Judges 17:1

_AND THERE WAS A MAN OF MOUNT EPHRAIM, WHOSE NAME WAS MICAH._ A man of mount Ephraim - i:e., the mountainous parts of Ephraim. This and the other narratives that follow form a miscellaneous collection, or appendix to the Book of Judges, belonging to a period when the Hebrew nation was in a greatly disordered and corrupt state. This episode of Micah is connected with Judges 1:34, and it relates to his foundation of a small sanctuary of his own, a miniature representative of the Shiloh tabernacle, which he stocked with images modelled probably in imitation of the ark and cherubim. Micah and his mother were sincere in their intention to honour 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....

1-6 What is related in this, and the rest of the chapters to the end of this book, was done soon after the death of Joshua: see chap. Judges 20:28. That it might appear how happy the nation was under the Judges, here is showed how unhappy they were when there was no Judge. The love of money made Micah so undutiful to his mother as to rob her, and made her so unkind to her son, as to curse him. 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 into a graven or a molten image. Micah and his mother agreed to turn their money into a god, and set up idol worship in their family. See the cause of this corruption. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes, and then they soon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord....

CHAPTER XVII _Micah, an Ephraimite, restores to his mother_ eleven hundred _shekels of silver, which he had taken from her_, 1, 2. _She dedicates this to God; and out of a part of it makes a_ _graven image and a molten image, and gets them up tn the_ _house of Micah_, 3, 4; _who consecrates one of his sons to be his priest_, 5. _He afterwards finds a Levite, whom he consecrates for a priest,_ _and gives him annually ten shekels of silver, with his food and_ _clothing_, 6-13. NOTES ON CHAP. XVII Verse...

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 Judges 18:1, note. Josephus combines in one narrative what we read here and in Judges 1:34, and places it, with the story in Judg. 18–21, immediately after the death of Joshua....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 17:1 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 (Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1), and. that Phinehas the son of Eleazar was alive at the time of the occurrence of the second (Judges 20:28). Both, no doubt, are long prior to Samson. The only apparent connection of the h

AND THERE WAS A MAN OF MOUNT EPHRAIM,.... This and the four following Chapter s 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 Judges 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 Judges 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, Ju

III. THE APPENDIX: ISRAEL'S INTERNAL CORRUPTION 1. Micah's and Dan's Idolatry and Its Punishment CHAPTER 17 The Images Made and the Hired Priest _ 1. The stolen money restored and the images (Judges 17:1)_ 2. The Levite hired for a priest (Judges 17:7) The last five Chapter s of the book form an appendix. The events given did not occur after Samson's death, but they happened many years before. These Chapter s are not in chronological order but arranged in this way to teach the root of the evil and its results. This answers much, if not all, of the objections of the critics. These Chapter s reveal the internal corruption which existed in Israel during the different declensions. Idolatry and lawlessness are the two characteristic features. True worship and dependence on God is

MICAH'S GRAVEN IMAGE. The dread of a curse, uttered by an indignant mother against the unknown thief of her money, made the culprit, her own son, confess his guilt. At a certain stage of religious development, blessings and curses are supposed to have supernatural potency (p. 143). In this instance the mother made her curse still more effective by devoting the lost money to Yahweh. Judges 17:2 f. Change the order: I took it; now therefore I restore it to thee. And his mother said, etc. Judges 17:4. Comparing a graven image and a molten image with it was in the house and the graven image in Judges 18:30 f., we conclude that a molten image is throughout a later addition....

MOUNT. hill country of Ephraim, where Joshua dwelt and was buried (Joshua 24:30)....

_the hill country of Ephraim_ See on Judges 3:27. In view of its subsequent connexion with the sanctuary at Dan, some think that Micah's house was at Beth-el. The narrative, however, leaves the situation vague; it may imply that he lived somewhere on the road which ran northwards along the Central Highlands, Judges 18:13....