And the children of Dan sent of their family five men
According to Abarbinel one out of a family, as Moses sent one out of a tribe to spy the land; and so there must be five families concerned in this affair:
from their coasts, men of valour from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy
out the land, and to search it;
these men were sent from the borders of the tribe, the extreme parts of it, as the word may signify, where perhaps they were the most pressed and overcrowded: Zorah and Eshtaol are particularly mentioned, and were the first cities in their lot, and were the coast of their inheritance, (See Gill on Joshua 19:41) some take the phrase rendered "from their coasts" to signify persons of extreme meanness, men of the lowest class among them; but the above mentioned writers interpret it to a quite contrary sense, by "Katzinim", princes, such as Moses sent to spy the land; and this better agrees with the next clause, "men of valour": and the word used signifies not only magnanimity and fortitude of mind, but wealth and riches; and these were sent not to spy the land of Canaan, but such places as fell to this tribe, but were possessed by the Canaanites; and their errand was to observe in what condition they were, and whether fit for their purpose, and easy to obtain, and how they might get the possession of any of them:
and they said unto them, search the land;
and see if some convenient place cannot be found out to enlarge their inheritance, and give them more room and liberty for their families, now pent up, and a pasturage for their flocks and herds:
who when they came to Mount Ephraim;
which lay upon the borders of them:
to the house of Micah, they lodged there;
that is, when they were come near to the house of Micah, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it, they took up their lodging in the neighbourhood of it, perhaps at a public house or inn; for the sense is not, that they lodged in Micah's house, for after this we read of their turning into it, as in the next verse. According to Bunting F18, this place was twenty four miles from Zorah and Eshtaol, from whence these men came.