The Religion of Micah
Comments for Study 16
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I. Micah Returns the Money He Stole (17:1-2)
>1. Who was Micah and where did he live? (1, 5)
* Judges 17:1 "Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim"
* Judges 17:5 "Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest."
* "Micah" -
* "the hill country of Ephraim"
* "a shrine"
* "an ephod"
* "some idols"
* "installed one of his sons as his priest"
>Where was the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant at this time? (20:26-28a; Deut. 12:11-14; and 1 Samuel 2:9-10, 2:22, 4:10-11, 14:2-3; and 2 Samuel 7:4-7; and 2 Chron. 6:18)
* Judges 20:26-28a "Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD. And the Israelites inquired of the LORD. (In those days the ark of the covenant of God was there, with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, ministering before it.)"
* Deuteronomy 12:11-14 "Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name--there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD. And there rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you."
* 1 Samuel 2:9-10 "Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the LORD's temple. In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD."
* 1 Samuel 2:22 "Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting."
* 1 Samuel 4:10-11 "So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died."
* 1 Samuel 14:2-3 "Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about six hundred men, among whom was Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was a son of Ichabod's brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the LORD's priest in Shiloh. No one was aware that Jonathan had left."
* 2 Samuel 7:4-7 "That night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying: "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"'"
* 1 Kings 8:3-5 "When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, and they brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted."
* 1 Chronicles 6:31-32 "These are the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the LORD after the ark came to rest there. They ministered with music before the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, until Solomon built the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem. They performed their duties according to the regulations laid down for them."
* 2 Chronicles 6:18 "But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!"
* 1 Samuel 2:9-10 & 22 states that sometime during the time of judges a temple as built at Shilo having doorposts. Concerning the temple at Shiloh. Tyndale Old testament Commentaries, Joyce G. Baldwin wrote, "The Temple of the Lord was built by Solomon in Jerusalem, as is well known, but the Old Testament provides no explanation of this temple at Shiloh, where the tent of meeting was set up after the conquest of Canaan (Jos. 18:1). Shiloh was the main sanctuary of the Israelites throughout the period of the judges (Judges 21:19), but when the wood-frame tent was replaced by a more permanent structure is not known. The word heiil, 'temple', 'palace', presupposes a building. It is used of the holy place of Solomon's Temple, but not of the corresponding area of the tabernacle. Similarly, the words for 'door' and 'doorpost' (1 Sa. 1 :9; 3: 15) require a solid structure, and not merely a tent with movable curtain.
"Shiloh was the central shrine, because it housed the ark of the covenant, but it may not have been the only temple of the Lord in Israel during the judges period. The tribe of Dan is recorded as installing a centre for worship (Judges 18:30-31) at the city they renamed Dan; it was to be revived as a cultic centre by Jeroboam I, who also refurbished Bethel for worship (1 Ki. 12:28-29). Built at about the same time as Solomon's was the temple at Arad, the only excavated Israelite temple. Yohanan Aharoni is adamant:
"'There is no doubt that this is an Israelite temple in the full meaning of that word, a house of Yahweh in biblical terms, not just a shrine built in the Israelite period... In the various stages of excavation, there was not found even one object relating to idol worship... Furthermore, there were found in it some inscriptions with the names of known priestly families, such as Pashhur, Meremoth, and the sons of Korah. There is no doubt, therefore, that this is an Israelite temple.' *
"Its plan was different from that of the Jerusalem Temple in some important respects: it had only one room instead of two, and it was a broad room in contrast to the elongated structure of the Jerusalem Temple. A niche was formed in the long western wall by a recess, a sort of 'holy of holies', while a courtyard outside the long eastern wall contained the altar of sacrifice, constructed of earth and unhewn stone (Ex. 20:24-25). Small rooms round the courtyard would provide accommodation for the duty priests. Similar temples of the Canaanite period, with one broad room and a central niche, have been found also at Hazor, Lachish and Megiddo; it could well be, therefore, that the Shiloh shrine was of the same style, in keeping with the practice of the country.
"A building of this sort makes good sense of the references in 1 Samuel 1-3. Samuel slept within the temple, 'where the ark of God was', in its niche along the west wall, while Eli had his quarters somewhere in the rooms around the outer court. Plans of the Arad temple even show a bench seat each side of the door, such as Eli may have regularly used (1 Sa. 1:9).** All the sacrificial ritual and the preparation of the meat for the worshippers took place, of course, in the open courtyard.
"Danish excavators in the 1920s and 1930s failed to find evidence of the Shiloh temple. Excavation of Shiloh was resumed in 1981 as part of a regional study of the territory of Ephraim by Israeli scholars. They opened nine areas of excavation, some of them close to those of the earlier Danish expeditions. Since then, some important conclusions have been reached about the history of Shiloh, though it remains true that no trace of the temple there has come to light, probably because the highest point of the tell, where it was most likely to have been built, has been weathered to bedrock. Nevertheless, from the earliest levels of building onwards, objects used in worship have been found:
"'There are accumulating indications of cultic continuity at the site - from the Middle Bronze II period onward; that is, the sacral tradition at Shiloh long antedates the Israelites. A sanctuary probably stood here as early as the Middle Bronze Age [1650-1550 BC], and this may have been of central importance to the development of the site. Even after the destruction of the fortified Middle Bronze site... cultic activity continued in the late Bronze Age, despite the absence, as far as can be determined, of any real settlement... The history of Shiloh in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages helps us to understand why Shiloh was chosen as the first Israelite cultic centre.'***
"Surveys have shown that the territory of Ephraim was inhabited by only a small sedentary population just before the arrival of Israel; and in view of the fact that Shiloh was an old traditional site for worship, it was an obvious choice for the site of the tabernacle.
"Indications of the date when organization round the sanctuary at Shiloh began are gained from excavated buildings on the western side of the tell, which Israel Finkelstein takes to have been annexes to the cultic complex that stood farther up-hill. Storage vessels abound, indeed 'the Iron Age pottery of Shiloh is one of the richest accumulations of pottery finds at any early Israelite site'.**** These vessels may have been used to store offerings brought by worshippers to the sanctuary (1 Sa. 1:24). The building is dated c. 1200-1000 BC.
"Within a radius of three to four miles of Shiloh, twenty-two settlements have been found belonging to this period, a higher density of population than anywhere else in Ephraim so far discovered.
"Evidence of a dramatic destruction of the buildings at Shiloh abounds. The storage vessels mentioned above all bear marks of burning which are visible in Finkelstein's photograph. Charred raisms remained in one of the jars. The building which housed the pottery had collapsed in a fierce fire, dated about the middle of the eleventh century B.C., which would tie up with an attack by the Philistines, after their victory at Ebenezer. Though this event is not recorded in I Samuel, it was long remembered, and well served Jeremiah's purpose in warning about the imminent destruction of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 7:12; 26:6; cf. Psalms 78:60-64).
"* Y. Aharoni, TIu: Archaeology of the Land of Israel (London: 8eM Press, 1982),/. 229.
"** Ibi ., photograph 31, model of the reconstructed temple at Arad.1 I. Finkelstein,
"***Shiloh Yields Some, But Not All, of Its Secrets', BAR 12/1 (1986), p. 39.
"**** Ibid., p. 38, where a photograph shows eight different shapes of jar." This ends the Tyndale quote.
* The tent of meeting is also called the tabernacle. It existed until a temple was built.
* The temple at Shilo was not the Lord's final will according to the Lord's words to David concerning the temple he wanted to build for the Lord and Jeremiah 7:12.
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>What does this say about Micah's faith and understanding of God?
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>2. What did Micah say to his mother? (2)
* Judges 17:2 "said to his mother, "The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse--I have that silver with me; I took it." Then his mother said, "The LORD bless you, my son!"
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>What does it say that he stole from his mother?
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>And that he didn't confess until he heard his mother curse?
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>3. What did his mother say when Micah confessed his theft?
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>What might it mean that she used the name of the Lord?
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II. Make an Idol With the Money (17:3-6)
>4. What did the mother say concerning the returned silver? (3)
* Judges 17:3 "When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, "I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you."
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>How is this a perverse understanding of the Lord? (Exodus 20:2-6)
* Exodus 20:2-6 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments."
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>5. How much of the eleven hundred pieces of silver did she give to the silversmith? (4)
* Judges 17:4 "So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into the image and the idol. And they were put in Micah's house."
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>Where did they put the idol?
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>6. Who became the priest in Micah's religion? (5)
* Judges 17:5 "Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest."
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>Who did the Lord say should be priests? (Exodus 29:4-9)
* Exodus 29:4-9 "Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. Take the garments and dress Aaron with the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod itself and the breastpiece. Fasten the ephod on him by its skillfully woven waistband. Put the turban on his head and attach the sacred diadem to the turban. Take the anointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics and put headbands on them. Then tie sashes on Aaron and his sons. The priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance. In this way you shall ordain Aaron and his sons."
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>What reasons are given for such creation of new religions? (6)
* Judges 17:6 "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."
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>Who is Israel's king? (Num. 23:21; Deut. 33:2-5; Judges 8:23; and 1 Sam. 8:7-8)
* Numbers 23:21 "No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them."
* Deuteronomy 33:2-5 "He said: "The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes. Surely it is you who love the people; all the holy ones are in your hand. At your feet they all bow down, and from you receive instruction, the law that Moses gave us, the possession of the assembly of Jacob. He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel."
* Judges 8:23 "But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you."
* 1 Samuel 8:7-8 "And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you."
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III. A Levite for Micah's Religion (17:7-13)
>7. Where had the young Levite live in verse 7?
* Judges 17:7 "A young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who had been living within the clan of Judah,"
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>Was this a city designated for the Levites? (Joshua 21:9-16)
* Joshua 21:9-16 "From the tribes of Judah and Simeon they allotted the following towns by name (these towns were assigned to the descendants of Aaron who were from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them): They gave them Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), with its surrounding pastureland, in the hill country of Judah. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.) But the fields and villages around the city they had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession. So to the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Libnah, Jattir, Eshtemoa, Holon, Debir, Ain, Juttah and Beth Shemesh, together with their pasturelands--nine towns from these two tribes."
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>What did he decide to do?
* Judges 17:8 "left that town in search of some other place to stay. On his way he came to Micah's house in the hill country of Ephraim."
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>8. What did Micah ask him? (9)
* Judges 17:9 "Micah asked him, "Where are you from?" "I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah," he said, "and I'm looking for a place to stay."
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>What did Micah propose? (10)
* Judges 17:10 "Then Micah said to him, "Live with me and be my father and priest, and I'll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food."
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>What does all this show about the priesthood at this time?
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>9. How did the young man become the family priest?
* Judges 17:11-12 "So the Levite agreed to live with him, and the young man was to him like one of his sons. Then Micah installed the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house."
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>10. How did Micah see the Lord according to verse 13?
* Judges 17:13 "And Micah said, "Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest."
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>How did Jesus teach us that God does not seek people who see him only as their benefactor? (Mat. 6:33; John 4:23-24)
* Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
* John 4:23-24 "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
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