judge

 Rachel was a piece of work, but she did give birth to some of the great men of God in the Bible. I don't know if she ever fully gave herself to Jacob or ever really left her father's house. Even though Jacob loved her it seemed like he respected Leah more.  After all in the end, Jacob buried Rachel by the side of the road on the way to Bethlehem. You can still see her tomb there to this day. However, Jacob buried Leah with his father and mother at Hebron with  the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the OT in the "cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre." This is the traditional spot of Abraham  and Sara's burial. 
 But this blog is about the name Dan and what it may mean.  Rachel was barren and so she gave her handmaid to Jacob to bear a son "on her knees". In giving birth she proclaimed that God had heard her and given her a male. She said God hath judged me so I will call his name Dan.
 Rachel of course came from the part of Abraham's family that was back in the old country. If you were to look on a map you might find that Haran, hometown to Rachel,  is East of Israel back in the area of Mesopotamia, present day Iraq. This is old country indeed. The language there was Akkadian. And if you look in Akkadian you will find that the word for "judge" is dianum or dayyanum. In semitic languages they often put nouns in "construct" form. In Akkadian the main noun is shortened. So "dianmu" could easily be "dian" or dan.  Rachel could have used a bit of her father's language to name Dan. At the birth Rachel proclaimed that "God had judged me.... so I will call him Dan". 
 Akkadian is a semitic language. It is believed that Hebrew a semitic language has its beginning in Mesopotamia. But the fun thing about this word is that it does not have the negative feel for the word "judge' or judgment that I have. It means that  there is a decision in favor of Rachel. God judged or heard me and gave me deliverance from barrenness and my sister's scorn. There was deliverance in the decision of God. It is interesting the way the Hebrew puts Rachel story. Ná∂;d wäømVv h¶Da√r∂q N¢E;k_lAo N¡E;b y™Il_NR;tˆ¥yÅw y$IlOqV;b o∞AmDv ‹MÅg◊w My$IhølTa yˆ…n∞An∂;d ‹ lEj∂r rRmaôø;tÅw     Hebrew is written from right to left so it begins on this line and end on the line above with the last word in red being Dan. The other red letter word is also dan, meaning "judged me". If you look close you can see that the last two letters of the second red word is the attached pronoun "me" -ne. Now both first letters and the small "T" which is the vowel, are identical. Actually the second letters "n" are identical they are just written slightly different because one is at the end of a word. So both words say "dan". As a final note one of the prophecies over Dan is that he will "judge his people". This same connotation carries over into the Book of Judges as these are stories of deliverers and not so much about court room decisions or God's wrath on someone.