Judges 17:4

_YET HE RESTORED THE MONEY UNTO HIS MOTHER; AND HIS MOTHER TOOK TWO HUNDRED SHEKELS OF SILVER, AND GAVE THEM TO THE FOUNDER, WHO MADE THEREOF A GRAVEN IMAGE AND A MOLTEN IMAGE: AND THEY WERE IN THE HOUSE OF MICAH._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

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....

Verse Judges 17:4. _A GRAVEN IMAGE AND A MOLTEN IMAGE_] What these images were, we cannot positively say; they were most probably some resemblance of matters belonging to the tabernacle. See below....

See Judges 8:27, note; Genesis 31:19, note....

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

YET HE RESTORED THE MONEY UNTO HIS MOTHER,.... Gave it to her a second tithe, not as disapproving her idolatrous intention, as the sequel shows, but being desirous to be entirely free of it, and not have his mind disturbed with it as it had been, and that she might do with it as she thought fit: AND HIS MOTHER TOOK TWO HUNDRED SHEKELS OF SILVER, AND GAVE THEM TO THE FOUNDER, WHO MADE THEREOF A GRAVEN IMAGE, AND A MOLTEN IMAGE; the other nine hundred pieces she kept to herself, repenting of her vow, and being unwilling to part with so much money for such an use; or else they were laid out in an ephod, and teraphim, and what else were thought necessary for the idolatrous worship they were about to set up; though Kimchi is of opinion, that the two hundred shekels were what she gave the founder for making the images, and of the nine hundred the images were made; and indeed the images must b...

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....

MONEY. silver (Judges 17:2)....

_two hundred_pieces _of silver_ Because the whole sum was given to Jehovah it does not follow that the whole was wanted for the image. Elsewhere _the founder_is a maker of idols, Isaiah 40:19; Isaiah 41:7....