Deeper Commentary
Jdg 17:2 He said to his mother, The eleven hundred pieces of silver that
were taken from you, about which I heard you utter a curse - I took them.
His mother said, Yahweh bless you my son-
One theme of the history of Dan is the mixture between flesh and
spirit, and this was to come to full term in the life of Samson. His
idolatrous mother blesses him by Yahweh, and she is an idolater. 1100
pieces of silver would imply that this woman was very wealthy, for 10
pieces of silver a year was a good salary (:10), and so the apostacy we
are to read of would likely have been amongst the wealthy leadership
class. She had cursed the thief, but when she found it was her son, she
turns the curse into a blessing. We compare this with how Jephthah didn't
feel he could change such an oath once uttered. 1100 pieces of silver was
exactly the amount of money which each prince of the Philistines was to
pay Delilah for Samson's betrayal (Jud. 16:5). We wonder whether this
woman may have been Delilah, or connected with her; for I gave some
reasons for believing she was perhaps an Israelitess.
Jdg 17:3 He returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and
she said, I solemnly dedicate my silver to Yahweh for my son to make an
engraved image and a molten image. Then I will give it back to you-
The idea seems to be that she would dedicate the money but somehow
retain within her power. His repentance therefore cost him nothing, and
neither really did her supposed sacrifice to Yahweh; whereas it is a
principle of sacrifice that it must cost us something, we must be left in
deficit after it, in real terms (2 Sam. 24:24). We see how deeply Israel
had fallen into thinking that idolatry was justified, because it was a
form of Yahweh worship. Their later placing of idols in the temple of
Yahweh could only really have happened on that basis. And this has been
the abiding temptation and tendency for God's people; to mix the flesh and
the Spirit, to have a little of both, rather than making wholehearted
commitment to Him. And it is seen too in the mixture of paganism with
Biblical truths in the theology of standard Christianity.
Jdg 17:4 So he returned the money to his mother and she took two hundred
pieces of it and gave them to the silversmith, who made it into an
engraved image and a molten image, and they were put into Micah’s house-
And then the rest of the money she returned to Micah (see on :3).
"Micah" means 'who is like Yah!'. His mother had named him like this and
he probably would have agreed with his name, hence he kept it; but this
was the mere externality of religious devotion. For clearly they were
idolaters, wrongly claiming to serve Yahweh through serving idols. See on
:3.
Jdg 17:5 This man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household
gods and consecrated one of his sons to be his priest-
Micah was clearly a passionate religionist. The apostacy of such
people was partly due to the failure of the priesthood. He therefore
consecrated one of his sons to be a priest. Part of his apostacy, making
his own holy place and ephod, was perhaps due to the fact that the
sanctuary of Yahweh wasn't functioning properly. It was still in Shiloh
(Jud. 18:31), but perhaps being abused as it was at the time of Eli, so
that people didn't wish to attend it. Individual failure is always
personally culpable, but this isn't to say that spiritual leaders aren't
also to be held accountable by God for it.
Jdg 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was
right in his own eyes-
This implies that the book of Judges as we have it was edited, under
Divine inspiration, some time after Israel began to have kings. Perhaps
during the exile, when again they had no king; and therefore the book
becomes a warning to the exiles about likely apostacy. The lament may be
that there was no authority, no teacher, no modelling of Godly living;
because every man did what was right in his own eyes, rather than doing
what was right in the eyes of Yahweh. For so often we read of Israel being
condemned for doing what was wrong in His eyes. This is clear enough
evidence that 'just follow your heart' is poor advice. For what is right
in our own eyes results in the Godless confusion of what we find now at
the time of the Judges. However it could be argued that having no human
king was a good thing; for God didn't want them to have one. And therefore
a situation where everyone judges things by their own judgment is in fact
good; the problem was that the people didn't base their view upon God's
word, His "eyes" or perspective, but solely upon their own unenlightened
opinions.
Jdg 17:7 There was a young Levite who had been living in Bethlehem Judah-
I suggested on :3-5 that the apostacy of Micah and others like him
was partly a result of the Levites to teach them a better way. And the
absence of Levitical teachers, and the apparent non functioning of the
sanctuary, would in turn have been a result of the people not paying
tithes to the Levites so that they could do this teaching work. And so
everything had spiraled downwards. Bethlehem was not a priestly city, and
so this Levite had been living there but not working as a Levite.
Presumably because his home city was a place where the tithes were not
paid, this Levite had gone to live in Bethlehem looking for work.
Jdg 17:8 and he left the city to find a better place, and came to the hill
country of Ephraim to the house of Micah-
The Levites has no inheritance of land, and so life was extremely
difficult for them when they were not paid tithes by the other Israelites.
They became like this man, wandering labourers who went looking for any
kind of work just to keep them alive. He perhaps went to the house of
Micah because he was evidently wealthy; for his mother had 1100 pieces of
silver to spend on religion, when a good salary was 10 pieces /
year. That money was 110 years of good salary. The Levite likely went
there in the hope of finding work in the house of a rich man.
Jdg 17:9 Micah said to him, Where have you come from? He said to him, I am
a Levite of Bethlehem Judah, and I am looking for a place to live-
Not having their own land, the Levites were homeless when the tithes
weren't paid, or if their priestly allotment was taken from them by the
tribe where the priestly city was. I noted on the distribution of the
priestly cities in Joshua that many were in areas not subdued by Israel,
or in remote, peripheral regions. So the Levites became landless
labourers, often homeless.
Jdg 17:10 Micah said to him, Live with me and be unto me a father and a
priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, a suit of
clothing and your food. So the Levite agreed-
Jdg 17:11 The young Levite was content to dwell with the man and became
unto him as one of his sons-
The paradox is that this young man was wanted by Micah as a father to
him. Even though he was of an age and maturity to merely be Micah's son.
It was as if Micah's religious impulse led him to by all means want
someone to be his spiritual senior, no matter how young or unqualified
they were. And we see precisely this mentality in all cultures of our
world today.
Jdg 17:12 Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his
priest, living in his house-
It was priests who were to consecrate Levites; but Micah is just
taking bits and pieces from God's true religion and making them part of
his own do it yourself religious system. And we see this going on all the
time, both now and historically. Biblical verses and precedents are taken
quite out of context, and mixed in with paganism and human ways.
Jdg 17:13 Then Micah said, Now know I that Yahweh will do good to me,
since I have a Levite as my priest-
We feel almost sorry for Micah. He had a basic conscience, feeling
struck by guilt that he had stolen a huge sum from his mother, equivalent
to 110 years of good salary. He wants Yahweh in his life and His
blessings, but he thinks it can be attained by mere externalities, and
through worshipping other gods. He was desperate for teaching; and the
Levite failed him in this, perhaps because he too had not been taught
God's ways and law.
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