Dan to Beersheba illustration

The phrase, “from Dan to Beersheba” is an effort to describe the entire land God had given the Israelites. Dan is in the far north, at the base of Mt. Hermon. Beersheba (also Be’er Sheva or Beersheva) is the last heavily populated city in southern Israel before the land melts into the Negev Desert. The distance from Dan to Beersheba is just 150 miles (241 km) in length, and roughly 50 (80 km) miles in width. One way to communicate the small size of Israel is to divide the landmass of your own community by the landmass of modern-day Israel (8,630 square miles, 22,145 square km). The size of Israel today is difficult to pin down because of areas under dispute, but that is also true throughout the biblical era. Under Solomon’s rule, Israel’s reach was enormous. During Hezekiah’s reign, the Assyrians only had to take Jerusalem in order to completely destroy Judah. The northern kingdom had already been defeated and exiled. After the exile and through the New Testament era, the land was populated by both Jews and non-Jews. Since 1948, the modern-day state of Israel has given us a visual point of reference for the ancient land, though the national boundaries have never been more defined than they are now. Therefore, the phrase “from Dan to Beersheba” is one that signals far more than two distinct cities. The phrase represents the north and south extremes for where most of the people lived in the land of the Bible for most of the biblical era.