Group identity might not be right, but it is real. When enough people take up a common cause or action, a whole group is given responsibility or the credit by the rest of society. The events in the latter part of the book of Judges actually takes place before the events in the first part of the book. In those days a faction of the tribe of Dan went looking for a place to settle that would be easier than the land that had been given to them as an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. We know that it was only a portion of the tribe of Dan because the fighting men in the group only numbered 600. We also know that they originated in Zorah and Eshtaol which would be the region controlled by the Danite tribe many years later when Sampson was born there.

The tribe of Dan had difficulty taking the land that God had given them as their inheritance in Israel. Rather than confront the difficult task before them a small group of men in the tribe went looking for easier pickings. On their scouting trip the five spies they sent discovered a peaceful city 100 mile north where the people were living secure from warring neighbors. The people, who were self-sufficient and isolated, were living prosperous lives.

This splinter group from the tribe of Dan recognized an opportunity for easy victory and they seized it. They were not content to claim responsibility for their actions but instead they claimed that God had put the land into their hands. They fell upon an unsuspecting people and massacred them, and burned the city to the ground. They built a new city, and named it Dan. They installed the false idol of Micah, which they had stolen, and still considered themselves to be part of God’s chosen people.

To judge all Danites for the actions of a few is the world’s way, but it is not God’s way. Prejudice based on group identity is unrighteous.