Week 12 Judges 17-18
The stories of the judges – Othniel Ehud Shamgar Deborah Gideon Tola Jair Jephthah Izban Elon Abdon & Samson – end at chapter 16.
But then the writer of the book adds on five extra chapters. Like an appendix. Not about judges. About two men from the tribe of Levi. I look at the first man…
Micah got a cast silver idol
He set up a religious shrine for it
Got some special priestly clothes stitched up
Then named his son to be priest of the shrine
Later he hired a real-live Levite as priest
The Levite left Micah when he got a better job offer
He became The Official Priest for the whole tribe of Dan
And Micah’s (stolen) silver idol became their god.
I look back over the story and see that almost every single thing that Micah and the Levite did was contrary to Moses’ laws.
At the beginning of the Micah story it says that in Israel: the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes (the book ends with that exact same phrase).
With the stories of the judges you get a feeling that Israel’s in a bit of a national tail-spin. But here at the end with the two Levites it’s spelled out pretty clearly that people are just doing pretty much whatever they wanted. Which seems contemporary and liberal and fairly desirable. But in Judges it turns into a chaotic fiasco.
Note: quote from Judges 17:6 (NLT)