Far away, to the north of the other Hebrew settlements, the spies found the Phœnician city of Laish, already mentioned in the geographical lists of the Egyptian conqueror Thothmes III. Its inhabitants were living in peaceful security, ‘after the manner of the Zidonians,’ with no one to interfere with them, and no enemy of whom they could be afraid. The spies saw at once that the city was unprepared for a sudden attack by armed men; that, in short, ‘God had given it into’ their hands. They returned therefore to Mahaneh-Dan, the Camp of Dan, and reported what they had seen. Thereupon the Danites determined to seize an inheritance for themselves in the north, and six hundred men ‘girded with weapons of war,’ along with their families and cattle, started for Laish.[284] On the road the spies led them to the house of Micah, whom they robbed of his images, ephod and teraphim, as well as of his priest. The latter at first protested; but on being told that he would be the priest of ‘a tribe,’ his ‘heart was glad,’ and ‘he took the ephod and the teraphim and the graven image and went into the midst of the people.’ Micah and his friends on discovering the robbery pursued after the Danites, but finding they were too strong for him he judged it prudent to return home. The Danites continued their march, and had little difficulty in capturing the unguarded Laish, in massacring its inhabitants, and burning the houses with fire. On the ruins they built a new city, the Dan of future Israelitish history. Here the graven image of Micah was erected, and worship carried on ‘all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.’ The Levite who presided over the sanctuary became the ancestor of a long line of priests who continued to be ‘priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.’[285] The compiler of the Book of Judges adds that his name was Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, whose name has been changed to Manasseh in the majority of Hebrew manuscripts.[286] The statement fixes the date of the conquest of Laish, and shows that, like the war against Benjamin, it took place only two generations after the great legislator’s death.