Judges 17 commentary

JUDGES 17 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Micah’s Idols
1 ow a man named Micah from the hill country
of Ephraim
BAR ES, "See the introduction to the Book of Judges. The only point of contact with
the preceding history of Samson is, that we are still concerned with the tribe of Dan. See
Jdg_18:1-2, note. Josephus combines in one narrative what we read here and in Jdg_
1:34, and places it, with the story in Judg. 18–21, immediately after the death of Joshua.
CLARKE, "And there was a man of Mount Ephraim - It is extremely difficult
to fix the chronology of this and the following transactions. Some think them to be here
in their natural order; others, that they happened in the time of Joshua, or immediately
after the ancients who outlived Joshua. All that can be said with certainty is this, that
they happened when there was no king in Israel; i.e., about the time of the Judges, or in
some time of the anarchy, Jdg_17:6.
GILL, "And there was a man of Mount Ephraim,.... This and the four following
chapters contain an history of facts, which were done not after the death of Samson, as
some have thought, and as they may seem at first sight, by the order in which they are
laid; but long before his time, and indeed before any of the judges in Israel, when there
was no king, judge, or supreme governor among them, as appears from Jdg_17:6 even
between the death of Joshua and the elders, and the first judge of Israel, Othniel; and so
Josephus (e) places them in his history, and the connection of them is with Jdg_2:10
and so accounts for the rise of idolatry in Israel, how it got into the tribe of Dan, and
spread itself over all the tribes of Israel, Jdg_2:11 which brought on their servitude to
Cushanrishathaim, in which time the Jewish chronology (f) places those events; but they
were certainly before that, for the idolatry they fell into was the cause of it; yet could not
be so early as the times of Joshua, and before his death; because in his days, and the
days of the elders, Israel served the Lord; the reasons why they are postponed to the end
of this book, and the account of them given here, are, according to Dr. Lightfoot (g), that
the reader observing how their state policy failed in the death of Samson, who was a
Danite, might presently be showed God's justice in it, because their religion had first
failed among the Danites; that when he observes that 1100 pieces of silver were given by

every Philistine prince for the ruin of Samson, Jdg_16:5 he might presently observe the
1100 pieces of silver that were given by Micah's mother for the making of an idol, which
ruined religion in Samson's tribe; that the story of Micah, of the hill country of Ephraim,
the first destroyer of religion, and the story of Samuel, of the hill country of Ephraim, the
first reformer of religion, might be laid together somewhat near. That the facts after
related were so early done as has been observed, appears from the following things; the
priest of the idol Micah made was a grandson of Moses, Jdg_18:30, the Danites' seeking
to enlarge their possessions, related in the same chapter, was most probably as soon as
they were driven into the mountains by the Amorites, Jdg_1:34. Mahanah Dan, from
whence they marched, and had its name from their expedition, Jdg_18:12 is mentioned
before in the history of Samson, Jdg_13:25 and therefore the expedition must be before
his time. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was alive at the battle of Gibeah, Jdg_20:28 and
Deborah speaks of the 40,000 Israelites slain by Benjamin at it, Jdg_5:8. This man with
whom the idolatry began was of the tribe of Ephraim, and dwelt in the mountainous part
of it:
whose name was Micah; in the original it is Micajehu, with part of the name Jehovah
affixed to it, as Dr. Lightfoot (h) remarks, till he set up his image, and thenceforward was
called Micah; but, according to Abarbinel, the former was his name while he was a child,
and in his youth, and with his mother, being a diminutive term, and when he became a
man be was called Micah, Jdg_17:5.
HE RY, "Here we have, I. Micah and his mother quarrelling. 1. The son robs the
mother. The old woman had hoarded, with long scraping and saving, a great sum of
money, 1100 pieces of silver. It is likely she intended, when she died, to leave it to her
son: in the mean time it did her good to look upon it, and to count it over. The young
man had a family of children grown up, for he had one of age to be a priest, Jdg_17:5. He
knows where to find his mother's cash, thinks he has more need of it than she has,
cannot stay till she dies, and so takes it away privately for his own use. Though it is a
fault in parents to withhold from their children that which is meet, and lead them into
temptation to wish them in their graves, yet even this will by no means excuse the
wickedness of those children that steal from their parents, and think all their own that
they can get from them, though by the most indirect methods. 2. The mother curses the
son, or whoever had taken her money. It should seem she suspected her son; for, when
she cursed, she spoke in his cars so loud, and with so much passion and vehemence, as
made both his ears to tingle. See what mischief the love of money makes, how it destroys
the duty and comfort of every relation. It was the love of money that made Micah so
undutiful to his mother as to rob her, and made her so unkind and void of natural
affection to her son as to curse him if he had it and concealed it. Outward losses drive
good people to their prayers, but bad people to their curses. This woman's silver was her
god before it was made thither into a graven or a molten image, else the loss of it would
not have put her into such a passion as caused her quite to forget and break through all
the laws of decency and piety. It is a very foolish thing for those that are provoked to
throw their curses about as a madman that casteth fire-brands, arrows, and death,
since they know not but they may light upon those that are most dear to them.
JAMISO , "Jdg_17:1-4. Micah restoring the stolen money to his mother, she makes
images.
a man of mount Ephraim — that is, the mountainous parts of Ephraim. This and

the other narratives that follow form a miscellaneous collection, or appendix to the Book
of Judges. It belongs to a period when the Hebrew nation was in a greatly disordered
and corrupt state. This episode of Micah is connected with Jdg_1:34. It relates to his
foundation of a small sanctuary of his own - a miniature representation of the Shiloh
tabernacle - which he stocked with images modeled probably in imitation of the ark and
cherubim. Micah and his mother were sincere in their intention to honor God. But their
faith was blended with a sad amount of ignorance and delusion. The divisive course they
pursued, as well as the will-worship they practiced, subjected the perpetrators to the
penalty of death.
K&D, "Jdg_17:1-3
A man of the mountains of Ephraim named Micah (‫הוּ‬ְ‫י‬ ָ‫יכ‬ ִ‫,מ‬ Jdg_17:1, Jdg_17:4, when
contracted into ‫ה‬ ָ‫יכ‬ ִ‫,מ‬ Jdg_17:5, Jdg_17:8, etc.), who set up this worship for himself, and
“respecting whom the Scriptures do not think it worth while to add the name of his
father, or to mention the family from which he sprang” (Berleb. Bible), had stolen 1100
shekels of silver (about £135) from his mother. This is very apparent from the words
which he spoke to his mother (v. 2): “The thousand and hundred shekels of silver which
were taken from thee (the singular ‫ח‬ ַ ֻ‫ל‬ refers to the silver), about which thou cursedst
and spakest of also in mine ears (i.e., didst so utter the curse that among others I also
heard it), behold, this silver is with me; I have taken it.” ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ፎ, to swear, used to denote a
malediction or curse (cf. ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ፎ ‫ּול‬‫ק‬, Lev_5:1). He seems to have been impelled to make this
confession by the fear of his mother's curse. But his mother praised him for it, - “Blessed
be my son of Jehovah,” - partly because she saw in it a proof that there still existed a
germ of the fear of God, but in all probability chiefly because she was about to dedicate
the silver to Jehovah; for, when her son had given it back to her, she said (v. 3), “I have
sanctified the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make an image and
molten work.” The perfect ‫י‬ ִ ְ‫שׁ‬ ַ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫ה‬ is not to be taken in the sense of the pluperfect, “I had
sanctified it,” but is expressive of an act just performed: I have sanctified it, I declare
herewith that I do sanctify it. “And now I give it back to thee,” namely, to appropriate to
thy house of God.
COFFMA , "Verse 1
THE SO-CALLED "APPE DIX" OF THE BOOK OF JUDGES;
ALLEGED EXAMPLES PROVI G THAT ISRAEL " EEDED" A KI G (Judges
17-21)
We reject the designation of these last five chapters of Judges as "an appendix
added to Judges by a later hand." There is O break in the text, and nothing except
the theories of critics supports such a view.
The reason why some critics (as Dalglish did, for example) attempt to date these last
five chapters in "a period following the fall of the orthern Israel at a time after 734
B.C.,"[1] is obviously due to their efforts to avoid the positive proof of the existence

of the Pentateuch at a time long PRIOR TO the Book of Judges, as dramatically
indicated by the undeniable references to the Book of Moses abounding in these
chapters. Of course, the acceptance of these references as having existed when
Judges was written effectively proves that the dating of the Pentateuch in the times
of Josiah is nothing but a rather clumsy fairy tale.
Again, from Dalglish, these five chapters are included here because, "They illustrate
the absolute need of a king in Israel."[2] It seems never to have occurred to Dalglish
that if these chapters had been added for that purpose at such a date as he suggested
that, at that time there was O EED whatever to prove that Israel needed a king.
They had already had one for over three hundred years - GOD! ( evertheless,
Dalglish's statement of the purpose of these chapters is most surely correct).
On the other hand, if, as we believe, Samuel authored the Book of Judges at a time
in Samuel's life when the kingship of Saul appeared to be a great success, that would
have been the time when these chapters were needed, and it is the conclusion of this
writer that it was precisely in those days that Samuel wrote these chapters, and that
they form a vital, necessary part of the Biblical Book of Judges.
In the successive judgeships of Gideon, Jephthah and Samson, the progressive
deterioration of the institution of the judgeship itself became painfully evident, and
the author of Judges concluded the narrative by registering two special events, both
of which occurred DURI G the period of the Judges, as his concluding argument
that Israel had to have a king in order to survive. Those two events were: (1) the
apostasy and migration of Dan, and (2) the horrible outrage at Gibeah. Samuel
wrote Judges near the end of his life in the early and popular period of King Saul's
reign, because, at first, Samuel opposed the institution of the monarchy, and
therefore, Judges must have been written AFTER the change had occurred and at a
time when it APPEARED to be successful.
EXAMPLE I
THE MIGRATIO A D APOSTASY OF THE TRIBE OF DA (Judges 17-18);
A HOUSE OF GODS WAS ESTABLISHED I THE TERRITORY OF EPHRAIM
This chapter (Judges 17) is actually a preliminary introduction to Judges 18,
explaining the origin of that Danite shrine. It tells of the founding of an illegal center
of worship in the hill-country of Ephraim. A part of God's Old Covenant with Israel
was the restriction of the worship of God to the authorized tabernacle. What Micah
did in this chapter was a gross violation of God's commandments.
The evil character of Micah, as well as that of his mother, contrast sharply with the
righteousness of Manoah and his wife, the parents of Samson.
REGARDI G THE 1,100 PIECES OF SILVER

"And there was a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And
he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from
thee, about which thou didst utter a curse, and didst also speak it in mine ears,
behold, the silver is with me, I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be my son of
Jehovah. And he restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother; and his
mother said, I verily dedicate the silver unto Jehovah from my hand for my son, to
make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee."
Josephus placed these events shortly after the times of Joshua in the days of Othniel
the Judge,[3] and Campbell pointed out that, "Many scholars agree with this,
because of the mention of Jonathan the grandson of Moses (Judges 18:1) and
because of the presence of Phinehas, the son of Eleazer in Judges 20:28."[4]
"Micah" (Judges 17:1). This is the short form of the name "[~Mikayehuw], with the
meaning, `Who is like Yahweh.'"[5] Boling paraphrased this name as "Yahweh-the-
incomparable" in order to give ironic force to the conclusion in Judges 17:4."[6]
"Thou didst utter a curse" (Judges 17:2). The marginal reading indicates that the
Hebrew here is "an adjuration" instead of "a curse." This is a direct reference to
Leviticus 5:1 which lays down God's law that anyone under such an adjuration shall
respond with the truth under the penalty of God's judgment, if he should fail to do
so. Both Micah and his mother were aware of this Mosaic teaching, and Micah
immediately confessed to his sin. Significantly, Jesus Christ himself responded to
such an adjuration in Mark 14:61-62.
"Blessed be my son of Jehovah" (Judges 17:2). "This is the formula used by
Melchizedek in his blessing of Abraham (Genesis 14:19)."[7]
The mother's prompt pronouncement of a blessing upon her son reflects another
passage from the Pentateuch, namely Exodus 12:32. "The adjuration could not be
removed, but it could be counteracted by a blessing (see Exodus 12:32)."[8]
It appears that the purpose of the narrator here is to expose the wretched, sinful
history of that despised sanctuary constructed by Micah. "Its venerated image was
made of silver stolen from his mother, and when the money was recovered and
dedicated to Jehovah, the greater part of it was kept back by fraud."[9]
"A graven image and a molten image" (Judges 17:3). "A graven image was
something carved or hewn; a molten image was cast in a mold."[10] This, of course,
speaks of "two images," but, since it is spoken of with a singular pronoun in the
following verse, it appears that O LY O E IMAGE was made. What was
apparently intended, as indicated by Yates was "actually one image consisting of
carved wood overlaid with silver."[11]
With regard to what that image actually was, Keil stated that, "There can hardly be
any doubt that it was a representation of Jehovah as a bull, like the golden calf that
Aaron made at Sinai (Exodus 32:4), and the golden calves that Jeroboam set up in

orthern Israel, and one of which was set up at Dan (1 Kings 12:29)."[12]
BE SO , "Verse 1
17:1. Here begins what may be called a supplement to the book of Judges; which
gives an account of several memorable transactions, in or about the time of the
judges: whose history the author would not interrupt, by intermixing these matters
with it, but reserved them to be related apart by themselves, in the five following
chapters. In these he first gives an account how idolatry came into the tribe of
Ephraim; which he doth in this chapter: secondly, How it came to be introduced in
the tribe of Dan, chap. 18. And then he relates, in chap. 19., a most barbarous and
shameful act done by some Benjamites, and the entire destruction of that tribe,
except six hundred men, for countenancing it, chap. 20. And lastly, in chap. 21., he
relates how the tribe of Benjamin was kept from being extinguished. Whose name
was Micah — When Micah lived, and did what is related in this chapter, we may
with some certainty gather from 17:6, which tells us, there was no king in Israel at
that time; that is, no supreme governor, with a power to keep the people to their
duty; which is supposed by learned men to have been between the death of those
elders who survived Joshua, and the first oppression of Israel by Cushan. In which
space of time, it is manifest, the Israelites first fell from the worship of God, and
polluted themselves with idolatry, 2:13, and 3:7. The beginning of which defection
from God’s described briefly in this chapter.
PULPIT, "We here light upon quite a different kind of history from that which has
preceded. We no longer have to do with judges and their mighty deeds in delivering
Israel from his oppressors, but with two detached histories, which fill up the rest of
the book, relating to the internal affairs of Israel. There is no note of time, except
that they happened before the time of Saul the king ( 17:6; 18:1), and. that Phinehas
the son of Eleazar was alive at the time of the occurrence of the second ( 20:28).
Both, no doubt, are long prior to Samson. The only apparent connection of the
history of Micah with that of Samson is that both relate to the tribe of Dan, and it
may be presumed were contained in the annals of that tribe. Compare the opening
of the Books of Samuel (1 Samuel 1:1). Mount Ephraim; i.e. the hill country of
Ephraim, as in 3:27; 7:24, etc.
COKE, "Micah, an Ephraimite, restores the money which he had taken from his
mother; from which she commands a graven image to be made; Micah hires a
Levite to be his priest.
Before Christ 1426.
Judges 17:1. And there was a man of mount Ephraim— The second part of the book
of Judges begins here; containing an account of several transactions in and about
the time of the judges, which the sacred historian omitted in their proper order, that
he might not interrupt the thread of a narrative relating to the transactions of the
whole nation.

ELLICOTT, "Judges 17:1-2. An Ephraimite, named Micah, first steals eleven
hundred shekels from his mother, and then restores them. Judges 17:3-5. She blesses
him, and uses them, with his assistance, for the establishment of an idolatrous form
of worship. Judges 17:6. Anarchy of the times. Judges 17:7-13. A wandering Levite
comes from Bethlehem to the house of Micah, and consents to become priest of the
new worship.
The two narratives which occupy the five remaining chapters of the Book of Judges
are disconnected from one another and from what precedes. They are, in fact, two
Appendices, which serve the purpose of showing the social anarchy, religious
confusion, and moral degradation to which tribes and individuals were liable during
this period. In date they belong to an earlier time than most of the preceding
chapters, and they are connected by various terms of phraseology with the preface
(Judges 17:1, Judges 2:5). The migration of Dan in Judges 18 (Joshua 19:47-48) is
accounted for by the pressure to which the tribe was subjected by the Amorites, as
related in Judges 1:34. The story of Micah, so valuable and interesting as a sketch of
manners, seems to have been preserved solely from its bearing on the fortunes of
this tribe. The fact that Jonathan, the grandson of Moses (Judges 18:30), and
Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron (Judges 20:28), are prominent characters in the
two narratives shows that the events must have happened (as Josephus states) at a
time shortly subsequent to the death of Joshua, and previous to the career of many
of the judges. The first narrative (Judges 16, 17) still bears on the fortunes of Dan,
the tribe of Samson; and in both the narratives the tribe of Judah—which has been
almost unnoticed in the body of the book—occupies an important position (Judges
16:9; Judges 18:12; Judges 19:1-2; Judges 19:10; Judges 20:18). These chapters
belong, in fact, mainly to the annals of Dan and Judah. It is somewhat remarkable
that both of them turn on the fortunes of a Levite of Bethlehem-Judah (Judges 17:7;
Judges 19:1).
Verse 1
(1) There was.—The Vulg. has, “there was at that time” which is an error, for these
events happened before the days of Samson.
A man of mount Ephraim.—The hill-district of Ephraim, as in Judges 2:9. The
Talmud (Sanhedr. 103, b) says that he lived at Garab, not far from Shiloh, but the
name (“a blotch”) is probably a term of scorn (Deuteronomy 28:27). Similarly, we
find in Perachim, 117, a, that he lived at Bochi. (See Judges 2:1-5.) Most of the
idolatrous violations of the second commandment occurred in the northern kingdom
(Gideon, Judges 8:27; Micah, Judges 17; Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12, 13). These
apostasies were not a worship of other gods, but a worship of the true God under
unauthorised conditions, and with forbidden images.
Whose name was Micah.—Scripture does not deem it necessary to say anything
more about him. His very name—here Micayehû, “Who is like Jehovah “—seems to
show that he had been trained by pious parents. The contraction Micah is adopted
throughout the rest of the story.

PETT, "Introduction
Judges Chapter 17-18.
We now come to the third section of the Book of Judges. The first section in Judges
1 to Judges 2 was introductory to the activity taking place in Canaan after the time
of Joshua and described the decline and fall of Israel in relation to the covenant,
followed by the statement that God raised up Judges to deliver His people, only for
them to decline again. The second section in Judges 3 to Judges 16 described the rise
of twelve judges whom God raised up to deliver Israel, the successes and failures of
some of them, but the continued ultimate failure of Israel to be faithful to the
covenant.
This third section in Judges 17-21 will now use two incidents in order to
demonstrate the parlous state of Israel during this time. Its theme is ‘in those days
there was no king in Israel’ (Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1; Judges 19:1; Judges 21:25).
This is not to be taken pedantically. It does not just mean that this was before the
time when there was a king in Israel, it also makes clear that the situations came
about because they ignored Yahweh their true King. They had neither the one nor
the other. They ignored and refused to acknowledge He Who was King over them
and that was why in the end Yahweh would reluctantly give them an earthly king.
But they had been warned through the examples of Gideon and Abimelech what
that would mean for them. The giving of this king was in itself an indication of their
failure. God’s ideal for them was that He should be King, and this principle
continued and was recognised for some time in that the first kings were called
‘nagid’ (war leader). Thus the writer supported the kingship, but only on the basis
that because of the failure of Israel to fully respond to their King they had to make
do with second best. It was not God’s ideal. It resulted from men’s faithlessness.
Judges was thus an apology for kings in both senses of the word.
This rejection of Yahweh as King is made very apparent in this third section. The
two incidents described emphasise that Yahweh’s commandments were being
spurned and ignored. The first majors on the breaking of the sixth and ninth
commandments, ‘you shall not steal’ and ‘you shall not covet’, the second on the
seventh and eighth commandments ‘you shall not murder’ and ‘you shall not
commit adultery’. Furthermore in the first incident the apostasy of Israel is
emphasised in the setting up of a rival Sanctuary at Laish by the half-tribe of Dan,
and that by a direct descendant of Moses!
Judges 17. Micah and the Levite.
This chapter illustrates the rise of idolatry and disobedience to Yahweh in Israel
after the death of Joshua. It is illustrated from an incident which occurred in the hill
country of Ephraim, where a man, who had stolen a large sum of money from his
mother, returned it, on which part of it was sadly converted to an idolatrous use.
Two images and a teraphim were made of it, and eventually a Levite appointed to be
priest. In the following chapter this priest would then aid the half-tribe of Dan to

steal the images from their owner. Thus theft is central to, and emphasised in, the
account. The second sad final result is the setting up of a rival Sanctuary to that
already in place, in Laish (Dan). It was contrary to the covenant with Yahweh,
directly as a result of this theft.
Verse 1
Judges 17. Micah and the Levite.
This chapter illustrates the rise of idolatry and disobedience to Yahweh in Israel
after the death of Joshua. It is illustrated from an incident which occurred in the hill
country of Ephraim, where a man, who had stolen a large sum of money from his
mother, returned it, on which part of it was sadly converted to an idolatrous use.
Two images and a teraphim were made of it, and eventually a Levite appointed to be
priest. In the following chapter this priest would then aid the half-tribe of Dan to
steal the images from their owner. Thus theft is central to, and emphasised in, the
account. The second sad final result is the setting up of a rival Sanctuary to that
already in place, in Laish (Dan). It was contrary to the covenant with Yahweh,
directly as a result of this theft.
Judges 17:1
‘And there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.’
This incident took place fairly early on in the period of the Judges for it occurred
prior to the movement of the Danites from their allotted territory to Laish (Judges
18:1), yet not early enough to be too much before this event. It is significant because
it occurred within reasonable reach of the central sanctuary, demonstrating that the
hold and significance of the central sanctuary, and of the Law of God which it
upheld, was at this time fairly minimal even within a close range.
The people were now settling down into the land and were prepared to coexist with
the inhabitants of the land and imitate their ways. And from this incident and what
follows we can see why there was a necessity for Yahweh’s activity as described in
the book of Judges.
The name Micah means ‘who is like Yah (Yahweh)?’ It was deliberately ironic that
someone with a name like that should be presented as an example of those who
turned from Yahweh to their own ways, bringing Him down to the level of other
religions. The description of his whereabouts was deliberately vague although it
would be some miles north of Jerusalem. He represented in general the behaviour of
many Israelites.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "THE STOLE GODS
17:1-13, 18:1-31
THE portion of the Book of Judges which begins with the seventeenth chapter and
extends to the close is not in immediate connection with that which has gone before.

We read { 18:30} that "Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and
his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land."
But the proper reading is, "Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses." It
would seem that the renegade Levite of the narrative was a near descendant of the
great lawgiver. So rapidly did the zeal of the priestly house decline that in the third
or fourth generation after Moses one of his own line became minister of an idol
temple for the sake of a living. It is evident, then, that in the opening of the
seventeenth chapter, we are carried back to the time immediately following the
conquest of Canaan by Joshua, when Othniel was settling in the south and the tribes
were endeavouring to establish themselves in the districts allotted to them. The note
of time is of course far from precise, but the incidents are certainly to be placed
early in the period.
We are introduced first to a family living in Mount Ephraim consisting of a widow
and: her son Micah, who is married and has sons of his own. It appears that on the
death of the father of Micah a sum of eleven hundred shekels of silver, about a
hundred and twenty pounds of our money-a large amount for the time-was missed
by the widow, who after vain search for it spoke in strong terms about the matter to
her son. He had taken the money to use in stocking his farm or in trade and at once
acknowledged that he had done so and restored it to his mother, who hastened to
undo any evil her words had caused by invoking upon him the blessing of God.
Further she dedicated two hundred of her shekels to make graven and molten
images in token of piety and gratitude.
We have here a very significant revelation of the state of religion. The indignation of
Moses had burned against the people when at Sinai they made a rude image of gold,
sacrificed to it and danced about it in heathen revel. We are reading of what took
place say a century after that scene at the foot of Sinai, and already those who desire
to show their devotion to the Eternal, very imperfectly known as Jehovah, make
teraphim and molten images to represent Him. Micah has a sort of private chapel or
temple among the buildings in his courtyard: He consecrates one of his sons to be
priest of this little sanctuary. And the historian adds in explanation of this, as one
keenly aware of the benefits of good government under a God-fearing monarch-"in
those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his
own eyes."
We need not take for granted that the worship in this hill chapel was of the heathen
sort. There was probably no Baal, no Astarte among the images; or, if there was, it
may have been merely as representing a Syrian power prudently recognised but not
adored. o hint occurs in the whole story of a licentious or a cruel cult, although
there must have been something dangerously like the superstitious practices of
Canaan. Micah’s chapel, whatever the observances were, gave direct introduction to
the pagan forms and notions which prevailed among the people of the land. There
already Jehovah was degraded to the rank of a nature divinity, and represented by
figures.`
In one of the highland valleys towards the north of Ephraim’s territory Micah had

his castle and his ecclesiastical establishment-state and church in germ. The
Israelites of the neighbourhood, who looked up to the well to do farmer for
protection, regarded him all the more that he showed respect for religion, that he
had this house of gods and a private priest. They came to worship in his sanctuary
and to inquire of the ecclesiastic, who in some way endeavoured to discover the will
of God by means of the teraphim and ephod. The ark of the covenant was not far
away, for Bethel and Gilgal were both within a day’s journey. But the people did
not care to be at the trouble of going so far. They liked better their own local shrine
and its homelier ways; and when at length Micah secured the services of a Levite the
worship seemed to have all the sanction that could possibly be desired.
It need hardly be said that God is not confined to a locality, that in those days as in
our own the true worshipper could find the Almighty on any hill top, in any
dwelling or private place, as well as at the accredited shrine. It is quite true, also,
that God makes large allowance for the ignorance of men and their need of visible
signs and symbols of what is unseen and eternal. We must not therefore assume at
once that in Micah’s house of idols, before the widow’s graven and molten figures,
there could be no acceptable worship, no prayers that reached the ear of the Lord of
Hosts. And one might even go the length of saying that, perhaps, in this schismatic
sanctuary, this chapel of images, devotion could be quite as sincere as before the ark
itself. Little good came of the religious ordinances maintained there during the
whole period of the judges, and even in Eli’s latter days the vileness and
covetousness practised at Shiloh more than countervailed any pious influence. Local
and family altars therefore must have been of real use. But this was the danger, that
leaving the appointed centre of Jehovah worship, where symbolism was confined
within safe limits, the people should in ignorant piety multiply objects of adoration
and run into polytheism. Hence the importance of the decree, afterwards
recognised, that one place of sacrifice should gather to it all the tribes and that there
the ark of the covenant with its altar should alone speak of the will and holiness of
God. And the story of the Danite migration connected with this of Micah and his
Levite well illustrates the wisdom of such a law, for it shows how, in the far north, a
sanctuary and a worship were set up which, existing long for tribal devotion,
became a national centre of impure worship.
The wandering Levite from Bethlehem-Judah is one, we must believe, of many
Levites, who having found no inheritance because the cities allotted to them were as
yet unconquered spread themselves over the land seeking a livelihood, ready to fall
in with any local customs of religion that offered them position and employment.
The Levites were esteemed as men acquainted with the way of Jehovah, able to
maintain that communication with Him without which no business could be
hopefully undertaken. Something of the dignity that was attached to the names of
Moses and Aaron ensured them honourable treatment everywhere unless among the
lowest of the people; and when this Levite reached the dwelling of Micah beside
which there seems to have been a khan or lodging place for travellers, the chance of
securing him was at once seized. For ten pieces of silver, say twenty-five shillings a
year, with a suit of clothes and his food, he agreed to become Micah’s private
chaplain. At this very cheap rate the whole household expected a time of prosperity

and divine favour. " ow know I," said the head of the family, "that the Lord will
do me good seeing I have a Levite to my priest," We must fear that, he took some
advantage of the man’s need, that he did not much consider the honour of Jehovah
yet reckoned on getting a blessing all; the same. It was a case of seeking the best
religious privileges as cheaply as possible, a very common thing in all ages.
But the coming of the Levite was to have results Micah did not foresee. Jonathan
had lived in Bethlehem, and some ten or twelve miles westward down the valley one
came to Zorah and Eshtaol, two little towns of the tribe of Dan of which we have
heard. The Levite had apparently become pretty well known in the district: and
especially in those villages to which he went to offer sacrifice or perform some other
religious rite. And now a series of incidents brought certain old acquaintances to his
new place of abode.
Even in Samson’s time the tribe of Dan, whose territory was to be along the coast
west from Judah, was still obliged to content itself with the slopes of the hills, not
having got possession of the plain. In the earlier period with which we are now
dealing the Danites were in yet greater difficulty, for not only had they Philistines on
the one side but Amorites on the other. The Amorites "would dwell," we are told,
"in Mount Heres, in Aijalon and in Shaalbim." It was this pressure which
determined the people about Zorah and Eshtaol to find if possible another place of
settlement, and five men were sent out in search. Travelling north they took the
same way as the Levite had taken, heard of the same khan in the hill country of
Ephraim, and made it their resting place for a night. The discovery of the Levite
Jonathan followed and of the chapel in which he ministered with its wonderful
array of images. We can suppose the deputation had thoughts they did not express,
but for the present they merely sought the help of the priest, begging him to consult
the oracle on their behalf and learn whether their mission would be successful. The
five went on their journey with the encouragement, "Go in peace; before the Lord is
your way wherein ye go."
Months pass without any more tidings of the Danites until one day a great company
is seen following the hill road near Micah’s farm. "There are six hundred men girt
with weapons of war with their wives and children and cattle, a whole clan on the
march, filling the road for miles and moving slowly northward. The five men have
indeed succeeded after a fashion. Away between Lebanon and Hermon, in the
region of the sources of Jordan, they have found the sort of district they went to
seek. Its chief town Laish stood in the midst of fertile fields with plenty of wood and
water. It was a place, according to their large report, where was no want of
anything that is in the earth." Moreover the inhabitants, who seem to have been a
Phoenician colony, dwelt by themselves quiet and secure, having no dealings or
treaty with the powerful Zidonians. They were the very kind of people whom a
sudden attack would be likely to subdue. There was an immediate migration of
Danites to this fresh field, and in prospect of bloody work the men of Zorah and
Eshtaoi seem to have had no doubt as to the rightness of their expedition; it was
enough that they had felt themselves straitened. The same reason appears to suffice
many in modern times. Were the aboriginal inhabitants of America and Australia

considered by those who coveted their land? Even the pretence of buying has not
always been maintained. Murder and rapine have been the methods used by men of
our own blood, our own name, and no nation under the sun has a record darker
than the tale of British conquest.
Men who go forth to steal land are quite fit to attempt the strange business of
stealing gods that is appropriating to themselves the favour of divine powers and
leaving other men destitute. The Danites as they pass Micah’s house hear from their
spies of the priest and the images that are in his charge. "Do you know that that
there is in these houses an ephod and teraphim and a graven image and a molten
image? ow therefore consider what ye have to do." The hint is enough. Soon the
court of the farmstead is invaded, the images are brought out and the Levite
Jonathan, tempted by the offer of being made priest to a clan, is fain to accompany
the marauders. Here is confusion on confusion. The Danites are thieves, brigands,
and yet they are pious; so pious that they steal images to assist them in worship. The
Levite agrees to the theft and accepts the offer of priesthood under them. He will be
the minister of a set of thieves to forward their evil designs, and they, knowing him
to be no better than themselves, expect that his sacrifices and prayers will do them
good. It is surely a capital instance of perverted religious ideas.
As we have said, these circumstances are no doubt recounted in order to show how
dangerous it was to separate from the pure order of worship at the sanctuary. In
after times this lesson was needed, especially when the first king of the northern
tribes set his golden calves the one at Bethel, the other at Dan. Was Israel to
separate from Judah in religion as well as in government? Let there be a backward
look to the beginning of schism in those extraordinary doings of the Danites. It was
in the city founded by the six hundred that one of Jeroboam’s temples was built.
Could any blessing rest upon a shrine and upon devotions which had such an origin,
such a history?
May we find a parallel now? Is there a constituted religious authority with which
soundness of belief and acceptable worship are so bound up that to renounce the
authority is to be in the way of confusion and error, schism and eternal loss? The
Romanist says so. Those who speak for the Papal church never cease to cry to the
world that within their communion alone are truth and safety to be found.
Renounce, they say, the apostolic and divine authority which we conserve and all is
gone. Is there anarchy in a country? Are the forces that make for political
disruption and national decay showing themselves in many lands? Are monarchies
overthrown? Are the people lawless and wretched? It all comes of giving up the
Catholic order and creed. Return to the one fold under the one Shepherd if you
would find prosperity. And there are others who repeat the same injunction, not
indeed denying that there may be saving faith apart from their ritual, but insisting
still that it is an error and a sin to seek God elsewhere than at the accredited shrine.
With Jewish ordinances we Christians have nothing to do when we are judging as to
religious order and worship now. There is no central shrine, no exclusive human
authority. Where Christ is, there is the temple; where He speaks, the individual

conscience must respond. The work of salvation is His alone, and the humblest
believer is His consecrated priest. When our Lord said, "The hour cometh and now
is-when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth"; and
again, "Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the
midst of them"; when He as the Son of God held out His hands directly to every
sinner needing pardon and every seeker after truth, when He offered the one
sacrifice upon the cross by which a living way is opened into the holiest place, He
broke down the walls of partition and with the responsibility declared the freedom
of the soul.
And here we reach the point to which our narrative applies as an illustration. Micah
and his household worshipping the images of silver, the Levite officiating at the
altar, seeking counsel of Jehovah by ephod and teraphim, the Danites who steal the
gods, carry off the priest and set up a new worship in the city they build-all these
represent to us types and stages of what is really schism pitiful and disastrous-that
is, separation from the truth of things and from the sacred realities of divine faith.
Selfish untruth and infidelity are schism, the wilderness and outlawry of the soul.
1. Micah and his household, with their chapel of images, their ephod and teraphim,
represent those who fall into the superstition that religion is good as insuring
temporal success and prosperity, that God will see to the worldly comfort of those
who pay respect to Him. Even among Christians this is a very common and very
debasing superstition. The sacraments are often observed as signs of a covenant
which secures for men divine favour through social arrangements and human law.
2. The spiritual nature and power of religion are not denied, but they are
uncomprehended. The national custom and the worldly hope have to do with the
observance of devout forms rather than any movement of the soul heavenward. A
church may in this way become like Micah’s household, and prayer may mean
seeking good terms with Him who can fill the land with plenty or send famine and
cleanness of teeth. Unhappily many worthy and most devout persons still hold the
creed of an early and ignorant time. The secret of nature and providence is hid from
them. The severities of life seem to them to be charged with anger, and the valleys of
human reprobation appear darkened by the curse of God. Instead of finding in pain
and loss a marvellous divine discipline they perceive only the penalty of sin, a sign of
God’s aversion, not of His Fatherly grace. It is a sad, a terrible blindness of soul. We
can but note it here and pass on, for there, are other applications of the old story.
3. The Levite represents an unworthy worldly ministry. With sadness must
confession be made that there are in every church pastors unspiritual, worldlings in
heart, whose desire is mainly for superiority of rank or of wealth, who have no
vision of Christ’s cross and battle except as objective and historical. Here, most
happily, the cases of complete worldliness are rare. It is rather a tendency we
observe than a developed and acknowledged state of things. Very few of those in the
ranks of the Christian ministry are entirely concerned with the respect paid to them
in society and the number of shekels to be got in a year. That he keeps pace with the
crowd instead of going before it is perhaps the hardest thing that can be said of the

worldly pastor. He is humane, active, intelligent; but it is for the church as a great
institution, or the church as his temporal hope and stay. So his ministry becomes at
the best a matter of serving tables and providing alms-we shall not say amusement.
Here indeed is schism; for what is farther from the truth of things, what is farther
from Christ?
Once more we have with us today, very much with us, certain Danites of science,
politics, and the press who, if they could, would take away our God and our Bible,
our Eternal Father and spiritual hope, not from a desire to possess but because they
hate to see us believing, hate to see any weight of silver given to religious uses. ot a
few of these are marching, as they think triumphantly, to commanding and opulent
positions whence they will rule the thought of the world. And on the way, even while
they deride and detest the supernatural, they will have the priest go with them. They
care nothing for what he says; to listen to the voice of a spiritual teacher is an
absurdity of which they would not be guilty; for to their own vague prophesying all
mankind is to give hoed, and their interpretations of human life are to be received as
the bible of the age. Of the same order is the socialist who would make use of a faith
he intends to destroy, and a priesthood whose claim is offensive to him, on his way
to what he calls the organisation of society. In his view the uses of Christianity and
the Bible are temporal and earthly. He will not have Christ the Redeemer of the
soul, yet he attempts to conjure with Christ’s words and appropriate the power of
His name. The audacity of these would be robbers is matched only by their
ignorance of the needs and ends of human life.
We might here refer to the injustice practised by one and another band of our
modem Israel who do not scruple to take from obscure and weak households of faith
the sacraments and Christian ministry, the marks and rights of brotherhood. We
can well believe that those who do this have never looked at their action from the
other side, and may not have the least idea of the soreness they leave in the hearts of
humble and sincere believers.
In fine, the Danites with the images of Micah went their way and he and his
neighbours had to suffer the loss and make the best of their empty chapel, where no
oracle thenceforth spoke to them. It is no parable, but a very real example of the loss
that comes to all who have trusted in forms and symbols, the outward signs instead
of the living power of religion. While we repel the arrogance that takes from faith its
symbolic props and stays we must not let ourselves deny that the very rudeness of
an enemy may be an excellent discipline for the Christian. Agnosticism and science
and other Danite companies sweep with them a good deal that is dear to the
religious mind and may leave it very distressed and anxious-the chapel empty, the
oracle as it may appear lost forever. With the symbol the authority, the hope, the
power seem to be lost irrecoverably. What now has faith to rest upon? But the
modern spirit with its resolution to sweep away every unfact and mere form is no
destroyer. Rather does it drive the Christian to a science, a virtue far beyond its
own. It forces we may say on faith that severe truthfulness and intellectual courage
which are the proper qualities of Christianity, the necessary counterpart of its trust
and love and grace. In short, when enemies have carried off the poor teraphim and

fetishes which are their proper capture they have but compelled religion to be itself,
compelled it to find its spiritual God, its eternal creed and to understand its Bible.
This, though done with evil intent, is surely no cruelty, no outrage. Shall a man or a
church that has been so roused and thrown back on reality sit wailing in the empty
chapel for the images of silver and the deliverances of the hollow ephod? Everything
remains, the soul and the spiritual world, the law of God, the redemption of Christ,
the Spirit of eternal life.
PARKER, "A Series of Surprises
The book of Judges properly closes with the sixteenth chapter. What follows after
the sixteenth chapter has been described as an appendix—two appendices, indeed,
dealing with the case of two Levites. From the seventeenth chapter onward the
matter was probably written long before other portions of the book, in the days of
Joshua and the greater judges. Certainly, this part of the book was written when
there was no king in Israel, and when every man was left to do that which was right
in his own eyes. The history of the two Levites is full of romantic interest. The first
history is to be read aloud and preached about quite freely; the second is to be read
in secret—hardly read at all, and yet fully comprehended, because of the following
chapter in which vengeance, just and tremendous, is dealt out to men who inflicted
upon Israel a scandal that was never forgotten. Let us publicly and openly read the
case of the first Levite, and then read in shame and secrecy what follows; then come
into the light once more, and close the book of Judges amid a blaze of glory.
Is not this a fair picture of life? What undulation! What incessant variety! what
visions of beauty! what disclosures of shame! how bright is the fair, great heaven;
and yet how near the deep and awful hell! Micah dwelt in mount Ephraim, and stole
silver from his mother: Micah afterwards became a maker of gods. What rapid
transitions in character! what wonder if the rapidity of the transitions sometimes
excites suspicion as to the reality of the conversion? But is not history condensed?
The verses read in flowing sequence, as if no time had elapsed between one line and
another: hence the shock with which we come upon the fact that the man who was
but yesterday a concealed criminal is today a manufacturer of gods and churches. Is
there not a punctuation in life which is inserted by the hand of God? Are not the
observers to blame for a good deal of what is called unnatural and too swift
transition in character? Who knows what may happen in one hour when God is the
minister and a repentant soul is the subject? Sometimes life is wrought out very
swiftly, so far as public observation can detect; yet it is being lived very slowly in the
consciousness of the man: he is so fired with pain because of conscious sin that he
would have himself transported in unnamable swiftness of time into a new
consciousness and a blessed individuality. At the same time, a sober lesson does
reveal itself at this very point. Whilst conversion may scarcely be too sudden, the
manufacture of gods and churches ought not to take place with indecent haste, if at
all. It is difficult to believe that a man can spring at one bound from being a
concealed felon into being a patron of the universe—a builder of gates that open
heaven, a creator of altars and priests. There should be some time spent in solitude,

in secrecy, in earnest wrestling prayer: the whole night should be thus spent, and
the morning light will shine upon a new personality, bearing a new and larger name.
At the same time, recognising the sobriety and gravity of the lesson, let no man be
discouraged should he really feel what by its purity must be a divine impulse to
move instantly and to act like a man who, having wasted many days, seeks to
redeem the time, and to make one day as long as two, by diligent industry, by the
passion of consecrated love.
This chapter is full of surprises. What can be more surprising than that a layman
should consecrate a priest? This is what Micah did. Micah began where he could.
Everything was to be done at once. So Micah consecrated one of his sons, who
became his priest Men do things in high passion which would be unnatural and
almost irrational if done in cold blood. We must always calculate the influence of
spiritual temperature upon human action. Some things we must have heard, and not
read; the whole meaning was in the way of saying them. The Bible only tells us that
certain persons "cried unto the Lord,"—verily a poor report, utterly inadequate,
yet all that was possible: for who can write down a "cry"? who can paint, even in
letters, an agony? So some allowance must be made for the new spiritual passion of
Micah. A man can do great things when he is really on fire. o man knows himself,
as to the full volume and bulk of his being, until he is possessed—no longer a little
measurable self, but part of an infinite immeasurable totality. We speak of men
being "mighty in prayer." They cannot account for it. Yet they know that sometimes
they have hold of God, and that omnipotence graciously yields to the gracious
violence. Indeed, man must at certain historical periods make priests. Whether we
are in such a historical period now, is not the immediate question, but following the
unfolding of history along the biblical line we see how now and again man must be
almost almighty. Despair finds new energies. Religious despair, religious
helplessness, finds God, or makes an image supposed to be like him. Do not let us
mock at idolatry of a really heathen kind too flippantly; there may be an aspect of
idolatry that touches our sense of the ludicrous, but there is also an aspect of it
which touches our tears. To be an idolater in a Christian land is not only an
anachronism, it is a blasphemy: but follow the whole history of idolatry and study
its pathetic side, and see if it be not true that in man"s attempts to make gods, and
altars, and priests, there is something infinitely touching. To that mystery in our
being a divine revelation may one day be made. It may be at that very point God
will begin the miracle of self-revelation—of incarnation. Man must have a priest.
There are necessities which cannot be denied—urgencies of soul which must be
appeased, soothed, if not gratified. Are not all men looking round—some hopelessly
and indistinctly—for helpers, spiritual assistants, for brother-men larger than they
and altogether mightier in the nobler life, to lift them up, to eke out their poor
expressions, to find prayers which their poor lips may utter as if their own? Is there
not something in the heart that cries—"Master, Lord, teach us how to pray"? The
fault does not lie in the impulse, but in its perversion; nay, rather, there is an
unmistakable touch and signature of divinity in the impulse. Blessed are they who
have received the ministry of sanctification and have responded to the divine
provision made for great human passions, and great spiritual necessities. Yet no
man can make a priest. Priests are the miracles of manhood—men who have the gift

of prayer, men who by looking on human sorrow are moved heavenward to
intercede on man"s behalf A strange gift, signalised by fire, is that of being able to
pray in every tongue, so that every man may hear in the tongue in which he was
born an interpretation of his soul"s poverty and need. Such intercessors are not
made by man: these are the gifts of God to every age. "The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much." Yet this is confining the idea of priesthood to
intercession. If it be so confined, what possible objection can be lodged against it?
To make a priest anything more than one who is mighty in prayer, mighty in
sympathy, keen in moral insight, patient more than woman, is not the work of man.
A surprising thing it is that a converted thief should elaborate a religious system:
"And the man Micah had an house of gods and made an ephod"—a gorgeous
priestly robe—"and teraphim"—little Syrian images. This is a condensed statement.
Who can go into the detail of these two lines? "An house of gods "—a consecrated
place—a gods" house: what patience in the elaboration of the deities; what
painstaking in the fabrication of the ephod; what detailed and critical, if not artistic,
care, in the shaping of the teraphim; we are apt to overlook the detail of all worship.
Look upon the poorest little church, on the bleakest hillside, and what does it look
like but a handful of6tones rudely put together,—a sight that might be remarked
upon at the moment, and passed by and forgotten? yet who can tell the history of
these few stones? who knows with what hands they were carried and shaped and
put in place? who knows how the labourers toiled when the day"s work was done
that they might put up the simple structure, to have a home in which to worship
God? Who knows at what sacrifice the Bible was bought by these poor peasant
worshippers, how small sums were laid by from week to week, and how as the little
pile neared maturity the thrifty one almost had the Bible by the anticipation of love,
how the Bible was preserved, loved, almost worshipped? Do not let us pass by all
these things carelessly as if they meant nothing; they are full of tears, full of pathos,
full of that finest quality of manhood which is the real wealth of any nation.
Yet Micah was ill at ease. Who can make one of his own sons into his superior? The
son was but a makeshift after all. How superstition tyrannises over men! To have a
son for a priest as Micah had was like a kind of illicit marriage. A sense of un-
naturalness marred the service. The son was quite right in many respects, worthy of
confidence and honour and love; but in his official capacity he was still a son. Who
does not like his minister to come down out of the clouds? Who likes to see a
minister grow up before his very eyes—to know the child at home, to follow the boy
at school, to see him pass through various processes, and at length appear as a
recognised minister of Christian truth? Who does not feel slightly uneasy if he
knows the minister"s mother and brothers and sisters? Who does not say, "Are they
not all with us? Is not this the carpenter"s son"? To some people, if a man is once a
carpenter"s Song of Solomon , he never can be anything else by all the miracles of
Heaven. Why? Because they themselves could never be anything else: they measure
themselves in measuring him. Who does not like a species of ghostliness to be round
about a minister? Who likes to think that his minister eats and drinks and sleeps? In
very deed, some quite hide that aspect of the ministry and graciously pay no
attention to it. Micah was but a man. It would be a beautiful thing if ministers could

come down from the clouds and go back to the clouds, and we could have nothing to
do with them but enjoy a momentary revelation. This has many applications. The
man who felt somewhat uneasy or dissatisfied as to his son being priest, represents a
great many men. Who could be so grand a minister as the brother sitting at our side,
who, suddenly inflamed by the divine presence, rises and speaks to human need in
human speech? If we were not so little, so superstitious, so denuded of the higher
and sublimer reason, we should find in man—known man—our truest
representative. It is because we have misunderstood humanity that we have
undervalued the true ministry.
But fortune seemed to be upon Micah"s side. We are now in times of wandering and
adventure and bold enterprise, and in those times a young man was travelling out of
Beth-lehem-judah of the family of Judah, and he happened to be a real Levite; and
when he came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah , Micah elicited his story,
and instantly said to him, "Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest."
The Levites in those days were driven about. It was mourned in one of the prophetic
books that the portion of the Levites was withheld from them. They were under
Heaven"s frown:—"I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." So this
young man was wandering, more or less in a spirit of enterprise and curiosity; and
he came, as we now say, by chance to the house of Micah. There was something
interesting about him. He certainly was not a money-seeker; the terms were
these:—"And I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel,
and thy victuals" ( Judges 17:10)—twenty-five shillings a year was not much for a
priest, even including one suit of clothes and victuals. A man who had spent
hundreds of shekels upon his gods thought he was liberal in spending five-and-
twenty shillings a year on his priests! There are persons who think more of the
church as a building than of the minister as a servant of the soul. Who was this
Levite? Was he a man of any name? ot much in himself, but he was the grandson
of Moses. To what adversities may we come in life, and to what "base uses"! The
grandson of Moses, the caretaker of Syrian images, and the priest of an idolater!
Who can say to what we may be driven? Once let the centre go; once depart from
the vital point; take one step in a wrong direction, and who can calculate the issue?
Be steadfast; hold on to the ascertained—to that which is proved to be beneficent,
pure, noble; or you may come into a servility which not only disennobles you but
throws unjustly a slur on the most famous memory. o man liveth unto himself. We
have to take care of the past, if we would really take care of the future. ow Micah
was comparatively happy. Micah consecrated the Levite. The Levite was not a
priest, but he seemed to have an odour of sanctity about him, and, for the rest,
Micah , having once got his hand into priest-making, made no account of it. The
young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah; then Micah was at
rest.
The greatest surprise of all remains. Here is an idolater appealing to the true God!
"Then said Micah , ow know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a
Levite to my priest" ( Judges 17:13). Here is a false worshipper unconsciously
throwing off his own idols! He keeps the idols as men keep cabinets of curiosities. He
has a house, a little museum, a small miniature pantheon; but in his finer moods he

appeals to the true and living God. So literal are we, we like to have something to lay
the hand upon. Men like a substantial and visible religion. Yet Micah felt that God
would do him good, seeing he had a Levite for his priest. The son did not quite fill
up the space, but now with a real living Levite on the premises, the Lord—the
eternal God, the Father of every living thing—will do this man of mount Ephraim
good. How we degrade God,—that is to say, how we misconceive him and
misrepresent him to ourselves! The Lord will do us good if our heart is right
towards him. The Lord will make up for the absence of all priests, ministers
churches, books, and ordinances, if we are unable to avail ourselves of such help:
God will allow us to eat the shewbread, if there be no other food with which to
appease our hunger. The true Church is where the right heart is. God himself is a
Spirit. There is no image of him that can be made by human hands. There is one
Priest—Jesus Christ, the true Melchizedek. He alone can sacrifice and has sacrificed
and is sacrificed for us. There is one altar—the cross—the cross of Jesus Christ:
God forbid that we should even know any other altar than the cross of our
redeeming, atoning, glorious Saviour. For what are we looking? We cannot appease
our deepest needs, silence our most poignant cries, by any manufactures possible to
our ingenuity and skill: the Son of God is the Saviour of the world; he is able to save
unto the utmost all that come unto God by him, seeing that he ever liveth to make
intercession for us. If any man should now say that he himself is needful to our
communion with Heaven, he is more than wrong in opinion, the case is infinitely
more serious than that which can be measured by mere mistakenness of judgment:
he usurps the place of Christ, he dethrones the Son of God, he at least divides the
prerogative of the one Advocate. This, then, is our Christian position: Man needs a
priest—that Priest is Jesus Christ; man needs communion with Heaven—that
communion is spiritual; man needs an answer to the agony of his own accusation—
that answer is in the cross of Christ. These are great mysteries, but the soul may
become reverently familiar with them, after great suffering, prolonged prayer, and
simple trust in the living God.
This "Micah" is not Micah the prophet. The name "Micah" means "who is like God?"
DAVID LEGGE ow we're going to look at a couple of chapters at the end of the book of Judges
that are a
kind of appendix to this book. They're not chronological in a narrative sense, meaning that
what you're reading in chapter 17, 18 and following does not come after, in a time order, the
life of Samson or the Judges that we have considered. It's more of a glimpse, a cameo of the
general conditions that prevailed over the whole of this time period that we would call the
period of the Judges. As we will see, there's an uncanny similarity in this time period and the
time period in which we live.
The first of these is the history of Micah, a man of mount Ephraim. In outward
appearance both Micah and his mother were people of deep, religious inclination. Their
conversation was filled with repeated references to the name of Jehovah, with
affirmations of dedication to him, and with pleas for Jehovah's blessing. In actual
practice, however, it was quite evident that they cared not one whit for Jehovah, for what

He said or how He commanded that He should be worshipped. They had no real desire to
serve Him or dwell in his fellowship. Their piousness was the sickening sort of which we
read in lsaiah, " This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor
me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the
precept of men." (Is 29:13)
The account opens with Micah returning to his mother eleven hundred shekels of silver
which he had stolen. Superstitiously, he feared the curse which she had pronounced upon
the thief. Piously, his mother wished the blessing of Jehovah upon him because, she said,
she had dedicated the money to Jehovah for the making of a graven image and a molten
image. Thereupon she gave two hundred shekels of the money to Micah, and he
proceeded to have them formed into two idols. In addition, he made an ephod (a priestly
garment), teraphim (a number of small images), a sanctuary to hold them, and he
consecrated one of his sons to be a priest. It all served to make him a man of distinction in
his community, a man with his own gods, his own sanctuary in which to worship, and his
own priest to lead in service. But, if that was not enough, when a wandering Levite
appeared at his house, he enlisted him to be priest in place of his son, for after all God
had separated the tribe of Levi for temple service, and, if possible, it was best to observe
such formalities. Proudly Micah exclaimed, " ow know I that Jehovah will do me good,
seeing I have a Levite to my priest." (RV) It reflected the sad way in which the service of
Jehovah had been corrupted and intermixed with pagan idolatry. Micah was not alone in
such practices.
BI 1-13, "Micah.
Micah’s mother
In the second verse of this chapter Micah makes a clean confession of a great wrong
which he had done to his mother. “It seems,” says Matthew Henry, “that this old woman,
with long scraping and saving, had hoarded a considerable sum of money—eleven
hundred pieces of silver. It is likely she intended, when she died, to leave it to this son. In
the meantime, it did her good to count it over and call it her own.” On discovering that
she had been relieved of her treasure, Micah’s mother became justly indignant. She
scolded and called down curses on the one who had robbed her. This she did in her son’s
presence, and though she made no direct charge of the offence upon him, her conduct
greatly disturbed his conscience. Some time later he made an open acknowledgment to
his mother of the whole matter, and restored the stolen treasure. The reappearance of
the lost shekels had a remarkably soothing effect on her disposition. She forgot all about
the wrong done to her, and all about her own distemper. “Blessed be thou of the Lord,
my son,” said this forgiving mother. Is it not wonderful what a difference a little money
makes in one’s disposition and feelings? She who could curse at its loss now as readily
blesses with its return. One can imagine a very different state of things had Micah come
to her with his confession, but without the eleven hundred pieces of silver. Note now
another incident in this transaction. After this money had been stolen Micah’s mother
gave as one reason for feeling so badly that “she had dedicated it wholly to the Lord.”
When she had it in her possession she had not the heart to do this, but as soon as it was
gone she made known her good intentions. For some reason Micah was moved to restore
to his mother the money which belonged to her. What did she do with it? Did she give it
to the Lord; according to her reported oath of dedication? The record shows she gave to

Him but the veriest part of it. Nine hundred shekels she kept for herself. The remaining
two hundred she devoted to religious uses. What a picture in this conduct of Micah and
his mother of poor, weak, vacillating, human nature, sinning and confessing, cursing and
blessing, as circumstances determine! “What wonder,” says Matthew Henry, “that such a
mother had such a son! She paved the way for his theft, by her probable stinginess.” In
her poverty she professed generous feeling towards the Lord’s cause. When her money
came back, she gave to it less than one-fifth of the all she had promised. (W. H.
Allbright.)
There was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his
own eyes.
Anarchy
At the first, one would think that it were a merry world if every man might do what he
listed. But yet sure those days were evil. This, a complaint. To let you see, then, what a
monster lurketh under these smooth terms, “doing that which is right in our eyes.” Two
parts there be, the eye, and the hand. To begin with the eye, and that which is right in
the eye. There began all evil in the first temptation—even from this persuasion, they
should need no direction from God, or from any; their own eye should be their director
to what was right. Three evils are in it. It is not safe to commit the judgment of what is
right to the eye; and yet it is our surest sense, as that which apprehendeth greatest
variety of differences. But I know withal, the optics (the masters of that faculty) reckon
up twenty several ways, all which it may be and is deceived. The object full of deceit;
things are not as they seem. The medium is not evenly disposed. Take but one: that of
the oar in the water. Though the oar be straight, yet, if the eye be judge, it seemeth
bowed. And if that which is right may seem crooked, that which is crooked may seem
right.. So the eye is no competent judge. But admit we will make the eye judge, yet not
every man’s eye; that were too much. Many weak and dim eyes there be, many goggle
and mis-set; many little better than blind; shall all and every of these be allowed to
define what is right? Some, it may be (perhaps the eagle), but shall the owl and all? I
trow not. Many mis-shapen kinds of right shall we have if that may be suffered. We all
know self-love, what a thing it is, how it dazzleth the sight; how everything appeareth
right and good that appeareth through those spectacles. Therefore, not right by the eye.
At least, not every man’s eye. Nay, not any man is right by his own eye. I now pass to the
next point. Here is a hand, too. For here at this breaketh in the whole sea of confusion,
when the hand followeth the eye, and men proceed to do as lewdly as they see perversely.
And sure the hand will follow the eye, and men do as seemeth right to them, be it never
so absurd.
1. Micah liked an idol well; Micah had a good purse; he told out two hundred
shekels, and so up went the idol.
2. The men of Dan liked well of spoiling; they were well appointed, their swords were
sharp; they did it.
3. They of Gibeah, to their lust, rape seemed a small matter; they were a multitude,
no resisting them; and so they committed that abominable villainy. But what, shall
this be suffered and no remedy sought? God forbid. First, the eye, error in the eye, is
harm enough; and order must be taken even for that. For men do not err in
judgment but with hazard of their souls; very requisite, therefore, that men be
travailed with, that they may see their own blindness. But, if they be strongly

conceited of their own sight, and will not endure any to come near their eyes: if we
cannot cure their eyes, what, shall we not hold their hands neither? Yes, in any wise.
We see, then, the malady; more than time we sought out a remedy for it. That shall
we best do if we know the cause. The cause is here set down. If the cause be there is
no king, let there be one: that is the remedy. A good king will help all, if it be of
absolute necessity that neither Micah, for all his wealth, nor Dan, for all their forces,
nor Gibeah, for all their multitude, do what they list. This is then God’s means. We
cannot say His only means, in that there are states that subsist without them, but
this we may say, His best means—the best for order, peace, strength, steadiness. The
next point is, no king in Israel. That this is not noted as a defect in gross, or at large,
but even in Israel, God’s own chosen people. It is a want, not in Edom or Canaan, but
even in Israel. Truly Israel, being God’s own peculiar people, might seem to claim a
prerogative above other nations, in this, that they had the knowledge of His laws,
whereby their eyes were lightened and their hands taught. Of which there needeth no
reason but this: that a king is a good means to keep them God’s Israel. Here, for want
of a king, Israel began, and was fair onward, to be no longer Israel, but even Babel. I
come to the third part: and to what end a king? What will a king do unto us? He will
in his general care look to both parts, the eye and the hand—the eye, that men sin not
blindly for want of direction; the hand, that men sin not with a high hand for want of
correction. But this is not all; the text carrieth us yet further—that it is not only the
charge of the king, but the very first article in his charge. (Bp. Andrewes.)
Anarchy
I. The tragical antecedent: In those days there was no king in Israel.
II. The terrible consequent: Every one did that which was right in their own eyes.
III. The infallible connection between that cause and this effect. (Thos. Cartwright, D.
D.)
The evil of unbridled liberty
To live as we please would be the ready way to lose our liberty, and undo ourselves.
Tyranny itself were infinitely more tolerable than such an unbridled liberty. For that, like
a tempest, might throw down here and there a fruitful tree, but this, like a deluge, would
sweep away all before it. Many men, many minds, and each strongly addicted to his own.
If, therefore, every man should be his own judge, so as to take upon him to determine his
own right, and according to such determination to proceed in the maintenance of it, not
only the government, but the kingdom itself would quickly come to ruin; and yet admit
of the former, and you cannot exclude the latter. Diseases in the eye, errors in the
judgment, are dangerous; and there being not one reason in us, there is the more need of
one power over us. Yet they who see amiss, hurt none, they say, but themselves; but how
if their unquiet opinions will not be kept at home? but prove as thorns in their sides, and
will not suffer them to take any rest, till from liberty of thinking, they come to liberty of
acting! Nor is there any reason we should be lawless, to do what we please, for we cannot
fathom the depth and deceitfulness of our own hearts, much less of the hearts of other
men. Only this we know, we are all the worse for that which we mistake for liberty
(mistake, I say), for to live as we please is indeed to lose our liberty, of which the law is
so far from being an abridgement that it is the only firm foundation upon which it must

be built. (Thos. Cartwright, D. D.)
The Levite was content.—
The young Levite; or, rich content
His morals were bad, but his spirit of general contentedness was good. Can it be said of
men now that they are content? How much unrest is there all around us! The
discontented spirit is easily discovered. The merchant, in his office or on the market,
makes certain profits, but frets himself that he has not made more. The tradesman
bitterly complains of the badness of trade, and the artisan of slackness of work. When he
has succeeded in finding employment he will be found quarrelling with the rate of
payment. Nor is the discontented spirit confined to the town; it is found in rural districts
too. Speak with the occupier, and what a string of complaints he has about home or
weather; speak with the wife, and she complains of her wayward family; with the son,
and you find that he is weary of country life, and longs for the excitement of a city; with
the daughter, and she is annoyed that school life has to be followed by what she terms
“home drudgery.” You may go away from such a place of beauty in complete disgust. The
appearances have completely belied the reality. Even the Indian, for whom a blanket and
weapon would appear to suffice, is ofttimes discontented because game is scarce or his
maize plot unproductive. It is difficult to find any person who is without some reason for
discontent, or any position which places a man beyond its reach. The joy of the early
Church (Act_2:46) grew out of its contentedness. Its first experience of the results of
religion was so joyous that it was a foretaste of millennial bliss. It lasted, unfortunately,
too short a time, and yet long enough to show what should be the ideal of life.
1. This “simplicity of heart,” this contentedness of mind, is not always inherited, does
not always come by nature, but may be obtained. It can only come fully when the
heart is at peace with God through Christ. The man is “alive to God.” He gives all his
affection to God, because he lives in the love which God has to him. His greatest
desire is to have his whole nature subdued to Christ, and serve Him in “singleness of
heart.”
2. Again, this state is not one which comes to all suddenly. Indeed, it comes to most
gradually. Paul, the apostle, only attained it by degrees.
3. There is a temporary advantage in discontent. But for dissatisfaction with our
spiritual state and progress, we should not strive to make any advance.
4. Look at some of the results which follow the attaimnent of the contented spirit.
(1) There will be a readiness to make the best of any position in which we may be
placed. There was a schoolmaster among the Cumberland Hills, of whom
Robertson speaks in one of his lectures—a man who rested content with a very
small school, small salary, and small house; though his abilities would have
obtained for him a position much higher in the eyes of the world, but who
refused every inducement to remove. He said, “I reckon that the privilege of
living amid beautiful scenery much more than compensates for a large salary
with work in the stifling atmosphere of some town.” It is possible, therefore, to
gain contentedness in respect to position, and the more surely if we can have the
assurance that Christ has taken up His abode in our hearts.
(2) Where this spirit obtains, there will be a more cheerful view of life cherished.
A little girl once inquired, “Mamma, did the cheerful God make all the beautiful

flowers?” The child’s idea of God was far higher than of many Christians. Her
expression, which was apparently bold, was one indicative of sweet simplicity
and “singleness of heart.” Would that we could be in spirit as that little child.
(3) Where this spirit of content obtains, there will be a more earnest
performance of any duty that may fall upon us. That which our hands find to do
we shall do with our might. We shall ever search out occasions of usefulness. If
we see any wrong, we shall not be content to let it rest. If we see ignorance and
sin around, we shall strive to remove it.
(4) Where there is this rich content and true “singleness of heart” there will be a
clearer and yet clearer perception of God’s truth and will. There is a clearness of
vision following on “singleness” of desire.
(5) Moreover, there will be perfect willingness to leave everything in God’s
hands. Much of the fret and worry of life will thus be saved. (F. Hastings.)
Micah consecrated the Levite.—
An unauthorised ordination; or, a pastor-elect’s recognition services
I. The pastor.
1. A recognised minister.
2. Without a charge.
3. Very poor.
4. In search of a ministry.
5. Of a good character.
6. A young pastor.
II. The call.
1. Its nature.
(1) To a small church.
(2) Unanimous.
(3) With little inquiries.
(4) Upon his own merit.
(5) By a very rich church.
2. Its condition.
(1) Much respected.
(2) Poor stipend.
III. The acceptance of the call.
1. Immediate.
2. Without a scruple.
IV. The recognition service.
1. An unauthorised ordination.

2. Without any ceremony.
3. With a good purpose.
V. The great satisfaction of the church in their choice. (M. Jones.)
Now know I that the Lord will do me good.—
The great religious want and mistake of humanity
I. The great religious want of humanity.
1. A friendly relation with the Eternal.
2. Some mediator to procure this friendship.
II. The great religious mistake of humanity. This man concludes that he shall obtain the
Divine favour simply because he has a priest in his house. He may have drawn this false
and dangerous conclusion from one of the following popular assumptions:
1. That there was something morally meritorious in merely supporting a minister of
the Lord.
2. That the priest would have some special power with Heaven to obtain “good.”
3. That by his formally attending to the religious ordinances which this Levite
prescribed “the Lord would do him good.” (Homilist.)
Micah and the Levite
I. Selfishness in religion. This lies at the foundation of Micah’s trouble. The institution of
Micah’s new form of worship had its root in this vice. He did not break away from the
old form of things because he was dissatisfied with it, but because it caused self-denial
and money to support the established order of worship at Shiloh. It took time to go up
there, and means to convey himself and family. Why could he not manage the matter
more economically and just as satisfactorily at home, and thus avoid the annoyance and
expense? Many a man has made this mistake of Micah, in thinking he could worship
God as acceptably in his own way as in any other—in thinking there is no difference
between a man-made and a Divinely-appointed religion. In Micah’s case selfishness
defeated itself, as it does invariably. In departing from the true religion he soon came to
have no religion at all. And is not this the inevitable course of religious declension? If I
could paint a picture that would preach a sermon, it would be Micah running after his
gods and his renegade priest, and crying: “Ye have taken away my gods and my priest,
and what have I more?“
II. Imitation in religion. Micah’s worship was a cross between Judaism and heathenism.
He had the priest and the ephod on one side, and the molten and graven images on the
other. Either he did not perceive the incongruity, or he thought it would make no
difference. Some form of worship he considered a necessity. He was not ready to throw
religion overboard. His difficulty was in thinking it made little difference after all what
kind of religion a man has so long as he has some form of worship. Having no true idea
as to the place of worship, he came soon to have no true idea of worship itself. This is a
natural order of declension. Men nowadays break away from the sanctuary, not meaning
to give up all religion. Having no stated place of worship, they go here and there for a

time, and then cease to go altogether. Breaking with the established order of worship,
Micah manufactured a worship of his own. He mistook the sign for the thing signified.
His religion was an imitation—a counterfeit—and a counterfeit is more or less a copy of
the genuine. Many a man has made this mistake of Micah, in thinking that some religion
was better than none—that a poor thing was better than nothing at all. Counterfeits and
shams abound in religion. Imitations and incongruities are seen on every hand. One is
forced to inquire, “Is there anything real and genuine?” Is every man the maker of his
own idols? Is each and every one to be guided by his own ideas of worship? God forbid!
If it be so, then unity is impossible, and confusion and bitterness and babble are the
inevitable sequence.
III. Self-complacency. With his young priest and his heathen gods Micah was satisfied.
Because he was, he thought God would be. Hence his complacent utterance: “Now know
I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.” We have seen, even
in our day, instances not altogether dissimilar. Families depending on the orthodoxy of
the Church for the Divine approbation; Churches expecting all will go well from the
ecclesiastical standing or ordination vows of their ministers. How often families and
Churches and ministers have been disappointed! The truth is, there can be but one way
of securing God’s blessing, whether for the individual, the family, or the Church. That
one way is the way of loving and faithful obedience to His requirements. Not what we
think, but what He thinks; not what we consider best, but what He commands, is our
duty and happiness. Religion is not a human invention, but a Divine obligation. It is not
a matter of mental caprice, but of joyful submission to the will of Heaven. (W. H.
Allbright.).
2 said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels
[a] of silver that were taken from you and about
which I heard you utter a curse—I have that
silver with me; I took it.”
Then his mother said, “The Lord bless you, my
son!”
CLARKE, "About which thou cursedst - Houbigant and others understand this
of putting the young man to his oath. It is likely that when the mother of Micah missed
the money, she poured imprecations on the thief; and that Micah, who had secreted it,

hearing this, was alarmed, and restored the money lest the curses should fall on him.
GILL, "And he said unto his mother,.... Who seems to have been a widow, and an
ancient woman since Micah had sons, and one of them at age to become a priest:
the eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee: which were
taken away by stealth from her, though it may be rendered "taken to thee" (i); which she
had taken to herself out of the rest of her substance, and had separated and devoted it to
religious uses; but Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it as we do, and which seems to be the
best sense; of the value of this sum; see Gill on Jdg_16:5 and because the like sum is
there offered, and was given to Delilah, hence some have thought, as Jarchi relates, that
this woman was Delilah; but, as he observes, it is a mistake; for this woman lived long
before the times of Samson and Delilah:
about which thou cursedst; which when she perceived was stolen from her, she fell
into a passion, and cursed and swore, cursed the thief that took it, whether of her own
family or another; or adjured her son, that if he knew anything of it, that he would
declare it, suspecting him of the robbery; some think this refers to the oath she had
made, that she would devote the silver to a religious use:
and spakest of also in mine ears; of the sum how much it was, and of the use she
had designed it for; or rather the curse was delivered in his hearing, and cut him to the
heart, and wrought that conviction in him, that he could not retain the money any
longer, not being able to bear his mother's curse; though Abarbinel connects this with
the following clause, "behold, the silver is with me"; as if the sense was, that she spake in
his ears, and charged him with the theft to his face; saying, verily the silver is with thee,
thou hast certainly taken it; upon which he confessed it, "I took it"; but the former sense
seems best, that not being willing to lie under his mother's curse, he owned that the
money was in his hands, and he had taken it from her:
and his mother said, blessed be thou of the Lord, my son; she reversed the
curse, and pronounced a blessing on him, or wished one to him, and that without
reproving him for his sin, rejoicing to hear of her money again.
HE RY, "Micah and his mother reconciled. 1. The son was so terrified with his
mother's curses that he restored the money. Though he had so little grace as to take it,
he had so much left as not to dare to keep it when his mother had sent a curse after it. He
cannot believe his mother's money will do him any good without his mother's blessing,
nor dares he deny the theft when he is charged with it, nor retain the money when it is
demanded by the right owner. It is best not to do evil, but it is next best, when it is done,
to undo it again by repentance, confession, and restitution. Let children be afraid of
having the prayers of their parents against them; for, though the curse causeless shall
not come, yet that which is justly deserved may be justly feared, even though it was
passionately and indecently uttered. 2. The mother was so pleased with her son's
repentance that she recalled her curses, and turned them into prayers for her son's
welfare: Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son. When those that have been guilty of a fault
appear to be free and ingenuous in owning it they ought to be commended for their
repentance, rather than still be condemned and upbraided for their fault.

III. Micah and his mother agreeing to turn their money into a god, and set up idolatry
in their family; and this seems to have been the first instance of the revolt of any Israelite
from God and his instituted worship after the death of Joshua and the elders that out-
lived him, and is therefore thus particularly related. And though this was only the
worship of the true God by an image, against the second commandment, yet this opened
the door to the worship of other gods, Baalim and the groves, against the first and great
commandment. Observe,
COKE, "Judges 17:2. About which thou cursedst— Houbigant renders this, and for
which you put me to my oath; connecting the whole sentence thus: the eleven
hundred shekels of silver which thou saidst in my hearing were taken from thee, and
for which thou didst put me to my oath, behold, are with me, &c. In which he nearly
follows the Arabick. See Dr. Hammond on St. Matthew 26 annot. 1.
ELLICOTT, "(2) He said unto his mother.—The story is singularly abbreviated,
and all details as to how she had acquired the money, &c., are left to conjecture.
The eleven hundred shekels of silver.—The value of eleven hundred skekels would
be about £136. It is the same sum which each of the lords of the Philistines promised
to give Delilah (Judges 16:5), and only six hundred shekels less than the entire mass
of the earrings given to Gideon—only that those were golden shekels. It is hard to
say whence this Ephraimitish lady could have amassed so large a sum.
That were taken from thee.—This is probably the true rendering. The LXX. (Cod.
B) have “which thou tookest for thyself,” and (Cod. A) “those taken by thee,” as
though she had stolen them.
About which thou cursedst.—Literally, and thou didst adjure. The LXX. (Cod. B)
add, “dost adjure me.” The adjuration was clearly that commanded in Leviticus 5:1
: “And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he
hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.”
(Comp. Ecclus. iii. 9: “The curse of a mother rooteth out foundations.”)
I took it.—Micah is terrified into confession by his mother’s adjuration. He shows
throughout a singular mixture of superstition and ignorance.
Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son.—Because of his penitence and confession.
PETT, "Verse 2
Judges 17:2 a
‘And he said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver which were taken
from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke of to me, behold, the
silver is with me. I took it.”
His story begins with his admission that he was a thief. It would seem that he was
moved to confess by the fact that she had put a curse on the silver, so that in order
to avoid the curse he admitted his wrongdoing and returned the silver. His mother

was clearly an old woman for Micah himself was a father of grown up sons. It
speaks volumes of Micah that he felt able to steal from his aged mother. ‘Spoke to
me’ may suggest that she had also adjured him under the curse to tell the truth.
Judges 17:2 b
‘And his mother said, “Blessed be you of Yahweh, my son.” ’
On his owning up his mother reversed the curse, turning it into a blessing.
BE SO , "17:2. About which thou cursedst — That is, didst curse the person who
had taken it away. The mother seems to have uttered this curse in the hearing of her
son; who, being struck therewith, confessed that he had taken the money; upon
which his mother wishes that her curses may be turned into blessings upon him.
WHEDO , "2. About which thou cursedst — Having missed the money, she uttered
imprecations against the thief.
Also in my ears — She so uttered and kept repeating her curses that among others
Micah also heard her.
I took it — The son had been the thief, but his mother’s curses seem to have awed
him, and led him to make restitution. This act of robbery, and the thief being
allowed to go unpunished, show the lawlessness of the time.
Blessed — Instead of reproof and penalty for his theft he receives a blessing. This
blessing sprang from sudden joy at receiving again her lost silver.
PULPIT, "The eleven hundred. See 16:5, note. Thou cursedst. The Cethib and the
Alexandrian Codex of the Septuagint read, Thou cursedst, i.e.. adjuredst me, which
is a better reading. There is a direct and verbal reference to the law contained in Le
5:1. The word thou cursedst here and the voice of swearing in Leviticus are the same
root. It was in consequence of this adjuration that Micah confessed his guilt.
Compare Matthew 26:63, when our Lord, on the adjuration of the high priest,
broke his silence and confessed that he was Christ, the Son of God. In Achan's
confession (Joshua 7:19, Joshua 7:20) there is no distinct reference to Le Matthew
5:1, though this may have been the ground of it.
TRAPP, "Verse 2
17:2 And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred [shekels] of silver that were
taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears,
behold, the silver [is] with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed [be thou] of
the LORD, my son.
Ver. 2. And he said unto his mother.] His conscience troubled him when he heard
his mother curse the thief, which he knew to be himself:

“ Conscia mens ut cuique sun est, &c. ”
The eleven hundred shekels of silver.] Lyra telleth us of some that held Delilah to be
Micah’s mother, because she received one thousand one hundred pieces of silver of
each lord of the Philistines, to betray Samson into their hands. But this is but a blind
guess, and no whit likely; let it therefore pass for a Jewish fable. I like his note
better who saith, (a) Old wood is apt to take fire. After all the airing in the desert,
Micah’s mother will smell of Egypt. And again, As civilly, so also morally, the birth
followeth the belly, as Micah, his mother. Hence most of the kings’ mothers are
named.
About which thou cursedst.] Whilst her wealth lasted, she could dedicate a good
part of it. But now she hath lost it she falleth a-cursing; as a parrot when beaten
falleth to her own hoarse and harsh voice. Wicked men’s mouths are "full of cursing
and bitterness." But cursing men are cursed men.
And spakest of also in mine ears.] He started at and was terrified by a mother’s
curse. And indeed if there be just cause, God sometimes says Amen to parents’
curses, as were easy to instance. See Genesis 9:25 {See Trapp on "Genesis 9:25"}
I took it.] Of robbing parents, see Proverbs 28:24, with the note.
Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son.] "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing
and cursing." [James 3:10] So doth it out of the Pope’s eftsoons, as in the case of
Henry IV of France.
And not only is he a thief, he is a superstitious thief. What makes him come clean to his
mother? Not repentance, but fear. His mother has pronounced a curse on whomever took
her silver. And Micah is afraid, so owns up. And so his mother makes a blessing to
overcome the curse. She is as superstitious as her son.
And though has been blessed by his mother, he is actually under God’s curse - in Deut
27:15 God says ‘cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol’ which is what
Micah has done.
Stealing from mother, what could be worse,
But she forgave and reveresed the curse.

But then she used her newly filled purse
To encourage her son in ways more perverse.
To go and build idols and God's will reverse.
C W POWELL
1. The sad story of the idolatry at Dan began with a woman who had put away some
money for the service of God. The money was in the form of silver coins, maybe about
600 ounces or about 37 lbs of silver, worth in today’s money about 72 thousand dollars..
She professed to be intending the service of the Lord God of Israel. The idolatry begins
with this covetous old woman, saving up her coins, probably intending to leave them to
her son.
2. The money, however, was stolen, and the woman was very upset and uttered a curse
against whoever had stolen it. She probably suspected her son, but at least her curse was
known. Her son was grown, old enough to have a son of his own old enough to be a
priest.
3. The curse frightened the thief, who turned out to be her son. She seemed to be
gratified that her son had showed remorse, and so she blessed him instead of cursing him.
Curses and blesses often fall from the same mouth—James says that this ought not to be.
4. She was a pious old hypocrite, pretending to really intended the work of the Lord,
perhaps feeling guilty that she had not used the money where it would have done some
good. Such is often done.
5. The idolatry in her heart, is now translated into outward idolatry, for she returns at
least a part of the sil-ver to her son in order to make an idol, although she pretended that it
was for the service of Jehovah. But the 2nd commandments prohibits all images for the
worship of God, for God is in heaven, and cannot be represented by earthly things. It is
suggested that the rest of the money was to be used to support the new worship.
3 When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of

Judges 17 commentary

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Judges 17 commentary