The Image of Idolatry

A difference in the book of Judges becomes apparent as soon as we read 17:1. Samson has just died, but we do not here find anything like what the previous 14 chapters have led us to expect following the death of a judge, such as “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord” or “After Samson there arose to save Israel”.… Instead we are introduced to a man named Micah of the tribe of Ephraim. In his story, we see idolatry gaining a foothold among God’s people—and spreading like wildfire.

Micah, it appears, stole eleven hundred shekels of silver his mother had saved. She, in turn, pronounced a general curse on the thief, a curse that Micah says that she spoke “in my ears,” perhaps indicating that she suspected him. This raises all sorts of questions about this family. How could Micah steal from his mother? And how could she value the silver so highly as to put out a general curse that might come upon her son? “This woman’s silver was her god … else the loss of it would not have put her into such a passion as caused her quite to forget … all the laws of decency and piety,” Matthew Henry writes.

The story quickly takes even more perplexing turns. When Micah, perhaps out of fear of the curse, returns the money to his mother, she immediately substitutes a blessing for her curse. She then announces that she previously had dedicated the money to God, a good thing in and of itself, but not for the purpose she has in mind—to be made into “a carved image and a molded image” for her son. Curiously, she seems not to follow through on her vow, giving only two hundred shekels for the image. For his part, Micah enshrines the image in his house, exchanging his mother’s curse for God’s (Deut. 27:15). But this is not his only error: He makes for himself an ephod and household idols, then consecrates one of his sons as a priest. It seems he is setting up his house in competition with the house of God (Judg. 18:31).

The author of Judges leaves no doubt as to his opinion of what is happening: Micah is doing what seems to him to be a good idea, but his behavior is not guided by the Word of God, and there is no king to call him to account for his violation of it. In this situation, Henry says, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes, and then they soon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.”