Tag Archives: Judges 18

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2024 Bible Study — A Connection Between the Levites and King David

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

I am unsure what the significance is, but the first thing I noticed was that Bethlehem in Judah played a supporting role in both of these accounts.  In the account of Micah, his Levite, and the tribe of Dan, the Levite was from Bethlehem in Judah.  In the second account of the Levite and his concubine, his concubine was from Bethlehem in Judah.  The fact that both of these stories involve a Levite traveling from King David’s hometown tells us that there was a significant population of Levites living in Bethlehem during the pre-kingdom time of Israel.  That would certainly have played a role in David growing up with faith in God.  There is much to be learned by thinking about these accounts, and if you would like a little more about that try reading what I wrote in 2022: March 26, 2022 Bible Study — Idolatry And Betrayal

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

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2023 Bible Study — Seeing Things In Context

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

In today’s passage we have two accounts (the first one is a two part story) which provide us with almost no information about when they happened relative to the other events chronicled in this book.   Both of these accounts appear to be here in order to make the case for kingship.  First we have the account of the Levite who became Micah’s priest and then later the priest for the tribe of Dan.  There is a reference in Joshua which appears reference this event, but that doesn’t really narrow down when it happened by much.  This account suggests that the tribe of Dan set up a separate “cult” of worship of Jehovah from that which was centered around the Tabernacle, which would explain why King Jeroboam set up one of his idols in Dan after he rebelled from King Rehoboam.

The second account describes a Levite who was travelling.  He decided to not stop in Jerusalem for the night, but travelled on from there to Gibeah.  He chose to travel on to Gibeah because Jerusalem was inhabited by Jebusites at that time, while Gibeah was inhabited by Israelites of the tribe of Benjamin.  The implication being that he would be safer among his own people than among foreigners.  In fact, I believe that the offense which led to the war on Gibeah was exactly that, that the people of Gibeah treated their fellow Israelite worse than foreigners would have.  Another thing, before today I never made the connection that King Saul’s capital was the same Gibeah as related in this account.  Once I made that connection, I realized how close David grew up to where King Saul ruled from.  David’s family would have been known to Saul’s family, and vice versa.  Knowing that puts a whole new light on the relationships between those who served King Saul and those who served David.

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

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2022 Bible Study — Idolatry And Betrayal

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.

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2021 Bible Study The Slippery Slope When People Stop Honoring God’s Law

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

We have three stories in today’s passage, which the writer uses to illustrate the problems which occur when a nation has no central government to enforce the laws.  I would argue that it instead illustrates what happens when a society ceases to honor God.  First, we have the story of Micah, who stole money from his own mother and only returned it out of fear of her curse. She then took some of the money and had an idol made; for which Micah then set up a shrine and worshiped it in place of God.  Some time later, members of the tribe of Dan stole the idol which Micah worshiped (and all of his accoutrements for worshiping it),  setting it up as their tribal god in the lands which they conquered.  I will note that both Micah and the Danites appear to have viewed the idol as a representation of God.

Finally, we have the story of the Levite traveling with his concubine.  He chose to stay in Gibeah rather than a city of the Jebusites because Gibeah was an Israelite town.  I am not going to spend time examining what happened in this story.  The key thing about all three of these stories is that we have a steady worsening of the social fabric of Israel because people did not honor God’s Law.  What Micah did was no one’s business but his.  Which led to what the Danites did being no one’s business but theirs.  Which led to Gibeah.  What happened in Gibeah was no worse than what Micah had done, but it represented a breaking point for Israel.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, the lesson learned does not appear to have been complete, and possibly not even correct.

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

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2020 Bible Study

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

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

OK, I don’t know where I am going with this today.  I noticed for the first time that the men from the tribe of Dan in this passage are from the same town/area as Samson was.  I am not sure that that is significant, but Samson was the last judge of Israel before this.  The people of Israel turned to Samson for judgement because of his fighting prowess, not because of his wisdom.  In this story, we see warriors from the tribe of Dan steal the idols from a fellow Israelite feeling justified because he was not a member of their tribe.  Today’s passage ends with troublemakers from Gibeah feeling safe to terrorize a Levite travelling through because he was not part of their tribe.  The behavior of the man who sheltered the Levite indicates that this was not the first time they behaved this way.

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2019 Bible Study — All Of the People Did Whatever Seemed Right In Their Own eyes

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

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

The events described in today’s passage result from the truth of one phrase: “all of the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”  It describes what happens when no one is accountable to anyone else.  The story starts with Micah returning money to his mother that he had stolen from her.  Micah’s mother used that money to make him an idol, which he set up and worshiped.  When Micah successfully recruited a Levite to officiate as his priest in worshiping this idol he believed that God would bless him as a result.  He held this belief despite God’s repeated commands to NOT create such idols.

Next we have a story involving the tribe of Dan.  On their way to scout out territory for the tribe of Dan to conquer, five scouts accepted the hospitality of Micah’s household.  There they discovered the Levite acting as a priest and got his story out of him.  Then, when they were leading their war band to conquer the territory they had scouted, they turned aside and stole Micah’s idols and recruited his Levite priest away from him.  When Micah pursued them to get his property back, they threatened violence against him.  The context suggests that the people of Dan also thought they were worshiping God as they worshiped this idol.  Further, it never occurred to the scouts that they had violated the hospitality which Micah had given them by later returning and stealing his property.

Which leads us to the final story of today’s passage.  Here we have the story of a Levite and his concubine returning to his home from her father’s home (there is a good bit to be examined in that part of the story as well).  As he was travelling the Levite continued on later than ideal in the day so as to stay in an Israelite town rather than that of another people.  The unspoken assumption being that they would be safer in a town with their fellow Israelites (in this case from the tribe of Benjamin) than among a foreign people.  This proved to be a bad assumption.  The Levite was prepared to spend the night in the town square since he had sufficient supplies for his needs.  However, a   man from the tribe of Ephraim who had been living in the town for a long time insisted that the Levite stay with him.  The Ephraimite’s comments made it clear that he knew how the town toughs would treat a stranger.  Unfortunately, the town toughs did not take kindly to the Ephraimite’s actions and demanded the Levite be given to them for abuse.  When the Levite gave them his concubine (there is more to be examined here), they raped her to death.  This story takes the abuse of hospitality one step further than the story about the tribe of Dan.  More important than the abuse of hospitality is the fact that no one held these town toughs accountable for their bad action.  The story makes clear that everyone local knew about their bad behavior, but no one was willing to do anything about it as long as they reserved their abuse for strangers.

Micah stole from his mother, but that was OK, because he confessed and gave it back when she uttered a curse against the thief.  The Levite served as a priest to an idol because Micah rewarded him handsomely for doing so.  The scouts for the tribe of Dan accepted Micah’s hospitality, but did not think twice about coming back and robbing from him.  The Levite betrayed Micah when the tribe of Dan made him a better offer (and it was a betrayl because he not only agreed to become priest for the tribe of Dan, he helped them steal the “holy” items from Micah).  Finally, the troublemakers of the town of Gibeah tried to force a man from elsewhere who lived among them to turn over his guest for them to abuse.  Abusing strangers was clearly something they did regularly, but no one from the town attempted to stop them.  In all of these stories we have people who seemed to have the attitude towards anyone who might wish to interfere with their actions of “What business of yours is it that I do this?”  Or, “If I think this is not wrong, who are you to tell me otherwise?”  Sound familiar?

Daily Bible Study

March 26, 2018 Bible Study — Every Man Did What Was Right In His Own Eyes

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

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

    The stories in today’s passage can be summed up by what was written in chapter 17 verse 6 “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” We have the story of Micah, who stole money from his own mother and only gave it back because he heard her curse whoever had stolen it. She then made an idol out of some of the silver and gave it to Micah, who set it up as his god. Micah recruited a Levite to be his priest. Micah apparently believed that making the Levite his priest to this idol would make worshiping the idol the same as worshiping God. The thing is this is what seemed right in Micah’s eyes and there was no one to tell him he was wrong.

    Once Micah’s Levite was well established as his priest, the tribe of Dan passed through the area seeking to conquer an area as their own land (there is some question in my mind if this was the entire tribe of Dan, or just a subset…not that it matters for the point of the story). They decided to take Micah’s idol and his priest as their own. Micah gathered some of his neighbors and pursued them. However, the war band from the tribe of Dan was too powerful for him to confront. There are two aspects of this that reflect on the point of this passage. Micah’s neighbors saw nothing wrong with what he had been doing in worshiping his idol and supported him in his attempt to get it back. The second aspect is that the tribe of Dan saw nothing wrong with stealing his idol and worship implements for their own use and nothing wrong with threatening him for making a fuss about the fact that they had done so. Not only was there no one to tell the members of the tribe of Dan that they were wrong but they were willing to commit violence against those who tried to do so.

    Next we have the story of the Levite and his concubine, which is only connected to the first two stories by the theme of each man doing what he thought was right in his own eyes. First we have the setup which explains why the Levite stayed in a town with which he was unfamiliar. Next, we learn that the man chose to push on past a town of Gentiles because he thought it would be safer to stay in a town of Israelites. Then we learn that the townsfolk have developed a pattern of abusing travelers passing through the town.

SIDENOTE: The old man from Ephraim who was working in the town insists that the travelers, under no circumstances, stay in the town square. The old man’s words to the Levite bear a remarkable resemblance to what Lat said to the angels when they came to Sodom. I believe that the writer intended this resemblance.

Finally, even though the traveler has been invited into the home of someone living among them, some of the men of the town insisted that their host turn him out for them to abuse (again the resemblance to the story of Lot and the angels).
    Now, related to the theme of this passage, we note that, unlike the story of Lat and the angels, this was not all of the men of the town, merely “a crowd of troublemakers.” However, as I noted earlier, this was clearly not the first time these troublemakers had done something like this, yet none of the other men of the town had done anything to make them stop, not even appealing to upright men from other towns to help them. one gets the feeling that they had an attitude of “Well, who am I to tell them that what they are doing is wrong?” Today’s passage ends with the Levite sending word out to all of the tribes of Israel which was essentially, “OK, THIS is going too far. We need to do something.” This story is a start in showing what eventually happens when “Every man does what is right in his own eyes.” But tomorrow’s passage shows us that it gets even worse when people finally start to try to turn things around.