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Judges 17:1-13
Micah’s Idols
Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim 2 said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse—I have that silver with me; I took it.”
Then his mother said, “The Lord bless you, my son!”
3 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 an image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you.”
4 So he returned the silver to his mother, she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into the image and the idol. And they were put in Micah’s house.
5 Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest. 6 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
7 A young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who had been living within the clan of Judah,8 left that town in search of some other place to stay. On his way he came to Micah’s house in the hill country of Ephraim.
9 Micah asked him, “Where are you from?”
“I’m a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah,” he said, “and I’m looking for a place to stay.”
10 Then Micah said to him, “Live with me and be my father and priest, and I’ll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food.” 11 So the Levite agreed to live with him, and the young man became like one of his sons. 12 Then Micah installed the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house. 13 And Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”
A number of times since I started doing ministry, people have told me they decided to read the whole Bible from beginning to end, but then gave it up when they got to Judges. The stories in Judges tend to strike 21st century followers of Jesus as bloody and confusing. (And so do some stories in Joshua, the book that comes before Judges.) The understanding of God’s nature and his will that’s expressed in Judges seems jarring and disturbing to us.
But as you might remember, my understanding is that there’s truth to be found in all parts of the Bible, even if you have to dig a little to find it in some places. So it’s important to devote a Reflection or two to thinking about the ‘uncomfortable’ books when they come up in the lectionary.
That would include uncomfortable books like Judges. And today’s reading from Judges is a good example of an uncomfortable passage. It’s puzzling to read about the Israelites making idols, and about a Levite, a member of the designated priestly tribe, serving at a shrine that has idols. But it seems to me that the priestly authors who compiled the Book of Judges want us to see the kind of cultural and religious chaos that plagued the promised land before the country came together as a unified state with centralized political and religious leadership.
We should say that the “judges” this book is named for were more like tribal chieftains than like modern American judges with courtrooms and long black robes. These ancient Israelite leaders would judge disputes between people, but they also provided other kinds of leadership. These judges also raised armies and led military campaigns against the nation’s enemies, for instance. Before there was a central government, these judges were pretty much all the government the Israelites had. It was a primitive, bronze age society.
The judges in these stories are kind of a mixed bag of good and bad leaders. One of the good ones is Deborah, who was the only female military leader in the Old Testament. Deborah is portrayed as a good leader – thoughtful, reasonable and charismatic.
But another of the judges was Samson, who is portrayed on the wild side – almost as a thug. Samson was subject to violent rages. And as a result he wound up slaughtering lots of people, destroying crops, and eventually destroying himself along with many of the nation’s Philistine enemies. And yet another of the judges was a man named Jephtheh, a fierce warlord who sacrificed his own daughter to fulfill a vow he had rashly made before a battle. And there are other stories in Judges that are even more gruesome than that. Some of it seems more like Game of Thrones than like The Chosen.
So it’s probably not surprising that some readers get stopped cold by Judges.
In the story that’s our reading for today, a man has stolen a bunch of silver from his mother. Actually, a small fortune in silver. Later, the man repents and decides to give it back. When he does, the mother expresses her gratitude for the return of the silver by committing about a fifth of it to be made into an idol. Oddly enough, she says she’s consecrating the silver to the Lord, but she does it by having an idol made in violation of one of the Lord’s laws. Then the son uses the idol as the centerpiece of a shrine he sets up at his home.
Later, a Levite wanders by. And even though he was a member of the tribe appointed by God as his priests, the Levite agrees to serve as the priest at this shrine with the silver idol. And the owner of the shrine happily declares that now he’ll be richly blessed because he’s hired a Levite.
So you might see what I mean when I say this is a period of cultural and religious chaos. So far in this story we have the theft of a lot of money – from thief’s mom, no less – the commissioning of a graven idol, and the corrupting of a Levite, a member of God’s appointed class of priests.
It seems to me that if you want to make any sense of the whole Book of Judges, you probably need to pay attention to verse 6 of this passage. It says, “In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did as he saw fit.” That might be understood as the main theme of the Book of Judges. You see, the next book in the Bible is First Samuel. That book tells the story of the end of this period of chaos, when a king was anointed, a government was organized, and order began to emerge from the chaos.
You might remember that the first king was Saul, who was faithful and principled for a while and then when bad, apparently from a combination of ambition and mental illness. So then God chose David to replace Saul, and David united the country politically and militarily. David sinned catastrophically in the case of Bathsheba, but he also led the country into a kind of cultural and religious golden age. David’s moral and religious leadership was less about using his army to force religious morality on others, and more about holding himself to a high standard of faithfulness to God. And when he did sin, David accepted the rebuke of God and freely confessed and repented of his sins.
And along the way, David conquered Jerusalem and made it the seat of the national government and of national worship, as well. There were still problems in the land when David died, but he passed on to his son Solomon a free, prosperous and unified land.
So, as unsettling as the Book of Judges may be, it’s important because it provides the background for the reigns of Saul and David and Solomon and the new cultural and religious order they brought about among the covenant people.
Let’s pray: Lord, we thank you for the way you have been at work among your people throughout history, leading them out of chaos and forming them into a people who modeled a new order for the world. When the world seems frightening and chaotic to us, remind us that you are at work, even in times like that, establishing your kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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