False Assurance

As Judges 18 begins, the author introduces yet another strand to the ongoing narrative. After noting again that Israel is without a king, that the people have no shepherd to guard them from their own stupidity, he focuses in on the tribe of Dan, which is struggling with the Canaanite remnant in its territory. The Canaanites in their territory are powerful and tenacious, and have pushed the Danites back into the mountains (Judg. 1:34). So the people of Dan take matters into their own hands and go after unclaimed land near the headwaters of the Jordan on Israel’s northern frontier (Josh. 19:47). Judges now focuses on that expedition—and its unexpected consequences.

The Danites send out five men to scout the area around Laish. Like the Levite, they also find their way to Micah’s house. But the “coincidences” continue. During their stay under Micah’s roof, they recognize the Levite’s voice (the author may simply mean that the scouts note his Bethlehemite accent, which stands out in Ephraim). When they learn that the young man is a priest and the overseer of the shrine, the Danite scouts ask that he tell them God’s outlook on their expedition. They are completely opportunistic in this. It does not appear that they have plans to seek God’s blessing or direction at the house of God at Shiloh, but when they stumble upon Micah’s shrine, they decide to take advantage of it, failing to appreciate its improprieties. “See their ignorance of the divine law, that they thought God, who had forbidden the religious use of graven images, would yet own them in consulting an image, and give them an answer of peace,” Matthew Henry writes. But the Levite, with no justification at all, gives them just such an answer. Subsequent events indicate that God is indeed favorable to the Danites’ move, but this Levite cannot have learned the divine will through his unauthorized oracles.

Thus encouraged, the scouts journey on to Laish, finding it secure, peaceful, and without allies. Then they bring back a positive report to their tribe, speaking of a large land that lacks nothing. And, they say, ‘ “God has given it into your hands.” ’ Even the spies who urged an invasion of Canaan (Num. 13) did not go this far, though God had promised it to Israel. These Danites (perhaps because of me Levite’s words) presume to know God’s mind when He has not spoken.