(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Judges 17:1–6, “And there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son. 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. Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah. And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
The entire period the Judges was characterised by the final statement in this section: “in those days the was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” The Lord gave Israel the Promised Land and the Law but they promised to keep the Law. The Lord wasn’t going to force them to keep the Law because they freely chose to follow the Law. However, the Law had penalty clauses and they would automatically experience the penalty clauses if they didn’t keep their part of the contract. When Moses led Israel they were united as a whole nation and this was true under Joshua as well but during the next period there was no consistent national leadership and no sense of national pride. They didn’t understand the importance of the fact that the Lord had called them to be the means of the Lord’s blessing coming upon every family on the earth. On the other hand, some people did whatever they wanted without, at first appreciating the broader context of their actions. In this case, one particular man stole some silver from his mother. The mother was upset at losing the silver but had no proper, legal means of finding the thief and recovering the silver so she cursed the thief. Later, her son felt remorse for stealing the silver and confessed that he had it. He gave the money back to his mother and she took some of the money and gave it to a sculptor. The sculptor took the silver and made it into two kinds of idols, one was cast in a mould and the other was beaten out with a hammer. Micah, the man who stole the silver, kept the idol in his house and he made a priestly garment and some small household gods as well. He also ordained one of his own sons to be his own priest. This shows that they didn’t really understand their position or the Law and how it should have impacted on their lives. No doubt, the mother believed that her local god had heard her curse and brought the silver back to her so she decided to honour that god.
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