Jacob's blessing of Dan is spare in Hebrew. "Dan shall judge his people." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears a specific future in it. "From the house of Dan there is to arise a man who will judge his people with the judgment of truth. All the tribes of Israel will hearken to him together" (Genesis 49:16).

The Aramaic narrows the prophecy from tribe to person. It is not Dan-as-a-collective who will judge. It is one Danite, singular, rising at a pivotal moment in Israel's history. And the Targum is not coy about who. The next verse makes it explicit.

The figure is Shimshon bar ManoachSamson son of Manoah, the Judge who would rise from the tribe of Dan to break the Philistine grip on the western hill country (Judges 13-16). "The judgment of truth" is the Targum's way of acknowledging that Samson's riddles and raids were not chaos. They were a kind of verdict delivered with supernatural strength on oppressors who had taxed Israel into silence.

The final phrase lingers. "All the tribes of Israel will hearken to him together." For one generation, a Danite spoke, and Israel listened.