13 others in the registry answer to the name Jonathan. Every Jonathan in the Bible

person

Jonathan

יְהוֹנָתָן

Jonathan, a Levite from Bethlehem, became a priest for the tribe of Dan after they set up a carved image.

verses
1
first named
Judges 18:30
last named
Judges 18:30
period
before Israel's Monarchy
tribe
Levi

Description

Who was Jonathan?

In the words of STEPBible TIPNR:

Jonathan, a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, is mentioned in the book of Judges as a priest who served the tribe of Dan. The Danites, who had not yet secured their inheritance, sent out spies to find a suitable place to settle. The spies came to the house of Micah, where they encountered Jonathan, who was serving as Micah's personal priest (Jdg.18.3-4).

When the Danites later returned to take possession of the land, they also took Micah's carved image, ephod, household gods, and Jonathan to serve as their priest (Jdg.18.19-20). Jonathan, being a Levite, was likely seen as a legitimate religious authority, despite the fact that the Danites were setting up an idolatrous worship system.

The narrative in Judges 18 highlights the moral and spiritual decline of Israel during the period of the judges, as the Danites adopted false worship practices and the Levites, who were meant to serve God, became complicit in these practices. Jonathan's story serves as an example of the compromises and failures of religious leaders during this turbulent time in Israel's history.

Relations

Direct connections

Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.

Child of

Stands in the same events as

Places

Where this happens

A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.

No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.

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Where to read it

Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — one, across 1 book.

  1. Judges1 verse

    18:30

Onward

Where this page goes

Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.

Where they appear

Chapter by chapter

Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.

Sources

What this rests on