The Tribe of Dan
and the Antichrist
Will the Antichrist come from the tribe of Dan? Early Jewish
and Christian commentators make a connection between the
first tribe to go into apostasy and the end-time rise of the
Antichrist, the greatest apostate of all. The Bible confirms
the evidence. And modern genealogical history presents a
fascinating picture of just who the Antichrist may well turn
out to be! Read, here, the shocking story.
William F. Dankenbring
In the Encyclopeida Judaica, we read that early Christians such as Ireneaus believed that the Antichrist would come from the Hebrew tribe of Dan. Says this source regarding the belief in the coming of a world figure known as the “Antichrist,” “One partricular form basing itself on Jewish traditions (see Test. Patr., Dan. 5:6), makes the Antichrist a Jewish pseudo-messiah of the tribe of Dan” (“Antichrist,” vol.3, page 62).
The
Judaica also points out that another element entering into the
appearance of the end-ending Antichrist is the concept that he will be Nero
redivivus – that is, the wicked ruler to come will take on the
“characteristics of the Roman emperor who represented the very epitome of all
conceivable evil. The idea of Nero’s
eschatological reappearance developed and is to be found in the Sibylline
Oracles (e.g. 4:119-139) which constitute the most extensive early source for
this idea. In this book the demonization
of the Nero figure is complete (5:361-70) and it is very clear further (
The “Sibylline Oracles” simply means the oracles or words of the “Prophetess.” This ancient source of early Christian prophecy states that in the “last times,” “But when faith in piety perishes from among men, and justice is hidden in the world, untrustworthy men, living for unholy deeds, will commit outrage, wicked and evil deeds. No one will take account of the pious, but they will even destroy them all, by foolishness, very infantile people, rejoicing in outrages and applying their hands to blood” (4:152-158).
At
the time of the end, says the prophetess, “a leader of Rome will come to Syria
[the Middle East] who will burn the Temple of Jerusalem with fire, at the same
time slaughter many men and destroy the great land of the Jews with its broad
roads” (4:125-127). It is also foretold
that the world then will “Know then the wrath of the heavenly God, because they
will then destroy the blameless tribe of the pious. Then the strife of war being aroused will
come to the west, and the fugitive from
This end-time Roman king or tyrant is also called “the Persian,” a reference to the “return of Nero” (“Sibylline Oracles,” The Old Testament Pseudopigrapha, vol.1, page 395). The oracle or prophetess declares: “For the Persian will come onto your soil like hail, and he will destroy your land and evil-devising men with blood and corpses, by terrible altars, a savage-minded mighty man, much-bloodied, raving nonsense, with a full host numerous as sand, bringing destruction on you” (5:93-97).
The
reference is to a latter day Nero. The
oracle continues, “a great king of great
Speaking of “The Return of Nero,” the oracle declared, “For to him God gave strength to perform things like no previous one of all the kings” (5:220).
In a later section called “The Return of Nero,” the oracles declare:
“There will come to pass in
the LAST TIME about the waning of the
moon
a war which will throw the world into confusion and be deceptive
in
guile. A man who is a matricide will
come from the ends of the earth
in
flight and devising penetrating schemes in his mind. He will destroy
every
land and conquer all and consider all things more wisely than all
men..
. . . He will destroy many men and great rulers, and he will set fire
to
all men as no one else ever did.
Through zeal he will raise up those
who
were crouched in fear. There will come
upon men a great war from
the
West. Blood will flow up to the bank of
deep-eddying rivers. Wrath
will
drip in the plains of
West,
but destruction for the king. Then a
wintry blast will blow through-
out
the land, and the plain will be filled again with evil war. For fire will
rain
on men from the floors of heaven, fire and blood, water, lightning bolt,
darkness,
heavenly night, and destruction in war, and a mist over the slain
[poisonour
gases?] will destroy at once all kings and noble men. Then the
piteous
destruction of war will cease thus and no longer will anyone fight
with
swords of iron or with weapons at all, which will no longer be lawful.
A
wise people which is left will have peace, having experienced evil, so
that
it might later rejoice” (5:361-385).
These end-time prophecies tie right in with the warnings of the Scriptures for the time called “the last days,” and by the Jews, the “birthpangs of the Messiah.”
Some
ancient sources connect this end-time Antichrist, or “Nero,” with the tribe of
Dan. Says the Apocalypse of Daniel, an
early work of the church era, “And another great scepter will arise from
Perhaps the earliest source connecting the Antichrist with the tribe of Dan, however, is the Testament of the Patriarchs. In the testament of Dan, the progenitor of the tribe of Dan, he tells his children a prophecy for them for the last days, before the coming of the Messiah. We read: “For I know that in the last days you will defect from the Lord, you will be offended at Levi, and revolt against Judah; but you will not prevail over them . . . To the extent that you abandon the Lord, you will live by every evil deed, committing the revolting acts of the Gentiles, chasing after wives of lawless men, and you are motivated to all the wickedness by the spirits of deceit among you. For I read in the book of Enoch the righteous that your prince is Satan . . .” (Testaments, Dan 5:4-6).
Will the Antichrist be descended from the tribe of Dan, at least in part? Dan is missing from the tribes listed in Revelation 7, the 144,000 (Rev.7:5-8).
In Jeremiah’s prophecy, we read of Dan: “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it. See, I am letting loose snakes among you, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the LORD” (Jer.8:16-17, NRSV).
Irenaeus
attributes this omission to the fact that “the antichrist is to come from the
tribe of Dan –a belief which he bases on Jeremiah
Irenaeus says of the Antichrist: “And there is therefore in this beast, when he comes, a recapitulation made of all sorts of iniquity and of every deceit, in order that all apostate power, flowing into and being shut up in him, may be sent into the furnace of fire. Fittingly, therefore, shall his name possess the number six hundred and sixty-six, since he sums up in his own person all the commixture of wickedness which took place previous to the deluge, due to the apostasy of the angels. . . And [Antichrist] also sums up every error of devised idols since the flood, together with the slaying of the prophets and the cutting off of the just” (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” XXIX, 2, Ante-Nicean Fathers, p.558).
Irenaeus relates the coming of Antichrist to the tribe of Dan. He declares: “And Jeremiah does not merely point out his sudden coming, but he even indicates the tribe from which he shall come, where he says, ‘We shall hear the voice of his swift horses from DAN; the whole earth shall be moved by the voice of the neighing of his galloping horses: he shall also come and devour the earth, and the fullness thereof, the city also, and they that dwell therein.’ This, too, is the reason that this tribe is not reckoned in the apocalypse along with those which are saved” ( XXX, 2, p.559).
This vile man is also revealed in the Scriptures, of course, as being “a king of bold countenance, one who understands riddles” (Dan.8:23, NRSV). He will arise, “His power shall be great, and he shall cause fearful destruction, and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people of the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall magnify himself. Without warning he shall destroy many; and he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes; but, by no human hand, he shall be broken” (Dan.8:24-25).
Daniel 11 also speaks of this fearsome Antichrist. Daniel relates that in the “end time,” there shall “arise a contemptible person on whom the royal majesty had not been conferred; he shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom through intrigue. Armies shall be utterly swept away and broken before him, and the prince of the covenant as well [Jewish high priest?]. And after an alliance is made with him, he shall act deceitfully and become strong with a small party” (Dan.11:21-23, NRSV). He will wage war and be very successful.
Daniel goes on, “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant; but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. And those among the people who are wise shall make many understand, though they shall fall by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder, for some days. When they fall, they shall receive a little help. And many shall join themselves to them with flattery, and some of those who are wise shall fall, to refine and to cleanse them and to make them white, until the time of the end, for it is yet for the time appointed” (Daniel 11:31-35).
What will this cruel tyrant be like? Revelation calls him a “Beast.” He will have a beastial, feline, fierce nature. Says Daniel: “And the king shall do according to his will; he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is determined shall be done. He shall give no heed to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women; he shall not give heed to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all. He shall honor the god of fortresses instead of these; a god whom his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious tones and costly gifts. He shall deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a foreign god; those who acknowledge him he shall magnify with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price” (Dan.11:36-39).
Who is this vile, contemptible, horrible creature?
In the July, 1998 issue of Prophecy
in the News magazine, author
Church
continues: “Furthermore, he is related
to every Scottish monarch and to the current British royal family.
What about
his father’s side of the family? Here’s
where the story gets even more entertaining.
Blythe was
a bigamist. He had not bothered to
divorce his third wife, Wannetta. It
would be another seven months before that marriage would end, on
Another
fact Blythe did not tell his new wife was he had been drafted and ordered to
report to duty, and just five weeks after they married he boarded a troop ship
bound for
“Twelve
weeks after
“Over the
years
Therefore,
William Blythe was obviously not Bill Clinton’s father. So who was Bill’s true father? Here’s where the story gets even more
interesting!
“Over the past
six years, efforts to uncover
been
nigh unto impossible to confirm. The
President had all records of his
family
history, school records, medical history, etc. sealed.
“In
1992, we called Burke’s Peerage and asked if they had done any research
into
search
on his ancestry. It seemed strange to us
at the time that they denied
knowing
anything about
AP
story that linked
a
source. We again called Burke’s Peerage
and repeated our request.
Again,
they told us that no work had been done.
That’s when we read the
article
to the person on the phone, naming Harold Brooks-Baker as a source.
She
then admitted that they had done some work on the genealogy. She said
that
we should talk with Harold Brooks-Baker, himself. She requested that
we
fax a letter and request a reply.
“We
did as she asked. Two days later, having
received no reply, we called
again. This time, we were able to get Mr. Harold
Brooks-Baker on the
phone. He asked why we wanted the information, and
said he would have
to
clear our request with
He
talked like there might be something to hide.”
Indeed! What might that closely-guarded secret
be? J. R. Church continues his riveting
story:
“Bill Clinton’s
family goes back to William Henry Harrison and Benjamin
to
Ford makes him ‘near kin’ to Richard Nixon and George Bush. Small
world,
isn't it?
‘Royal
Boy
“There
is no official documentation for what I am about to relate. I talked
with
a man in the summer of 1996 who claimed to be a descendant of the
Rothschild
banking
family. He informed me that Bill Clinton
used to attend
their
family functions as a boy.
‘This
man grew up in the same town with
schools.
He would see Bill at family get-togethers wearing a Jewish
skullcap. According to him, Bill Clinton is a
descendant of the Roths-
child
family.
“He
said the rabbis would kiss his hand and refer to him as the Segulah Yeled
Eklatosh
-- the ‘royal-boy-chosen.’ He
said that according to private family
records, the original Meyer Amschel (Bauer)
Rothschild claimed to have
had
a heavenly visitor in 1773, who informed him that Jesus was not the
Messiah. He told Meyer Amschel that the family from
which he descended
would produce the Messiah in the last half of
the twentieth century.
“A
few weeks later I read in The Jewish Festivals by Hayyim Schauss
(published
in 1938) that the Roman Emperor Nero had faked his death,
escaped
and married a Jewish woman. The famous
thirteenth century
Rabbi
Meir (also spelled Meyer) of
descent
from Nero. I called my Rothschild family
friend and asked if there
was
a family connection. Two days later he
called me back, and said
‘Yes! The Rothschilds are descended from Nero!’ . .
.” (“Roots of the
Presidents,”
by J. R. Church, Prophecy in the News, July 1998, pages 18-19).
Nero to Rothschild to Clinton!
I have a copy of the book The
Jewish Festivals: History and
Observance, by Hayyim Schauss, published in 1938. In it we read that during the period
surrounding the Tish B’Av (9th day of Av), the teacher of children in the
synagogue drills them on the book of Lamentations, the destruction of the
Temple, and tells them related stories from the Talmud and Mishnah. TheY are taught of the Babylonian conquest
and destruction of the Temple, at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar’s general
Nebuzaradan, who later converts to Judaism.
Then we read the following:
“The Emperor Nero appears on the scene. The story they are
told makes them feel
kindly and well-disposed to him. He was
a
fine and gentle
individual who, the teacher states, abandoned his
army near Jerusalem,
escaped, and became a convert to Judaism.
Not only that, but the
great teacher, Rabbi Meir, was a descendant
of his” (page 103).
Corroborating this story, The
Book of Our Heritage, by Eliyahu Kitov, volume 3, states regarding the
destruction of Jerusalem:
“The Emperor
Nero went up against them. As he
approached Jerusalem,
he
shot an arrow eastward and it fell toward Jerusalem. [He shot another
arrow]
westward, and it fell toward Jerusalem.
[He shot arrows] in all
four
directions, and they all fell facing Jerusalem.
“He
said to a child: ‘Quote me your verse
[i.e., tell me a verse with which
you
are familiar].’ And the child replied: ‘And I shall exact my revenge
on
Edom through my people Israel (Yechezkel 25:14).
“Said
Nero: ‘God wishes to destroy His House
yet He wishes to clean His
hands
with me [i.e., although God wishes to destroy Jerusalem, the instrument
of
destruction will nevertheless be punished].’
He fled and converted to
Judaism
and R. Meir was his descendant” (p.970).
From the villainous Nero to Clinton
-- what a legacy! But to understand
this legacy more fully, let’s examine the Emperor Nero himself. What sort of man was he? Was he really a “fine and gentle individual”?
Musician,
Poet, Arsonist, Murder
On July 18, 64 A.D., a fire broke
out in the Circus Maximus, spread rapidly, and in nine days destroyed two
thirds of the city of Rome. Nero,
emperor at the time, blamed the Christians, without any proof that they were
the villains. They were a convenient
“scapegoat.” The Roman historian Tacitus
wrote:
“Nero proceeded
with his usual artifice. He found a set
of profligate and
abandoned
wretches who were induced to confess themselves guilty; and
on
the evidence of such men a number of Christians were convicted . . .
They
were put to death with exquisite cruelty, and to their sufferings Nero
added
mockery and derision. Some were covered
with skins of wild beasts,
and
left to be devoured by dogs; others were nailed to crosses; numbers of
them
were burned alive; many, covered with inflammable matter, were set
on
fire to serve as torches during the night.”
Yes, a very fine and gentle man was
he! Nero was so perverted that when his
wife Poppaea died in 65 A.D., in advanced pregnancy, from a vicious kick to the
stomach by her angry husband, Nero lamented her death. He was still so passionate for her that he
found a youth, Sporus, who closely resembled her, and had him castrated,
“married” him in a formal ceremony, and “used him in every way like a
woman.”
Jesse Lyman Hurbut in his History
of the Christian Church, relates:
“In the year 64 A.D. a large part of the city of Rome was destroyed in a
great conflagration. It has been said
that the fire was started by Nero, the worst of all the Roman emperors.
. . It is certain that Nero was charged with the crime by common report. In order to clear himself, Nero declared that
the Christians had set fire to the city, and began a terrible persecution.
“Thousands were tortured and put
to death, among them St. Peter by crucifixion, in the year 67; and St. Paul by being beheaded, in the year
68. These dates are not certain, and the
apostles may have suffered martyrdom a year, or two years, earlier.” Says Hurbut, “the gardens of Nero, where
multitudes of Christians were burned as ‘living torches,’ while the emperor
drove his chariot among them, are now the seat of the Vatican palace, the home
of the Roman Catholic pontiff, and of St. Peter's Church” (p.40).
Halley’s Bible Handbook tells us further of this man: “The Great Fire in Rome occurred in A.D.
64. Nero himself burned the city. Though an inhuman brute, he was a great
builder. It was in order to build a new
and grander Rome that he set fire to the city, and fiddled in glee at the sight
of it. The people suspected him; and
historians have commonly regarded it as a fact that he was the perpetrator of
the crime. In order to divert suspicion
from himself he accused the Christians of burning Rome.”
Haley continues:
“In and around
Rome multitudes of Christians were arrested and put to death
in
the most cruel ways. Crucified. Or tied in skins of animals, and thrown
into
the arena to be worried to death by dogs, for the entertainment of the
people. Or thrown to the wild beasts. Or tied to stakes in Nero’s gardens
pitch
poured over their bodies, and their burning bodies used as torches to
light
Nero’s gardens at night, while he drove around in his chariot,
naked,
indulging himself in his midnight revels, gloating over
the
dying agonies of his victims” (p.635).
Nero was the cruel, inhuman monster
of the first century, who martyred Christians by the thousands in grossly
brutal and diabolical ways.
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall
Edward Gibbon, in his classical The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, tells us,
“In the tenth
year of the reign of Nero the capital of the empire was afflicted
by
a fire which raged beyond the memory or example of former ages. The
monuments
of Grecian art and of Roman virtue, the trophies of the Punic
and
Gallic wars, the most holy temples and the most splendid palaces were
involved
in one common destruction. Of the
fourteen regions or quarters
into
which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were leveled
with
the ground, and the remaining seven which had experienced the fury of
the
flames, displayed a melancholy aspect of ruin and desolation.”
Although Nero subsequently opened
the Imperial gardens for the homeless to take shelter in, and temporary
buildings were erected for the accommodation of the dispossessed, nevertheless,
the masses suspected Nero of starting the blaze.
To divert suspicion, says the Roman
historian Tacitus, “he inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who,
under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved
infamy. They derived their name and
origin from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the
sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate.”
Says Tacitus, “the confessions of those who were seized [Christians who
under the duress of torture confessed to setting the fire to escape greater
pain] discovered [exposed and revealed] a great multitude of their accomplices,
and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to
the city as for their hatred of human kind.”
Tacitus
continues:
“They died in
torments, and their torments were embittered by insult
and
derision. Some were nailed on crosses;
others sewn up in the skins
of
wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared
over
with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
darkness
of the night. The gardens of Nero were
destined for the
melancholy
spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and
honored
with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace
in
the dress and attitude of a charioteer.”
Notice how Christians of the first
century were accused of being “haters of mankind.” In other words, they were because of their
attitude towards pagan practices, pagan religions, and toward Gentile
government and society, which was rampant and rife with paganism, considered
guilty of “hate crimes.”
More and more, today, the same
charge is being hurled toward Bible-believing, evangelical Christians in the
Western world. Christians are being
accused of creating a 'climate' of hatred toward such groups as homosexuals and
abortionists. Intolerance toward
Bible-believing Christians is growing.
Those who believe in Bible prophecy, in a soon-coming “Armageddon,” and
“doomsday,” are increasingly being looked upon as the “lunatic fringe” and as
“fanatics.”
The NUMBER of the Beast
In the book of Revelation, the
apostle John warns us: “Here is
wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count
the number of the beast; for it is the number of a MAN; and his number is Six
hundred threescore and si” (Rev.13:18).
That is, the number of 666.
In Aramaic, the name Nero Caesar is Nron
Ksr. The numerical value of these
letters are:
N = 50 R = 200
O = 6 N =
50
K = 100 S =
60 R = 200 Total: 666
His name, “NERO CAESAR” in Aramaic, the common language of the Jews
in the first century, adds up to “666,”
the number of the Beast of Revelation (Rev.13:18). He was the “Antichrist” of the first century,
and a “forerunner” or “type” of the end-time “Antichrist”!
Will a descendant of Nero’s become
the “Antichrist” of the last century of this age -- our day, today? What about the name “William Jefferson
Clinton”?
According to Hebrew gematria, the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet each have numerical values. Therefore, in Hebrew, the name "William
Jefferson Clinton" is spelled as follows::
WILLIAM
Vav = 6
Aleph = 1
Yod = 10
Lamed = 30
Yod = 10
Mem = 40
97 97
JEFFERSON
Yod = 10
P(F)eh = 80
Resh = 200
Samech = 60
Nun = 50
400 400
CLINTON
Koph = 20
Lamed = 30
Yod = 10
Nun = 50
Tet = 9
Nun = 50
169 169
Total: 666
As revealing and astonishing as this
is, it is even more incredible when we learn that another name also adds up to
“666.” Notice!
HILLARY
Het = 8
Lamed = 30
Resh = 200
Yod = 10
248 248
RODHAM
Resh = 200
Dalet = 4
Hay = 5
Mem = 40
249 249
CLINTON 169
Total: 666
How about them apples?
Could it be that we have found and
identified the end-time Antichrist, the “Beast” of Revelation? Is he today standing among us, right in our
very midst?