administration of three then-undefined Ottoman territories in the Middle East: "Palestine", "Syria" and "Mesopotamia". The boundaries of the three territories were "to be determined [at a later date] by the Principal Allied Powers", leaving the status of outlying areas such as Zor and Transjordan unclear.
Faisal I bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 until his death in 1933. A member of the Hashemite family, he was a leader of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War, and ruled as the unrecognized King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria from March to July 1920 when he was expelled by the French.
Uriah the Hittite is a minor figure in the Hebrew Bible, mentioned in the Books of Samuel, an elite soldier in the army of David, king of Israel and Judah, and the husband of Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam. While Uriah was serving in David's army abroad, David, from the roof of his palace, looked down on his city and spied upon Bathsheba bathing in the privacy of her courtyard. Moved by lust at the sight of her, David called for Bathsheba to be brought to him and slept with her, impregnating her. In an effort to hide his misdeeds, David called Uriah home from war, hoping that he and Bathsheba would have sex and that he would be able to pass the child off as belonging to Uriah. However, Uriah, being a disciplined soldier, refused to visit his wife. So David murdered him by proxy by ordering all of Uriah's comrades to abandon him in the midst of battle, so that he ended up getting killed by an opposing army. Following Uriah's death, David took Bathsheba as his eighth wife.
The Tribe of Dan was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Torah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe initially settled in the hill lands bordering Judah and the Philistines but migrated north due to pressure of their enemies, settling at Laish, near Mount Hermon.
Greater Israel is an expression with several different biblical and political meanings over time. It is often used, in an irredentist fashion, to refer to the historic or desired borders of Israel.
The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes modern-day Israel and the State of Palestine, as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land.
The King–Crane Commission, officially called the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, consisting primarily of an American delegation was a commission of inquiry concerning the disposition of areas within the former Ottoman Empire.
Aref al-Aref was a Palestinian journalist, historian and politician. He served as mayor of East Jerusalem in the 1950s during the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank.
The Land of Israel is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt".
The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan – which had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries – following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The mandate was assigned to Britain by the San Remo conference in April 1920, after France's concession in the 1918 Clemenceau–Lloyd George Agreement of the previously agreed "international administration" of Palestine under the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Transjordan was added to the mandate after the Arab Kingdom in Damascus was toppled by the French in the Franco-Syrian War. Civil administration began in Palestine and Transjordan in July 1920 and April 1921, respectively, and the mandate was in force from 29 September 1923 to 15 May 1948 and to 25 May 1946 respectively.
The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was a joint British, French and Arab military administration over Levantine provinces – which had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries – between 1917 and 1920, set up on 23 October 1917 following the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and Arab Revolt of World War I. Although it was declared by the British military, who were in control of the region, it was followed on 30 September 1918 by the 1918 Anglo-French Modus Vivendi in which it was agreed that the British would give the French control in certain areas, and the Hashemites were given joint control of the Eastern area per T. E. Lawrence's November 1918 "Sharifian plan".
2 Samuel 2 is the second chapter of the Second Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the second part of Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the account of David becoming king over Judah in Hebron. This is within a section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel, and a section comprising 2 Samuel 2–8 which deals with the period when David set up his kingdom.
2 Samuel 3 is the third chapter of the Second Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the second part of Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the account of David's reign in Hebron. This is within a section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel, and a section comprising 2 Samuel 2–8 which deals with the period when David set up his kingdom.