The mention of Zorah and Eshtaol recalls the Samson narrative. Samson’s youthful days came to a close and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, which was between Zorah and Eshtaol
(Judges 13:25). There is something of a contrast between there and here: with Samson, it was the Lord’s Spirit who prompted him to set out as a judge; here, there is a spirit at work, but it is certainly not the Lord’s Spirit. It is a spirit of disobedience that prompts the Danites to send out five men as spies to explore options for a new settlement, when the Lord had already given Dan an allotted territory for them to conquer and inhabit.
2 So the people of Dan sent five able men from the whole number of their tribe, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it. And they said to them, “Go and explore the land.” And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.