Judges 18 English Standard Version Danites Take the Levite and the Idol 18 In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them. 2 So the people of Dan sent five able men from the whole number of their tribe, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it. And they said to them, “Go and explore the land.” And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. 3 When they were by the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. And they turned aside and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?” 4 And he said to them, “This is how Micah dealt with me: he has hired me, and I have become his priest.” 5 And they said to him, “Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.” 6 And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.” 7 Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, how they lived in security, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing that is in the earth and possessing wealth, and how they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. 8 And when they came to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers said to them, “What do you report?” 9 They said, “Arise, and let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. And will you do nothing? Do not be slow to go, to enter in and possess the land. 10 As soon as you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people. The land is spacious, for God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.” 11 So 600 men of the tribe of Dan, armed with weapons of war, set out from Zorah and Eshtaol, 12 and went up and encamped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. On this account that place is called Mahaneh-dan to this day; behold, it is west of Kiriath-jearim. 13 And they passed on from there to the hill country of Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah. 14 Then the five men who had gone to scout out the country of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that in these houses there are an ephod, household gods, a carved image, and a metal image? Now therefore consider what you will do.” 15 And they turned aside there and came to the house of the young Levite, at the home of Micah, and asked him about his welfare. 16 Now the 600 men of the Danites, armed with their weapons of war, stood by the entrance of the gate. 17 And the five men who had gone to scout out the land went up and entered and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the 600 men armed with weapons of war. 18 And when these went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?” 19 And they said to him, “Keep quiet; put your hand on your mouth and come with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?” 20 And the priest's heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household gods and the carved image and went along with the people. 21 So they turned and departed, putting the little ones and the livestock and the goods in front of them. 22 When they had gone a distance from the home of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house were called out, and they overtook the people of Dan. 23 And they shouted to the people of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, “What is the matter with you, that you come with such a company?” 24 And he said, “You take my gods that I made and the priest, and go away, and what have I left? How then do you ask me, ‘What is the matter with you?’” 25 And the people of Dan said to him, “Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall upon you, and you lose your life with the lives of your household.” 26 Then the people of Dan went their way. And when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home. 27 But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire. 28 And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob. Then they rebuilt the city and lived in it. 29 And they named the city Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was Laish at the first. 30 And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. 31 So they set up Micah's carved image that he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh. It's possible that this chapter, along with the last one we studied, happen much earlier chronologically and that Samuel (or whoever the author of the book of Judges is) is tying up loose ends. We saw in Judges 1 that the tribe of Dan lost the land given to them as inheritance by God to the Canaanites 34 The Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the plain. 35 The Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. 36 And the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward. (Judges 1:34-36). It seems unlikely that the tribe of Dan would wait 300-400 years (roughly the timeline of the book of Judges, depending on how much overlap there might be with the book of Joshua, to have some land to live in, and it might also explain why the LORD let their land fall to the Canaanites so quickly, for we see that this is a tribe that has been prone to idolatry and apostacy (notice how they recognize the voice of this Levite that had abandoned his mission and post as if they knew that he was rebellious like them and he was a "friendly" voice to them). The tribe of Dan sent out its own spies to spy out the land to try to find a new place for the entire tribe to go and live, for they refused to fight for their inheritance and instead wanted to get as far away from there as possible. They were headed north and stopped at the house of Micah (who we read about last time) and when they saw the ephod and the idols, they decided to take them for themselves and to take the Levites that Micah had made into a priest of his false gods as their own to be the priest for their own tribe and they would set up their own place of worship far from the Tabernacle and would encourage their tribe to worship these idols and not to worship the LORD their God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt--the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is a pattern that we'll see with the tribe of Dan as we'll see that they will not want to go down to Jerusalem to worship after the time of Solomon and they will make their own temple to worship golden calves like those made at Mount Sinai and will tell the ten tribes that these are the gods who brought them up out of the land of Egypt--the gods that their fathers worshiped. We'll get there eventually when we get to the time of the prophets, but all this is setting that up for us so that we can see that this idolatry and apostacy has been in their hearts from the beginning and that they sought out others like themselves that tried to use religion for their own gain, for they sought out "priests" of their own making who would work for money and would give them whatever blessing they asked for (as if the LORD was somehow bound to these words that did not come from Him). When Micha figured out what they had done, taking his gods and his "priest," he chased after them and asked them what was wrong with them, and they asked him if it was better that these gods and priest served as a shrine for one man or if they served the entire tribe of Dan, and then they asked if he, a single man, wanted to fight all of them. Micha decided that it wasn't worth the fight and he returned home never to see his gods or the Levite he had hired as a priest again. They went all the way to the edge of Sidon. Look for the city named "Dan" just west of the marker that says "Syria" on this map (it is east of the city of Tyre as well if that helps you). You'll see just how far away they went from their land and why the text says that there was no deliverer to avenge the people that the Danites killed by the sword because they were so far away from the other tribes. ![]() It seems like the "Levite" is finally named here as Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses. This is further evidence that these events probably happened earlier and are not chronologically after the judges we have talked about because it would be difficult to imagine that Moses' grandson would be alive at the end of the book of Judges. The story seems to be here to tell us that anyone, even the the grandson of Moses, is susceptible to idolatry and apostacy and that things went downhill quickly after the time of Joshua, and that there is even this competing center of worship in the north in the city of Dan on the border of Syria. This passage may also explain why we haven't seen Dan fighting alongside any of the other tribes so far. They didn't want anything to do with the LORD or His people (at least at this time). God was even able to redeem some of the Danites though as we just saw Samson, the last judge, came from this apostate tribe. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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