Genesis 49:16

Summary

The verse states that Dan will judge his people, comparing him to one of the tribes of Israel. The sentence plays on the sound of the name Dan itself, since it shares its root with the verb used for "to judge."

Key words

• Dan ("Dan", H1835H) — the proper name of the tribe/ancestor; consists of the root ד-י-ן, the same consonants that form the verb in the next word.
• yaDin ("he will judge", H1777) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular; the imperfect form marks an action viewed as future or habitual/ongoing rather than a single completed event.
• ammo ("his people", H5971A + H9023) — masculine singular noun in construct with a possessive suffix, meaning "the people belonging to him"; identifies whose judgment is in view.
• ke'achad ("like one of", H9004 + H0259) — preposition ke ("like") attached to a numeral in construct form, producing the partitive sense "as one out of a group."
• shivtei Yisra'el ("tribes of Israel", H7626H + H3478) — masculine plural noun in construct with the place name, meaning "the tribes belonging to Israel"; sets the group from which "one" is drawn.

What the text says

The clause is a short verbal sentence: subject (Dan) + verb (yaDin) + object with suffix (ammo), followed by a comparative phrase (ke'achad shivtei Yisra'el). The imperfect form of yaDin leaves the action open in time — it can be read as describing a future act of judging or a characteristic, recurring function of Dan toward "his people." The name Dan and the verb yaDin share the same three consonants (ד-י-ן), so the sentence contains a built-in sound-and-root correspondence between the subject's name and the verb describing its role.

The comparative phrase uses a construct chain: achad ("one of") governs shivtei Yisra'el ("tribes of Israel"), producing a partitive reading — Dan is likened to one member selected out of the larger set of Israel's tribes, rather than to the tribal collective as a whole.

Differences between versions

The LXX reads ὡσεὶ καὶ μία φυλὴ ἐν Ἰσραήλ, "as also one tribe in Israel," using ἐν ("in") rather than a partitive genitive of the tribes, which softens the "one out of many" construction found in the Hebrew construct chain. The Vulgate renders this as sicut et alia tribus in Israël, "as also another tribe in Israel," using alia ("other/another") instead of a numeral equivalent to "one," which shifts the sense from partitive selection to simple equivalence among tribes.