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Judges 17-18
There was an old woman dwelling with her married or widowed son, Note: He had grown-up sons, and must therefore have been the one or the other. That the woman was advanced in years is proved by her grandsons being of adult age. Micah, in Mount Ephraim, who one day missed a treasure of eleven hundred pieces of silver, probably the savings of her life, which she had carefully laid up. Her imprecations upon the thief were so awful, that her son, who had really taken the money, fearing lest some of that dreadful thing—a mother’s curse, might unknowingly alight on his head, informed her that it was he who had removed her silver. In him this, under the circumstances, was a comparatively light offence, the money being what he supposed must soon come to him by inheritance. His mother did not therefore reproach him, but rather blessed him; and proceeded to explain, that her anxiety in the matter had proceeded from the special destination which she had made of the money, and which, she supposed, would not be less advantageous to him than the inheritance of it. She had “wholly dedicated it to Jehovah;” and she now invited him to take the money and give effect to her intention. He, however, preferred to leave the money in her hands, while he wrought with her in carrying out the design. This was no less than to set up a small establishment like that at the tabernacle, the service of which seems to have been at this time much neglected, and the access to it, from the troubled state of the country, difficult. Micah and his mother seem to have thought, that the restriction to one place of ceremonial worship, respected only sacrifice: and that, while he abstained from setting up an altar for offerings of blood, he should not only be committing no offence, but doing a laudable action acceptable to God, by setting up a place for his service by prayer, and perhaps by bloodless offerings.
So he soon had what he conceived to be “a house of God.” Note: “A house of gods,” in the authorized version—but it is more agreeable to the circumstances that the plural form should here, as usual, be understood in the singular sense. He had a chamber, it would seem, set apart for this service; and in it was a priest’s dress (“an ephod”), and “a graven image and a molten image.” For “image,” some read indefinitely “thing,” which the original will admit; and suppose that imitations of the sacred utensils, or of some of them, are intended, such as the candlestick, etc. Whether so or not, there were certainly images, for “teraphim” are presently mentioned. As these teraphim occur in Scripture in somewhat diversified applications, some of which indicate a resemblance to the human figure, Note: As in respect to the image or teraph which Michal put in David’s bed, and passed off for himself, sick. we incline to the supposition, that they were designed to represent the cherubim of the tabernacle.
Micah was now a happy man. His chapel was intended not only for the advantage of his household, but to form a center of worship and prayer to the neighborhood. There was nothing idolatrous in it, as regarded the intention of Micah, who deemed that he was doing God service, being unable to discover the idolatrous tendencies which placed it among forbidden things. One feels a kind of sympathy for this obviously sincere man, while deploring his grievous and dangerous error of judgment.
There was one want. There was the framework of a little ecclesiastical settlement; but the animating spirit, in an officiating minister, was wanting. A patriarch would have been content to suppose that he might becomingly had the devotions of his household; but the idea of a distinct priesthood being by this time established, nothing would satisfy Micah but the presence of some one specially set apart for the service of his house of prayer. Not being able, however, to get a priest or even a Levite, he remembered that the Levitical tribe were taken into the Lord’s service in lieu of the first-born of all the tribes, and therefore he set apart his own son probably his first-born, for this duty.
Though he adopted this resource, Micah was aware that this was not altogether correct, and desired to have a Levite for his officiating minister. He was not long unsatisfied. One day a wandering Levite called at his house, either from having heard, as he passed, of the establishment there, or to claim the hospitality usually shown to strangers, and which the law particularly enjoined to be shown to the Levites. His name was Jonathan, and he belonged to Bethlehem in Judah. This at the outset seems an irregularity; for the Levites had cities of their own among the different tribes, and Bethlehem was not a Levitical city. But it would seem that, in times of confession like this, the regulation was not much heeded, and the Levites, or a considerable proportion of them, were dispersed over the land, as necessity, convenience, or private connections suggested. Indeed, seeing that in their towns they derived their subsistence from the provision made for them by the law, and that they were not, like the men of other tribes, landowners, they would be obliged, in unsettled times, when the payment of the dues on which they depended was neglected, or became insufficient for the whole body, to leave their towns and go to other places in search of a maintenance. This would be especially the case with the younger Levites; and, indeed, the Jewish writers intimate, with sufficient probability, that even in good times—and perhaps as a characteristic of good times—the Levites went much about the country as teachers of the law and educators—which were, indeed, the same function: for education among the Hebrews consisted, primarily, of instruction in the law and the capacity of reading it. The function of the priesthood was to offer sacrifices, not to teach; the function of the Levites, besides assisting the priests in the lower departments of their duty, was to teach, and not to sacrifice. They were the teachers of the law; and, although not stated in Scripture, there is reason, from the more probability of the case, to believe that the Jewish writers are not wrong in affirming that zealous Levites dispersed themselves about the country, and went from place to place, tarrying wherever their services seemed to be required, in discharge of this important branch of their functions. The subject is interesting , but is too large for incidental discussion here; and therefore we pass it, with the remark that, seeing the function of a Levite was to teach—seeing that he exercised no trade or profession, it must have been only as a teacher, an educator of the people, a guide in religious matters, that a Levite could seek employment; and when, therefore, we find one traveling in search of an opening for his services, this implies that such openings were to be found, and that in various localities a demand for such services existed.
This was the case with our Levite. He told Micah that he was in search of a place where he might settle—“I go to sojourn where I may find a place.” On hearing this, Micah gladly seized the opportunity of completing, as he conceived, his establishment, by engaging this Levite for his minister. This person seems to have been no more conscious of the gross irregularity of the proceeding than Micah himself, who, in the joy of his heart, exclaimed, “Now I know that Jehovah will bless me, seeing that I have a Levite to be my priest.” Alas for him, if he had no other hope of a blessing than this!
The terms on which Micah engaged the services of this young Levite are remarkable. “I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals.” We are startled at the smallness of the sum, which does not exceed five-and-twenty shillings at the present value of silver. But the worth of the money with regard to the cost of commodities, by which the real value is determined, must have been much greater, relatively, in that age and country. Even at the present day, money is, in that relation, of three or four times the value in Syria that it bears with us—that is, it will go three or four times as far in the purchase of necessaries; and Burckhardt informs us, that thirty years ago, about six pounds by the year was all the income which the bishop of Kerak Note: Mentioned before at page 344. derived from his see—it is probably not so much at present, as his see is certainly in a less flourishing condition. We are also to consider, that in a simple age, and in a country then without commerce, a young man was held to have little occasion for expense when provided with clothing and food. Micah evidently made what he conceived to be a liberal offer—and as the Levite himself received it its such, we have no reason to consider that it was otherwise. The suit of apparel does not, as our use of the word implies, consist of a single dress, but a complete set-out of apparel, meaning probably an ordinary dress, and another to use in the services of the office he had undertaken.
The engagement, however, was not so splendid, but that the Levite, somewhat too eagerly for any strong sense of gratitude to his patron, accepted an offer to exercise the same functions for that division of the tribe of Dan which passed this way, in going to find a new settlement in the north—at Laish, afterwards called Dan; and there is reason to apprehend that he did not very eagerly protest against the abstraction, by the strong-handed Danites, of the whole paraphernalia of Micah’s establishment, on which a little fortune had been expended. Micah was absent at the time; but he soon discovered his loss, and pursued the party with the people of the neighborhood, who were equally interested in the support of his establishment. They found, however, that the Danites were too strong for them, and reluctantly returned, after Micah had received a rough hint as to the danger he incurred by, not putting up quietly with his loss. It may be hoped that the loss was his eventual gain. But the original of this remarkable establishment, as well as the eagerness of the Danites to appropriate it to themselves, is very painfully demonstrative of the loose notions of the age; and it is of importance as supplying the link in the downward progress to that direct idolatry into which the nation not long after generally fell. In the leading narrative the transition seems very abrupt. There were intermediate corruptions and ignorance, and here their nature is indicated, and the connection is in this and the following narration supplied.