Key Text: In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).
Micah lived on Mount Ephraim during the period when the Judges of Israel flourished and when the Israelites were carving out settlements in various sections of Canaan. While God was raising up leaders from time to time to deliver the people from bandage, the general quality of Israel’s spiritual life was extremely low. The story of Micah will deal with the subject of spiritual apostasy as it affected both individual families and the nation of Isreal as a whole. Micah’s tale begins when he stole eleven hundred shekels of silver from his mother. After she pronounced a curse against the thief, and fearing the power of his mother’s curse, Micah admitted that he was the guilty one who had taken the silver. His mother’s strange response was, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son” v 2. Micah restored the siler to his mother, who claimed that she had “dedicated the silver unto the Lord” v 3. Her dedication was not in accordance with the Mosaic law since she had decided to make a graven image with it. She then took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to her son for the purpose of having the idol made. The image was made of caved wood, overlaid with silver, with the detail-work being done by a founder (a silersmith). Micah then set the idol in a shrine in his own house. He aso made an ephod and teraphim, which served as additional idols. When Micah had his ”house of gods,” he consecrated one of his sons to be his priest. When a young Levite from Tethlehem-Judah came by looking for a place to live, Micah hired him to be his priest. After the consecration, Micah then said, “Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.”
According to Numbers 26, the tribe of Dan had sixty-four thousand men; however, they were still unable to occupy the territory that was allotted to them because of the oppression of Amorites and the Philistines (strong men). So the Danites decided to seek a more secure location and a new settlement. In the process of their search, they sent five spies to Laish. The spies found that the enter city had no strong central government and that it was “careless and quiet,” an ideal place for the battle-weary Danites to conquer. Six hundred men were sent out as a warrior party to take the city v 11. From there the expedition reached mount Ephraim. Upon their arrival at the house of Micah, the five spies entered the shrine and stole the idol, the ephod, and the teraphim. The Danites persuaded the young Levite to accompany them and serve as the priest to the entire tribe. The text says that “the priest’s heart was glad” v 20.
Rather than “follow the law of God,” man had become a law unto himself v 6. In this story, we see people who claim to know the Lord and claim to be dedicated to Him. However, lying, stealing, conniving, and justifying their own behavior would find them in their own guilt and shame. AMEN!
P.S. Throughout its history, the tribe of Dan (a type of Judasa Iscariot) was known as a center of idolarty and it not named in Revelation 7 as one of the twelve tribes of the future kingdom. The tribe of Levi appears in the inheritance in the place of Dan and the tribe of Ephraim is referred to as the tribe of Joseph.
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