IDOLATRY AT THE TRIBAL LEVEL (Judges 18:1-31)
INTRODUCTION:
Last Sunday we began to look at the final chapters of Judges and learned that these final chapters change their focus from what the majority of the book has focused on, where we have seen Israel do evil in the eyes of the LORD, which brings about punishment from the LORD as He gives Israel into the hands of their enemies to oppress them and then raises up a judge to deliver them. All this was done because of God’s great love for His people and this discipline and deliverance was shown to Israel over and over to draw them back to the LORD and to bring them into obedience to the covenant that they had made with Him. Last week as we looked at chapter 17, we quickly learned that the focus had changed and now the author is describing just how evil the Israelites have become in the eyes of the LORD. Chapter 17 focused on one man, an Ephraimite, who lived in the hill country of Ephraim to show us what was happening on the local level, how idolatry had become common place and this man could speak of the LORD in one breathe and then turn and worship the idols that he had made in the next. Israel had brought the LORD down to the level of the gods worshipped by the nations around them and He became just one god among many gods. This man had employed a Levite to be his priest and to officiate at the shrine he had made to house his gods.
The picture painted for us in these chapters is total chaos. Religious chaos in chapters 17-18 and moral chaos in chapters 19-21. The reason given by the author that Israel is on the brink of self-destruction is because there was no king in Israel in those days, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. In other words, if there would have been a centralized government that ruled in the land, and that had a moral code that everyone agreed on and followed then this would not have happened. But as it was everyone decided their own moral standard and everyone worshipped however they wanted, and whoever they wanted and chaos reigned so that we learned that Micah, one of God’s chosen people, did not even know what an Israelite was supposed to look like. Last week we saw this religious chaos on the local level, this week we will see it as it corrupts a whole tribe of the sons of Israel. Let’s pray and get into our passage for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Judges 18:1-31. This is a long passage, and I will not go through it verse by verse but will hit the high points of each event in the chapter so that we understand what the author is trying to convey to us in this chapter. Please stand, if you are able, in honor of the reading of God’s Word, and follow along as I read.
Judges 18:1-31,
“In those days there was no king of Israel; and in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance for themselves to live in, for until that day an inheritance had not been allotted to them as a possession among the tribes of Israel. So the sons of Dan sent from their family five men out of their whole number, valiant men from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to search it; and they said to them, ‘Go, search the land.’ And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. When they were near the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young man, the Levite; and they turned aside there and said to him, ‘Who brought you here? And what are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?’ He said to them, ‘Thus and so has Micah done to me, and he has hired me and I have become his priest.’ They said to him, ‘Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether our way on which we are going will be prosperous.’ The priest said to them, ‘Go in peace; your way in which you are going has the Lord’s approval.’ Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were in it living in security, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no ruler humiliating them for anything in the land, and they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. When they came back to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers said to them, ‘What do you report?’ 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 sit still? Do not delay to go, to enter, to possess the land. When you enter, you will come to a secure people with a spacious land; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.’ Then from the family of the Danites, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, six hundred men armed with weapons of war set out. They went up and camped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. Therefore they called that place Mahaneh-dan to this day; behold, it is west of Kiriath-jearim. They passed from there to the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah. Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish said to their kinsmen, ‘Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod and household idols and a graven image and a molten image? Now therefore, consider what you should do.’ They turned aside there and came to the house of the young man, the Levite, to the house of Micah, and asked him of his welfare. The six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the sons of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate. Now the five men who went to spy out the land went up and entered there, and took the graven image and the ephod and household idols and the molten image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war. When these went into Micah’s house and took the graven image, the ephod and household idols and the molten image, the priest said to them, ‘What are you doing?’ They said to him, ‘Be silent, put your hand over your mouth and come with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be a priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?’ The priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod and household idols and the graven image and went among the people. Then they turned and departed, and put the little ones and the livestock and the valuables in front of them. When they had gone some distance from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house assembled and overtook the sons of Dan. They cried to the sons of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, ‘What is the matter with you, that you have assembled together?’ He said, ‘You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away, and what do I have besides? So how can you say to me, “What is the matter with you?”’ The sons of Dan said to him, ‘Do not let your voice be heard among us, or else fierce men will fall upon you and you will lose your life, with the lives of your household.’ So the sons of Dan went on their way; and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his house. Then they took what Micah had made and the priest who had belonged to him, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and secure, and struck them with the edge of the sword; and they burned the city with fire. And there was no one to deliver them, because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with anyone, and it was in the valley which is near Beth-rehob. And they rebuilt the city and lived in it. They called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father who was born in Israel; however, the name of the city formerly was Laish. The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” (Judges 18:1–31, NASB95)[1]
DAN ABANDONS THEIR INHERITANCE (Judges 18:1-13)
We left Micah last week confident that the LORD would prosper him because he had made a Levite his priest. I had said that idolatry is still idolatry, even if God’s name is used and a Levite is employed as your priest. I had promised that Micah was not going to prosper, but instead suffer tragic loss. As we come into chapter 18, and the events that trigger Micah’s tragic loss, what we see does not even seem to involve Micah at all. In fact, the author has moved us south to the inheritance of Dan. Remember Dan’s inheritance was bordered on the south by Judah and Philistia, to the east by Benjamin, and to the north by Ephraim and a little bit by Manasseh and their western border was the Mediterranean Sea. The translation of these first verses in the NASB give the impression that the tribe of Dan had not yet received an inheritance in the land, but that is not true, they received their inheritance at the same time that all the tribes on the west side of the Jordan river received theirs as recorded for us in Joshua 18-19. The NKJV has a better rendering of what the Hebrew says, it says in Judges 18:1, “In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance for itself to dwell in; for until that day their inheritance among the tribes of Israel had not fallen to them.” (Judges 18:1, NKJV)[2] The truth of the matter was the tribe of Dan had trouble dislodging the local Canaanite population that inhabited the coastal region of their inheritance. We read about this in Judges 1:34, “Then the Amorites forced the sons of Dan into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the valley;” (Judges 1:34, NASB95)[3] The Amorites drove them back from the coast into the hills where there was less room for them to build and grow. Then the arrival of the Philistines made their living space even smaller. So, we are told in these opening verses that they decided to abandon the inheritance that the LORD had given them and send out spies to try and find somewhere else for them to live. Instead of asking for the LORD’s help to drive out the inhabitants of their inheritance, they allowed the Amorites and the Philistines to drive them out.
The spies head north into the hill country of Ephraim, and just like the Levite who was journeying last week, they end up at the house of Micah and we are told that they lodged there for the night, but we are also told that they recognized the voice of the Levite, either that he was not from there because he had a Judean accent, or they had met him before. Had he stayed in Zorah or Eshtaol before heading north into Ephraim when he left Bethlehem in Judah. They begin to question him as to why he is in Micah’s house, who brought him there, and what he is doing? These are good questions and the Levite answers that this was all Micah’s doing and he deserves full credit for bringing the Levite here, Micah has employed him, he is in a paid position, and he had become Micah’s priest. From his response we see that his primary obligation is to a man, and not to the God of Israel whom he should have been serving. The spies recognize their good fortune in coming to Micah’s house and they ask the priest to inquire of God for them and whether their journey will be successful or not. The Levite is only too happy to give them a response. Literally, he says, “Go in peace, the journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.” The spies take this to mean that the LORD views their journey favorably and will give them success. But given the quick response and for lack of any other information we cannot be sure that the Levite gave them the answer they were looking for and framed it in such a way that whatever the outcome of their journey was, his word had been fulfilled. From what takes place it seems that they do have success as the spies find what they are looking for, the city of Laish in the far north of the land of Israel, north of the sea of Galilee at the head waters of the Jordan. It is isolated, defenseless, and beautifully situated and they would have no oppressive ruler like the Philistines and the Amorites in the territory God had given them.
They hurry back to give a report and tell their brothers that the place is ripe for picking and they need to go and claim it for themselves. They report that it is spacious land not lacking anything and they add that God has given it into our hands. This move off of the inheritance that God has given them will bring about Dan’s corruption and Micah’s loss. 600 armed men plus their families gather near the border of Judah at a place that became known as “mahaneh-dan” or the ”camp of Dan,” this was their setting off point and from here they went north into the hill country of Ephraim until they came to the house of Micah.
MICAH LOSES EVERYTHING (Judges 18:14-26)
As they approach Micah’s house the five spies inform the rest that this Micah has a shrine with gods and a Levite as his priest. This priest had given them a favorable word from the LORD so consider what you should do, in other words, this is a good thing let’s make an offer that is better than what he has here. They approach the house, and it is the Levite who meets them at the gate, and they greet him and ask after his welfare. Then while the men armed for war keep the Levite’s attention the five former spies go into the house to the shrine and take the household gods, the graven image and the molten image and the ephod and leave. The priest begins to protest when he realizes what is happening and they silence him and make their offer. Is it better to be the priest of one man or the priest of a whole tribe and a clan in Israel? This is a step up in position and the Levite agrees to go with them and be their priest and he takes the idols and goes in among the Danites. They assemble again to continue on their journey but prepare for retaliation from Micah. They send their families and valuables to lead the way and the armed men form a rear guard.
It is not long before Micah discovers that his gods and his priest are gone, and he calls out his neighbors to go recover what was stolen from him. Being a smaller number and not having family with them they quickly overtake the Danites and call out to them while they are approaching them. The armed men stop and turn around to face Micah and his neighbors and this is where Micah’s success ends. The Danites have been expecting him and from the moment they respond to his calls it is clear that Micah is powerless against them. They respond to his call by asking, “What is the matter with you?” In other words, why have you brought out this quickly assembled force against us? Do you intend to fight? All Micah can do is answer with accusations, but this is of no use. He had made his own religion and had prided himself on having a Levite as his priest. But his gods and his priest have both failed him, and the confidence he had placed in them has been exposed for the folly that it is. His life has revolved around these things, and without them he is nothing. His question, “What do I have besides?” is an admission of this painful reality. He has been completely undone. All that Micah can do is turn and go back to his empty house and his empty life. God will not bless idolatry.
CORRUPTION AT THE TRIBAL LEVEL (Judges 18:27-31)
Micah has been put aside and pushed into the background. But unfortunately, the history of his idols and his priest goes on. And what follows is much worse than Micah’s personal loss. The Danites continue on to Laish, they slaughter the inhabitants, they burn the city to the ground and then rebuild it and rename it Dan after the forefather of their tribe. Then in verse 30 we are told, “The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.” (Judges 18:30, NASB95)[4] In other words, the idols of Micah had an afterlife, instead of just being a shrine for one household, it expands into a shrine for a whole tribe, just as the Danites had told the Levite it would. The Levite expands too, from a nameless priest at a household shrine at the end of chapter 17 to “Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh or the son of Moses, whose descendants served at the shrine in Dan for more than 450 years when Israel went into captivity. Micah may have lost out, but for the Levite, idolatry does seem to have paid off. At what cost? The idolatrous shrine that the Danites set up in their new home in the times of the judges turned out to be the precursor to the infamous sanctuary that Jeroboam later established in Dan when the northern tribes broke away and formed a separate kingdom after the time of David and Solomon. Micah’s idols were replaced by a golden calf Jeroboam had made and 1 Kings 12:30 tells us, “Now this thing [the golden calf] became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan.” (1 Kings 12:30, NASB95)[5] and they continued to worship this idol despite the warnings of the of the prophets until they were carried into captivity by the Assyrians. So, Micah’s legacy was an idolatry that infected the whole nation in the end and eventually led to the nation’s destruction. It produced in the end, no winners, only losers.
Two statements near the end of chapter 18 underscore for us what a mockery Micah’s legacy was to all that Israel was supposed to be. The first I already referenced in passing. It is the identification of Micah’s Levite in verse 30 as Jonathon the son of Gershom the son of Manasseh. The more ancient manuscripts say Moses instead of Manasseh. Some scribe changed the name so this idolatrous Levite was not connected to Moses. But the fact is he is connected to Moses. Gershom was the literal son of Moses by Zipporah according to Exodus 2:22, and the Levite Jonathon may have been Moses’ literal grandson. More likely, Jonathon’s genealogy has been compressed, and he was born one or two generations later. What is clear though, and shocking is that this Levite was a direct descendant of Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel.
The revelation of the ancestry of Micah’s Levite comes as a complete surprise, and was almost certainly withheld until now precisely to achieve this shock. The Levite’s bad character has been too clearly established by this point for the revelation that he is a descendant of Moses to redeem him. Indeed, it does the exact opposite. Here is the crowning scandal of the Danites idolatrous shrine: it brought dishonor even on the revered name of Moses.
The second statement that reflects on Micah’s legacy is the last verse of the chapter, “So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” (Judges 18:31, NASB95)[6] Shiloh like Micah’s house lay in the central hill country of Ephraim. It was there that the tabernacle had been first erected after Israel’s arrival in Canaan and there that the land was divided up among the tribes of Israel. The ark of the covenant was there reminding Israel of their obligation to keep God’s law. But at the same time Micah created for himself an idol shrine in his own house, and later the Danites used his idols to set up their own idolatrous shrine in Dan and continued to worship there “all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” (Judges 18:31b, NASB95)[7] In other words, Micah’s “house of gods” was the complete antithesis of Shiloh’s “house of God.” It symbolized Israel’s flagrant disregard of its covenant obligations and was the perfect symbol of the religious chaos that characterized the period of the judges and continued to plague northern Israel throughout its history.
CONCLUSION:
This chapter that we have looked at today begins with the phrase that we first saw last week, “In those days there was no king of Israel…” (Judges 18:1a, NASB95)[8] And we saw the Danites doing what was right in their own eyes, seeking a new place to live without consulting the LORD before sending out the spies to search out the land. Their venture to find a new place to live led to the corruption of the tribe of Dan as in their new place they set up an idol to replace the house of God that was in Shiloh. This first phrase of the chapter seems to give a remedy to this perversion that was overtaking the nation. There was no king, a king was needed to sort out the chaos and impose some sort of order again to Israel’s religious life. And in time such a king appeared, David, who established Jerusalem as the place the LORD had chosen for Israel to worship and centralized worship there where his royal authority could guarantee it proper observance. Solomon then completed the process by building the magnificent temple to the LORD that David had planned. No such solution should have been needed though because the LORD was already Israel’s King, and the way out of idolatry was always available to His people if only they would recognize His authority and return to a proper observance of His covenant with them. A merely human king could not guarantee this would happen, at least not permanently, as the sad end of Solomon’s reign showed only too clearly. Something more was needed, something that would go to the root of the problem and provide a genuine new start.
That solution came in the birth of a Son, the incarnation of God, the divine King, in Jesus Christ , the greater Son of David. Here at last was the one true image of God and the complete answer to our fallenness, the solution to the root of the problem, our sinfulness. In Christ a meeting place between God and man was created that can never be corrupted. In Christ, our sins can be forgiven and we can again be reconciled to God. In Christ, there can be an end of idolatry and a way out of the chaos that we created by our addiction to it. This is true, forgiveness is ours, the Spirit has come, through salvation in Christ we become new creatures in Christ. Things are not as they were, but neither are they yet as they will be. We have been delivered from the penalty of sin, but are still waiting to be delivered from the power of sin and the presence of sin. This side of heaven we still possess a sin nature and are still susceptible to the pull of the world around us. We are in a battle and in the midst of this fallen world if we let down our guard our senses can again be quickly dulled and we can be lured away from our undivided loyalty to Jesus Christ. The day is coming when this world with its chaos of worldviews and its incomprehensible array of false gods will pass away, the day of judgment is coming which will expose idolatry in all it forms, for the folly that it is. Until then we must keep our guard up, we must fight the spiritual battle with the weapons God has given us and we must cling to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with all that is within us. With this in view, no wonder the apostle John ended his first epistle—a letter so full of love for those in his care—by saying, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21, NASB95)[9]
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995. (Insert mine)
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.