Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 17-19.

Several times in today’s passage the writer tells us that “Israel had no king”.  A couple of times he adds “everyone did as they saw fit.”  He blames the transgressions which he describes in today’s passage on the lack of a king, the lack of a central government in Israel.  I have gone back and forth three or four times about how I want to approach this.  The account starts with Micah returning money he had stolen from his mother because she had cursed the thief.  His mother was so grateful to God for the return of her money that she had an idol created for Micah to worship.  Micah then installed one of his sons as priest to this idol, but when the opportunity arose he hired a Levite to take over that role.  Later, when some members of the tribe of Dan were coming through the area to conquer territory for themselves, they stole Micah’s idol and hired the Levite away from him in an underhanded manner.  When Micah pursued them to recover his lost goods, they threatened him.  The Danites then set up the idol with the Levite as its priest in the town which they conquered.  Throughout all of this, everyone involved thought that what they were doing was pleasing to God.  Then we come to the story about the Levite and his concubine.  The writer clearly connects the story of Micah, his idol, and the Danites with what happened to the Levite and his concubine.

I want to look a little closer at what happened here.  In the first story, we have a Levite travelling to “make his fortune”.  When Micah offers him the position of priest to his household gods, the Levite does not point out that Micah’s idols are a violation of God’s commands about images.  He accepts the opportunity to make a place for himself and allows Micah to feel righteous while worshiping an idol.  Then, when the Danites arrive, the Levite takes the opportunity to improve his position and indirectly blesses the Danites theft of Micah’s goods, theft from a fellow Israelites.  Then we come to the other Levite.  He was travelling and chose to stay in an Israelite town because he thought such would be safer than staying among foreigners.  Further, what happened in Gibeah bears a remarkable resemblance to what happened when God’s messengers visited Lot in Sodom.  Certainly, the resemblance to what happened in Sodom partly explains the reaction of the rest of Israel to this incident which we see in tomorrow’s passage.  However, I want to point out the way in which what the Danites did to Micah is a sort of precursor to what happened in Gibeah.  The Danites betrayed the hospitality which Micah, their fellow Israelite, had given them by using the knowledge they had gained as his guest to rob him later.  The men of Gibeah failed to honor the hospitality they owed their fellow Israelite.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.