Forefather
Forefather Dan the Forefather
Ветхий Завет
Forefather Dan — the fifth son of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob by the maidservant Bilhah, progenitor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel named after him; the city and territory of Dan in northern Palestine were also named in his honor. His memory is kept on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers — a Sunday dedicated to the memory of all the Old Testament righteous who prepared the world for the coming of the Savior.
Forefather Dan is mentioned in the Book of Genesis (30:1-6) as the fifth son of the patriarch Jacob, born of Bilhah, the maidservant of his wife Rachel. Dan became the progenitor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The city of Dan (formerly Laish) at the northernmost edge of the Promised Land, and the surrounding territory, were later named after this tribe — hence the biblical expression "from Dan to Beersheba," denoting the borders of the land of Israel. Neither pre-revolutionary nor modern Orthodox hagiographic sources contain a separate extensive vita of Forefather Dan — like the other Old Testament patriarchs and tribal progenitors, he is venerated by the Church collectively, as part of the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, observed on the Sunday between December 11 and 17 (Old Style), two weeks before the Nativity of Christ, when all the Old Testament righteous from Adam to Righteous Joseph the Betrothed are commemorated as having prepared humankind for the coming of the Savior.