Judgeschapter 17
13 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
This chapter was written for Israelites living under a king and looking back on a time when Israel had none, and tradition gives the book to Samuel. It opens the two closing accounts of Judges, which come from early in the period though the book sets them last. It leaves the battlefield for a single household and asks what worship becomes when every man decides it for himself. Listen for how many right words are used for wrong things. Notice who is paid, who is blessed and who is never consulted. The last line shows a man sure of something the chapter leaves unconfirmed.
Context
- Who
- Israelites living under a king, reading about a country that had none
- What
- An account of Micah of Ephraim, who made a shrine with images and hired a wandering Levite as his household priest.
- Where
- A household in the hill country of Ephraim, within reach of the tabernacle at Shiloh.
- When
- About 1350 BC, early in the judges period, since Judges 18:30 makes the Levite a grandson of Moses.
- Why
- To show how far worship had fallen when Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Historical context
The account belongs to a householder named Micah and to an unnamed young Levite. Micah's name is built on the divine name and means who is like the LORD. The Levite is named at 18:30 as Jonathan son of Gershom, and Gershom is named as the son of Moses at Exodus 2:22.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is early. The descent given at 18:30 puts this priest two generations from Moses, so the chapter falls near the start of the judges period even though the book places it at the end. Adam Clarke reads the closing chapters as an appendix on the same ground.
The place is the hill country of Ephraim, and Joshua 18:1 had set the tabernacle at Shiloh in that same hill country. The two stand near enough that 18:31 measures the one against the other.
The occasion is a theft confessed and a curse withdrawn. The mother had cursed whoever took her eleven hundred shekels, the son returns them, and she answers the confession with a blessing and a dedication.
A first hearer knew what the law had said about every step in the chapter. Deuteronomy 27:15 lays a curse on the man who makes a carved or cast image. Numbers 3:10 and 18:7 shut the priesthood against any man outside Aaron's line. And Deuteronomy 12:8 forbids each man doing what is right in his own eyes, which is the wording verse 6 uses to describe the age. He also knew that Levites held no tribal land, since Numbers 35 and Joshua 21 gave them cities among the other tribes instead.
Significance
A hearer under a king was meant to see a household assembling its own religion out of the law's own vocabulary. Silver is dedicated to the LORD, images are made with it, an ephod is set up, and a son is ordained.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
Micah's closing line at verse 13 is the point. He reads the arrival of a hired man as proof that God is now on his side, and the chapter records no answer from God at all.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The first thing Rashi settles on this chapter is when it happened. He holds that the two appended stories stand at the end of the book while belonging to its beginning: "Although both incidents are recorded at the conclusion of this book, the episodes of Michah and the concubine at Givoh took place at the beginning of the period of Judges, during the days of Asniel ben Kenaz", and he argues it from the note that Micah's image stood as long as the house of God was at Shiloh, citing Seder Olam 12 (Rashi on Judges 17:1:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY). On that dating he rejects an identification others had made between Micah's mother and Delilah, both accounts naming eleven hundred pieces of silver: "Some say that this woman was Delilah, since Scripture specifies eleven hundred pieces of silver", and answers it, "However, they are in error, as Michah preceded Shimshon by many years", adding that the two accounts stand beside each other because in both cases the silver did the damage (Rashi on Judges 17:3:2, same edition). He reads the house Micah builds as "A temple of idol worship", and takes the word for the priest's installation as the Torah's own idiom for being given a post, filling the hands (Rashi on Judges 17:5:1 and 17:5:2, same edition). On the young Levite of the clan of Judah he gives two answers: that the man was a Levite through his mother, and that the rabbis read the phrase as a comparison drawn from conduct, adding that he was the son of Gershom, son of Moses, as the next chapter states (Rashi on Judges 17:7:1, same edition, citing Bava Basra 109b). Radak, Malbim and Metzudat David comment across the chapter and the corpus holds no English version of them here, so they stand as citations: Radak on Judges 17:1:1, Radak on Judges 17:6:1, Radak on Judges 17:12:1, Radak on Judges 17:13:1, Malbim on Judges 17:4:1, Malbim on Judges 17:11:1, Metzudat David on Judges 17:6:1 and Metzudat David on Judges 17:9:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records twenty-eight rabbinic locators on this chapter, twenty-one of them Midrash and seven Talmud, each a locator without text. The silver and the mother's curse draw Aggadat Bereshit 50:5, Bamidbar Rabbah 10:5, Midrash Shmuel 1:4, Vayikra Rabbah 32:6 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 390:1, and the carved image made from it draws Bamidbar Rabbah 16:26 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Sh'lach 7:1. The shrine itself draws Pesachim 117a:10. The line that every man did what was right in his own eyes draws the largest cluster of the chapter: Avodah Zarah 25a:14, Chullin 57b:12, Sotah 47b:21, Zevachim 117b:10, Ein Yaakov, Avodah Zarah 2:4, Ein Yaakov, Khullin 3:9, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 2:2 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Chullin 3:6. The Levite who takes the post draws Bava Batra 109b:6, Bava Batra 109b:7, Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 8:1 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 8:1. The wage agreed with him draws Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 63, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 45:22:2, Midrash Tanchuma, Emor 15:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 20:3 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 6:2. The rabbis teach in these places, and this site reports them as their teaching rather than as a rule of the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 17:1:1, 17:3:2, 17:5:1, 17:5:2 and 17:7:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 17:1:1, 17:6:1, 17:12:1 and 17:13:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 17:4:1 and 17:11:1, cited only; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 17:6:1 and 17:9:1, cited only.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Stolen silver melted into a graven image
Judges 17:1-2
Micah's name means who is like the LORD, and the chapter gives it before any word about his shrine. Eleven hundred shekels occurs three times in Scripture, the other at Judges 16:5, where each Philistine lord promises Delilah that sum, so the price of Samson lies in this house. The mother had cursed the thief, her own son, and answers his confession with “Blessed be my son by the LORD”.
Judges 17:1
“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 Jdg 18:1-2, note. Josephus combines in one narrative what we read here and in Jdg 1:34, and places it, with the story in Judg. 18–21, immediately after the death of Joshua.”
Barnes reads the curse Micah's mother uttered as an oath laid on the thief under the name of the LORD, as at Leviticus 5:1. Clarke and Wesley both say that fear of the curse made Micah confess he took the silver. The curse drew the silver back.
Judges 17:2
“About which thou cursedst - Houbigant and others understand this of putting the young man to his oath. It is likely that when the mother of Micah missed the money, she poured imprecations on the thief; and that Micah, who had secreted it, hearing this, was alarmed, and restored the money lest the curses should fall on him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 17:3-4
She dedicates the silver “to the LORD for my son’s benefit” and names in the same breath what it is for, “a graven image and a molten idol”. Deuteronomy 27:15 lays a curse on the man who makes that pair, and a curse set this story going at verse 2. Two hundred of the eleven hundred shekels reach the silversmith, and the text never says where the rest went.
Judges 17:3
“Such a superstitious and unlawful mode of worshipping Yahweh is quite of a piece with Jdg 8:27; Jdg 11:31; 1Ki 12:28, etc. It argues but slight acquaintance with the Ten Commandments, which, from the ignorance of reading and writing, were probably not familiar to the Israelites in those unsettled times. The mother intimates that the consecration of the silver was for the benefit of her son and his house, not for her own selfish advantage: and that she adheres to her original design of consecrating this silver for her son’s benefit.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 17:3
“The Lord - In the Hebrew it is, Jehovah, the incommunicable name of God. Whereby it is apparent, that neither she, nor her son, intended to forsake the true God; as appears from his rejoicing when he had got a priest of the Lord's appointment, but only to worship God by an image; which also both the Israelites, Exod. xxxii, 1, &c. and Jeroboam afterwards, designed to do.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley holds that the other nine hundred shekels went to the ephod, the household idols and the rest of the shrine. Matthew Henry reads the smaller sum as a vow paid in part, and sets it beside Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Adam Clarke takes the images for copies of tabernacle furnishings.
Judges 17:4
“Restored - Though his mother allowed him to keep it, yet he persisted in his resolution to restore it, that she might dispose of it as she pleased. Two hundred - Reserving nine hundred shekels, either for the ephod or teraphim, or for other things relating to this worship.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah keeps a shrine in his own house and fills it with an ephod and household idols. The ephod repeats Gideon's at 8:27, where the ephod became a snare to Gideon and his household. He then ordains “one of his sons as his priest”, which Numbers 3:10 and 18:7 both forbid to any man outside Aaron's line on pain of death.
Judges 17:5
“And the man Micah had an house of gods,.... Having two images in it, besides teraphim, which were a sort of idols; and the Targum is, an house of images, or idols; though it may be rendered "an house of God"; a temple, a place for religious worship: and made an ephod; a priestly garment, a linen one very probably, not so rich an one with a breastplate to it as the high priest had, which was very costly.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 17:5
“The man Micah had a house of gods - בית אלהים beith Elohim should, I think, be translated house or temple of God; for it is very likely that both the mother and the son intended no more than a private or domestic chapel, in which they proposed to set up the worship of the true God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
was no king in Israel: The words “there was no king in Israel” fall four times, at 17:6, 18:1, 19:1 and 21:25, and bracket the book's last five chapters. King in Israel occurs here first in the whole Bible, inside the book that says there was none. The second clause stands only here and at 21:25 in this book, and it echoes Deuteronomy 12:8, where Moses forbids that way of living in the land.
Judges 17:6
“There was no king in Israel - The word מלך melech, which generally means king, is sometimes taken for a supreme governor, judge, magistrate, or ruler of any kind; (see Gen 36:31, and Deu 33:5); and it is likely it should be so understood here. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes - He was his own governor, and what he did he said was right; and, by his cunning and strength, defended his conduct.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A wandering Levite hired as a household priest
Judges 17:7-9
Levites held no tribal land, and Deuteronomy 18:6-8 let any Levite come to the place God chose and eat equal portions there. This one leaves Bethlehem “to settle where he could find a place” instead. Judges 18:30 names him Jonathan son of Gershom, where the King James reads son of Manasseh and the Hebrew carries a raised letter, so readers differ over whether the name is Manasseh or Moses.
Judges 17:7
The Hebrew words for “he sojourned there” are, שׁם גר gêr shām, which words are used Jdg 18:30 in the genealogy of this young Levite, whose name was “Jonathan, the son of Gershom” (גרשׁם gêreshôm). Hence, some read here, “the son of Gershom.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 17:7
“Bethlehem-judah - So called here, as Matt. ii, 1, 5, to difference it from Bethlehem in Zebulun. There he was born and bred. Of Judah - That is, of or belonging to the tribe of Judah; not by birth, for he was a Levite; but by his habitation and ministration.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Levite left Bethlehem in Judah looking for a place, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read a restless man in him, as the law provided for every Levite. Henry allows that Bethlehem may have left him to starve. Clarke ties the wandering to a land with no king and no government.
Judges 17:8
“To sojourn where he could find - He went about the country seeking for some employment, for the Levites had no inheritance: besides, no secure residence could be found where there was no civil government.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah asks where the Levite is from, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that he hired him on hearing the answer. The Levite gives his tribe, his town and his need. Bethlehem in Judah returns at 19:1 as the home of another Levite's concubine.
Judges 17:9
“And Micah said unto him, whence comest thou?....”
Judges 17:10-12
The wage is priced to the shekel, “ten shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes, and your provisions”, the cost of a priest here. Micah's pair “father and priest” stands together again only at 18:19, where the Danites turn his offer against him. Ordained at verse 12 renders a Hebrew phrase meaning filled his hand, the wording of Aaron's ordination at Exodus 28:41.
Judges 17:10
“Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father--a spiritual father, to conduct the religious services of my establishment. He was to receive, in addition to his board, a salary of ten shekels of silver, equal to 25 shillings a year. a suit of apparel--not only dress for ordinary use, but vestments suitable for the discharge of his priestly functions.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 17:10
“Be unto me a father and a priest - Thou shalt be master of my house, as if thou wert my father; and, as priest, thou shalt appear in the presence of God for me. The term father is often used to express honor and reverence. Ten shekels of silver - About thirty shillings per annum, with board, lodging, and clothes. Very good wages in those early times.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah asked for a father and got a son. Gill reads the phrase as warm affection, the young man treated as tenderly as one of Micah's own children. Matthew Henry notes that the Levite raised no objection to the work or the wage and thought himself lucky in so good a house.
Judges 17:11
“And the Levite was content to dwell with the man,.... To continue with him; after he had made trial for some time, he liked his service, and his wages, and way of living; it was all agreeable to him: and the young man was unto him as one of his sons; as dearly beloved by him, and used as kindly and tenderly, as if he had been one of his own children; so strong were the affections of Micah to him, and so well pleased was he with his service.”
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 17:11
“The Levite was content - He thought the place a good one, and the wages respectable.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 17:11
“Content - Being infected with the common superstition and idolatry of the times. His sons - That is, treated with the same degree of kindness and affection.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Wesley notes that Micah knew a Levite was barred from the priesthood as fully as any man of Israel, so he ordained him. The son Micah ordained at verse 5 now gives way to the young Levite. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown count the act unlawful for both men.
Judges 17:12
“Consecrated - To be a priest, for which he thought a consecration necessary, as knowing the Levites were no less excluded from the priest's office than the people. The young man - Instead of his son, whom he had consecrated, but now seems to restrain him from the exercise of that office, and to devolve it wholly upon the Levite, who was nearer akin to it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 17:12
“Micah consecrated the Levite - וימלא את יד vayemalle eth yad, he filled his hands, i.e., he gave him an offering to present before the Lord, that he might be accepted by him. He appointed him to be priest; God was to accept and consecrate him; and for this purpose he filled his hand; i.e., furnished him with the proper offering which he was to present on his inauguration.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah reads the arrival of a hired man as the sign that God is on his side, and says so aloud, “Now I know that the LORD will be good to me”. His shrine stands in the hill country of Ephraim, where Joshua 18:1 had set the tabernacle at Shiloh. God gives no answer here, and chapter 18 replies by carrying off the images and the priest.
Judges 17:13
“This shows the ignorance as well as the superstition of the age (compare 2Ki 18:22), and gives a picture of the lawlessness of the times. The incidental testimony to the Levitical priesthood is to be noted; but the idolatrous worship in the immediate neighborhood of Shiloh is passing strange.”
How this psalm is built
The form: The opening of the first appendix, a short domestic narrative that sets up the Danite migration of chapter 18, with the book's editorial refrain standing at its centre, as Clarke classes it.
A The mother's curse over whoever took the silver
Judges 17:2
B The son confesses that he took it
Judges 17:2
X She dedicates the silver to the LORD and names the images it is for in the same breath
Judges 17:3
B′ The silver goes to the silversmith and the images stand in his house
Judges 17:4
A′ The law's curse on the man who makes a graven or molten image
Deuteronomy 27:15
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| There was no king in Israel | The line falls four times, at 17:6, 18:1, 19:1 and 21:25, and it brackets the last five chapters of the book. The second clause, that everyone did what was right in his own eyes, falls twice only, here and at 21:25, which are the first and last verses of that block. The wording of that clause is Deuteronomy 12:8, where Moses forbids that way of living in the land, so the verse reports the law broken in the law's own words.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1810 to 1826, on Judges 17:6. | Judges 17:6, Judges 18:1, Judges 19:1, Judges 21:25 |
| The curse turned into a blessing | The story opens on a curse the mother spoke over whoever took her silver and closes the first movement on a blessing she speaks over the son who took it. Between the two stand the confession at verse 2 and the dedication at verse 3, and Deuteronomy 27:15 lays a curse on the exact pair of objects the dedicated money is spent on.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Judges 17:3. | Judges 17:2, Judges 17:3, Judges 17:4 |
| Eleven hundred shekels, twice | Eleven hundred occurs twice in Scripture. The other is Judges 16:5, where each lord of the Philistines promises Delilah eleven hundred pieces of silver. The sum that bought Samson is the sum lying in this house, and the book puts the two chapters side by side without a word joining them.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 17:2. | Judges 16:5, Judges 17:2, Judges 17:3 |
| A father and a priest | Micah's offer at verse 10 puts two words together, a father and a priest. The pair stands twice in Scripture, here and at Judges 18:19, where the Danites use his own offer against him and add a tribe to it. The wage is priced out to the shekel, ten a year with clothing and food.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on Judges 17:10. | Judges 17:10, Judges 18:19 |
The structure
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Two halves with the refrain between them. The silver, the images and the household shrine at verses 1 to 5. The refrain at verse 6. The Levite found, hired and ordained at verses 7 to 12, and Micah's own verdict at verse 13.
The chapter records Micah's sentence at verse 13 and stops, with no answer from God written into it. Chapter 18 replies by carrying off the images and the priest together.
The words that enter Scripture here
King in Israel occurs here for the first time in the whole Bible, inside the book that says there was none.
House of gods at verse 5 occurs once in the Bible, and this verse is it.
The word rendered consecrated or ordained at verse 12 renders a Hebrew phrase meaning filled his hand, the wording Exodus 28:41 and Leviticus 8 use of Aaron's ordination. Here a householder performs it on a man he took in at his door.
Where the chapter reaches
Micah's shrine stands in the hill country of Ephraim, and Joshua 18:1 had set the tabernacle at Shiloh in that same hill country. The two are near enough that Judges 18:31 can measure one against the other, since Micah's image stood all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.
The refrain at verse 6 is the book's own editorial voice, and it is the one place the writer speaks in his own person. The site's Judges dossier sets the line beside Israel's later request at 1 Samuel 8:5 and the LORD's answer at 1 Samuel 8:7.
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1810 to 1826, on Judges 17:6 and on Judges 18:12 and Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading, 1987, and the NICOT commentary, 2012; carried as a proposed structure in the site's Judges dossier.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.