Micah’s Shrine

¹There was a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim.[#17:1 Micah means “ the Incomparable” or “Who is like ?” According to Jewish tradition, Micah’s mother was Delilah. Most scholars believe that chs. 17–18 form an appendix to the book and that the events of these two chapters actually happened much earlier, possibly during the days of the champion-deliverer Othniel.]

²He said to his mother, “When someone stole your eleven hundred shekels of silver, I overheard you speak a curse over the thief. Well, it turns out , I have the money. I’m the one who took it. Here—I’m bringing it back .”[#17:2 Eleven hundred shekels would amount to over one hundred pounds of silver ($30,000).]

Immediately, his mother, wanting to revoke her curse , said: “O my son! May Yahweh bless you!”

³So he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, but she said to him, “I give it back to you, for I solemnly dedicate this silver to Yahweh for my son to make a carved image, an idol covered with silver.”

⁴So from the silver he returned to his mother, she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who molded them into an idol and overlaid the idol with silver. Micah kept the idol in his house.

⁵Now Micah had a shrine, and he made some idols and a counterfeit ephod and ordained one of his sons as his priest.[#17:5 Or “house of God.” Micah attempted to begin his own religious system of worship, complete with a priestly ephod (priestly vest). Compare 1 Kings 12:25–33.; #17:5 Or “filled the hand of.”]

⁶In those days, Israel had no king. People did whatever they wanted to do.

Micah’s Counterfeit Priest

⁷At the same time, there was a young man from the priestly tribe of Levi living in Bethlehem in Judah.[#17:7 His name was Jonathan, son of Gershom. See 18:30.]

⁸He left there to search for another place to live. On his journey, he came to Micah’s house in the hill country of Ephraim.

⁹Micah asked him, “Where are you from?”

“I’m a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah,” he said, “and I’m looking for a place to live.”

¹⁰“Live here with me,” Micah said to him. “Be my father and priest, and I’ll pay you ten shekels of silver a year and provide your clothes and your food.”

¹¹So the Levite agreed to move in with him and the young man became like one of his sons.

¹²Then Micah ordained the young Levite as his priest, and he lived in his house.

¹³And Micah declared, “Now I know that Yahweh will bless me and prosper me, since a Levite now serves as my priest.”[#17:13 He was Micah’s priest, not God’s.]