Samson is the last detailed look we have at the specific judges, or deliverers, that rule over Israel during this time period. If you remember back to the first posts on Judges, I said that this book falls into a fairly neat outline:

Ch. 1-3 – Scary preview of this book: they have disobeyed, and it will not go well.
Ch. 3-16 – Downward spiral of spiritual and moral climate during the rule of the judges
Ch. 17-21 – Two frightening stories that illustrate the problem

Today we will begin to look at the first of those last two stories – it involves a man named Micah, a Levite from Bethlehem, and the tribe of Dan. Please read chapters 17-18 on your own, as we will be leaving a lot of details out.

This story begins with Micah, who tells his mother that he is the one who stole her silver. What might you expect a good mother to do? Deal with the issue of stealing, perhaps? Nope.

Then his mother said, “The LORD bless you, my son!”
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you.” (17:2b-3)

There are so many things wrong with this story already. She blesses him for stealing. Then she says she will consecrate her silver to the Lord… “to make a carved image and a cast idol.” What!? You’re consecrating this to the Lord to make an IDOL? It’s doesn’t take a PhD in Old Testament theology to know that she’s way off base.

So now Micah has his idols from his mother’s silver. He puts them and an ephod (again, I don’t really know the significance of that and if it ties into Gideon’s ephod…) and some other things in his own personal shrine, and sets his son up as a his own private priest. How nice. Notice that they were from the tribe of Ephraim, not Levi, and his son was an illegal priest over idolatrous images in Micah’s own shrine of idolatrous worship. Now, catch the next verse: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. (17:6)

Next, we find that a young Levite leaves to look for another place to stay. (This also is disobedient, as the Lord had prescribed certain cities where the Levites were to live throughout the tribes of Israel.) He comes to Micah’s house, and when Micah finds out that he is a Levite, he asks him to stay on, and he would pay him to be his priest.

Isn’t this better, to have a disobedient Levite as your priest over your shrine of idols, rather than your son who is from the wrong tribe? Apparently, Micah thinks it is, for verse 13 says, And Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”

In 18:1, we see a repetition of 17:6, In those days Israel had no king.

Next, we find the tribe of Dan looking for a place to live.

And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. (18:1)

Now, before you feel badly for the Danites and think that they are just looking for a place to live, remember back to chapter 1 of Judges.

We discussed in Judges: Take me to your Leader that the tribes failed to obey and trust the Lord to claim their land as their own. The Danites were no exception. They, too, had been allotted a specific tract of land from the Lord, and they had failed to take it as their own.

Judges 1:34 says that the Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. The tribe of Dan had failed to obey God’s command to posses the land, and now they were wandering around looking for someone else’s land that they could take.

They are passing by and hear the Levite’s voice. They go in and find out that he has been hired as Micah’s priest, and they ask him to inquire of God about whether or not their journey will be successful. Notice that the text never says that he did this! He assures them that their journey “has the Lord’s approval.” (18:6) (The disobedient priest over an idolatrous shrine assures the rebellious tribe looking to steal land that is not theirs that God approves of them? I think not.)

So, the spies from the Danites go check out the land and decide that they want to take it. Six hundred armed men from the tribe join them, and on their way they pass by Micah’s house again.

Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image and a cast idol? Now you know what to do.” (18:14)

Yes, this house has a whole bunch of idols! What should the obvious answer have been to “you know what to do!”?

Leviticus 17:2-7 makes the answer to that question crystal clear:

If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

So, if the Danites are obedient Israelites who are seeking to follow the Lord, we expect them to find out if this is true, and then stone Micah and the Levite to death. Idolatry was that serious. Tomorrow we’ll see what they decide to do…

*Picture from http://www.biblepicturegallery.com