Judges 17

Judges 17:1-18

Subdivision 1. (Judges 17:1-13; Judges 18:1-31.)Godward: will-worship in the typical “judge” (Dan). The witness to man’s condition here is, as commonly, a double one; and as the second table of the law is based upon the first, it is with the first that we must begin. The idolatry in Dan precedes in moral order, probably historically also, the Benjamite war, though the latter was early, for Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was then high priest. On the other hand, the seizure of Laish or Leshem by the Danites is given in the book of Joshua (19: 47). It is quite plain, therefore, that we have thus a new beginning, all the more significant as looked back to from the end, as God will one day require again the things that are past. (1) The idolatry in Dan is not original with them, but the transplanting of a sin begun in the house of a man no way prominent, as it would seem, in Israel. Leprosy will spread, in whatever member of a body it begins; and none may think himself too little or mean to become a propagator of disease that may infect a nation. There is, moreover, in sin a power of real and rapid evolution, a transmutability of species such as that it is certain that from one covetous act in Eden all the myriad forms of wickedness with which the world is filled today have been derived. Traced to its origin, as the Spirit of God would trace it for our profit, we have first a man’s theft from his mother of eleven hundred silver pieces, which, terrified by her curses, but without any repentance toward God, he restores. Apparently on the impulse of the moment, soon regretted, she dedicates it to Jehovah for a purpose absolutely forbidden by Him, to which finally she applies less than a fifth part. It is the old sin of the wilderness that she repeats, a founder making of it a graven image and a molten image, and she solemnly passes them over from her hand for her son to Jehovah, making no doubt of the acceptability of this to Him. Thus she is doing what is right in her own eyes, evidently; though of any movement of her heart to God there is not a trace. To make his own god and have it is the natural desire everywhere of the human heart away from Him. We need not use as much silver as did the woman here to make one. We may be less ignorant or more indifferent, possibly both; but will-worship is everywhere essentially of the same pattern. This is why the case before us is so instructive to us. Morality and religion are sundered by superstition. The brigand has his crucifix and his rosary, and is still a brigand. “Nowhere is the Virgin more fervently adored than in the prisons [of Italy] by the malefactors and camorristi. The first demand made of a new-comer, immediately on his entry into the cells, is for a penny to furnish oil for the Virgin’s lamp.” This was the style of devotion of the mother of Micah, and the stream will rise no higher than its source. The man adopts his mother’s religion, and the change is indicated in the clipping of his name, which, from Micajehu (“who is like Jehovah?”) becomes Micah simply, meaning, probably, “who is dull of sight?” Dull of sight he is, assuredly, keenly looking after his own interest all the while, for what more profitable than a god of your own manufacture and in your own possession? And all this takes place not in some remote corner of even the little Israelitish land, but in Mount Ephraim, quite near to Shiloh, where was the ark of God. Just so the golden calf was made under the shadow of Mount Sinai: for distance from God cannot be measured by latitude and longitude; heathenism is not the sigh of a heart that says, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!” No; it was “when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened,” -which is just the transformation of a Micajehu into Micah. Mount Ephraim is the place where Micah dwells, as it is the home of the Levite also in the story that follows this. It is in the practical life that diseases of this kind break out. We have seen the pride of Ephraim already developing itself in relation to Gideon and to Jephthah. Afterwards the rival kingdoms are a more enduring memorial of it, and Jeroboam’s calf-worship is established close upon its border. Even true fruitfulness has its danger in this direction, and pride and idolatry are never far apart. We do not know the forms of Micah’s idols: no doubt this is left vague, as unimportant: what matter what supplants God in the heart? -the evil is only that He is supplanted. (2) Yet there is development: the thing is a living germ that grows. Micah with his gods must have his house of gods. Then he must have his ephod and his priest, and his gods themselves must be supplemented with the teraphim. All this was still “right” in Micah’s eyes. When we are thus committed to the guidance of our own minds, quite a system may be easily elaborated; the further we advance, the more completely do we get astray. How careful need we to be as to beginnings! The matter of priesthood troubles him. He first consecrates one of his sons to be his priest, but he is uneasy about it: some reminiscence of the law will not allow him peace. Strange that we find nothing to indicate any alarm of conscience about his rival tabernacle, or even about his carved and molten gods! And we often find this strange anomaly among men. Conscience may be alive and sensitive upon certain points, when upon others it seems dead or paralyzed. And it is often the minor thing to which it is sensitive, while to the greater it yields no response.

Nor is this limited to unbelievers either, but the same thing is found among those that are truly the Lord’s. In this case, however, as with Micah, it is generally the case that the awakened soul is easily quieted again, and with some half-truth which is but the perversion of truth. A Levite becomes his priest: and now he is radiant with satisfaction, and knows assuredly that Jehovah will do him good! The Levite himself is another sign of the times. He is of the Levites of Judah, has been for a while in Bethlehem-judah, and wandered away again to find where he may another temporary resting-place. His is the restless foot of a stranger where he might have claimed inheritance, and he is ready to find a home where he should have been a stranger. Little solicitation prevails with him: his sustenance, a suit of clothes, a salary, has prevailed with many in all ages of the world, and the Levite exchanges his ministry for priesthood in the house of Micah, where the idolatry of the place is sanctified with Jehovah’s name. All this is simple enough to read by those that care, and Christendom has exhibited every detail of this transformation, -not, alas, as it would seem, a long process: a manufactured priesthood for manufactured gods, all covered with a fair name of orthodoxy, and men doing with great satisfaction what is right in their own eyes! (2.) And the evil does not stop with this. We are now to see how the private sin becomes a public sin, and roots itself in a tribe of Israel. The tribe of Dan we have seen long since as linked in Jacob’s prophecy with apostasy. Dan is the typical judge, and it is here the failure begins, and is so disastrous. With Samson’s failure the book ends; but here we see the Danite, from the first and all through, a failure. No tribe so signally fails to lay hold on its inheritance; and this is the only way in which we can understand that their lot had not fallen to them.

They had suffered the Philistines to regain the cities upon the sea-coast, and the Amorites had forced them into the mountains. This loss of what is our own, and should be made our own, is often the reason of much restless activity among the people of God, and of much that looks like success in other directions. Their history, as far as their original possession is concerned, clings around Zorah and Eshtaol, significant names when cut off from the rest that God had allotted them. They are here seen forced by their own slothfulness or timidity to seek an inheritance elsewhere; and were then as violent and rapacious as before they were indolent. Human nature in fallen man commonly shows itself in extremes of this kind. From Zorah and Eshtaol they send out spies to search the land. Refusing God’s choice for us we have, of course, to search out for ourselves. This becomes a snare to them by means of Micah’s images: the path that is not with God is always exposed to Satan’s ambushes. Micah finds his judgment also through the Levite who was to be the means of blessing to him from Jehovah. The wandering Levite had been known to these wandering Danites, and they learn from him all about his present employment. He is not ashamed to speak of his hired priesthood, and they are quite ready to consult his oracle. They get the usual ambiguous response, which they interpret according to their own desires: but the end of this is not yet. So the five men come to Laish, and here find the opportunity they seek. The Canaanites are living quiet and secure, in lawless self-indulgence, which shows them ripe for the judgment of God. They are evidently an easy prey; and they return with the good news to their expectant brethren. God’s good news they would have it; for we see with keen eyes the sins of others, and pronounce God’s judgments readily enough. Self-interest and self-flattery are potent in begetting a kind of religion; and the spies talk piously and fervently to their brethren. Soon there is a little army assembled at Kirjath-jearim, the forest city, which gives its suited character to the “Camp of Dan.” (2) The six hundred follow the road taken by the spies, and come to the house of Micah; and here the union of superstition with immorality once more manifests itself in a startling way. The spies recall their visit to the Levite, and the opportunity of securing the images for themselves seems to them all too favorable to let pass. Gods so helpless and so beneficent, whose virtue they perhaps supposed they had already proved, -for in idolatry it is vain to deny an efficacy attributed to the image, and thus the superiority of this to that Madonna, although as representations they are all the same. But blindness here is absolute: “they that make them are like unto them,” says the inspired Word; “so is every one that trusteth in them.” The hireling priest shows himself but a hireling. A greater personal advantage to himself outweighs at once all obligations to his employer, and he is “glad” of the robbery by which he is to benefit. For the Danites, as with other sacerdotalists today, it is not necessary to respect the man who by reason of his office is supposed to have the ear of God. Once again, morality is divorced from religion, and He is not glorified but dishonored in those that draw near to Him. Little comment, surely, is needed here. The gainers have lost; the loser, if he knows it, has gained. The Danites depart with their booty in peace. (3) The third part shows us, briefly, the end of this sad story. The surprise of Laish is complete; and the Canaanites, doomed of God before, are cut off. Laish becomes Dan. But there the idolatrous system begun by Micah is established, and abides till the captivity of the land; that is, as we are informed, as long as the house of God continued at Shiloh. When the ark went into captivity among the Philistines, the sanctuary at Shiloh came to an end (Psalms 78:60-61); and with the reformation under Samuel, the idolatry under Dan was no doubt swept away. But now we have revealed one of the saddest proofs of the decline in Israel that had already taken place. The name of the Levite priest is Jonathan (“Jehovah hath given,”) the son of Gershom, the son of Moses: scarcely the grandson, but certainly a descendant not far removed, of the great lawgiver. Of this and not Manasseh, as the true reading, there is no doubt. Only respect for so honored a name that of Moses induced the alteration, -the “n” alone needed for it being suspended also over, rather than written in the word. “The significance of the statement,” as Cassel observes, lies in the contrast between descendant and ancestor." So early and grave was the degeneracy of the people.