In those days there was no king in Israel. In those days the tribe of the Danites sought an inheritance to dwell in; for to that day, their inheritance had not fallen to them among the tribes of Israel. The children of Dan sent five men of their family from their whole number, men of valor, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to search it. They said to them, “Go, explore the land!” They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.
When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite; so they went over there and said to him, “Who brought you here? What do you do in this place? What do you have here?”
He said to them, “Thus and thus has Micah dealt with me, and he has hired me, and I have become his priest.”
They said to him, “Please ask counsel of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.”
The priest said to them, “Go in peace. Your way in which you go is before Yahweh.”
Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, how they lived in safety, in the way of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no one in the land possessing authority, that might put them to shame in anything, and they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone else. They came to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol; and their brothers asked them, “What do you say?”
They said, “Arise, and let’s go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Do you stand still? Don’t be slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land. When you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land is large; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.”
The family of the Danites set out from Zorah and Eshtaol with six hundred men armed with weapons of war. They went up and encamped in Kiriath Jearim in Judah. Therefore they call that place Mahaneh Dan to this day. Behold, it is behind 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 answered and said to their brothers, “Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a carved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do.” They went over there and came to the house of the young Levite man, even to the house of Micah, and asked him how he was doing. The six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the children of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate. The five men who went to spy out the land went up, and came in there, and took the engraved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image; and 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 engraved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”
They said to him, “Hold your peace, put your hand on your mouth, and go with us. Be a father and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be 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, the teraphim, and the engraved image, and went with the people. So they turned and departed, and put the little ones, the livestock, and the goods before them. When they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house gathered together and overtook the children of Dan. As they called to the children of Dan, they turned their faces, and said to Micah, “What ails you, that you come with such a company?”
He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’ ”
The children of Dan said to him, “Don’t let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall on you, and you lose your life, with the lives of your household.”
The children of Dan went their way; and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his house. They took that which Micah had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword; then they burned the city with fire. There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone else; and it was in the valley that lies by Beth Rehob. They built the city and lived in it. They called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born to Israel; however the name of the city used to be Laish. The children of Dan set up for themselves the engraved image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, 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 engraved image which he made, and it remained all the time that God’s house was in Shiloh.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30 Meaning, no ordinary Magistrate to punish vice according to…
Meaning, no ordinary Magistrate to punish vice according to God’s word.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–31 Jdg 18:1 In those days [there was] no king…
Jdg 18:1 In those days [there was] no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day [all their] inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel.
Ver. 1. There was no king.] See Jdg 17:6.
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All their inheritance had not fallen unto them.] Because the Amorites were too hard for them, and detained it. See Jdg 1:34, with Jos 19:47, where this expedition is briefly set down, by anticipation.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30 In those days; not long after Joshua’s death, of…
In those days; not long after Joshua’s death, of which See Poole on "Jdg 17:6".
The tribe of the Danites; a part or branch of that tribe, consisting only of six hundred men of war, Jdg 18:16, with their families, Jdg 18:21; or, a family of the Danites; for the word schebet, which properly signifies a tribe, is sometimes taken for a family, as Jdg 20:12, as elsewhere family is put for a tribe, as Zec 12:13. All their inheritance had not fallen unto them; the lot had fallen to them before this time, Jos 19:40, &c., but not the actual possession of their lot, because therein the Philistines and Amorites opposed them, not without success. See Poole on "Jos 19:40"; See Poole on "Jdg 1:34".
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 14, 27 Here is, 1. The eye which these Danites had…
Here is, 1. The eye which these Danites had upon Laish, not the whole tribe of Dan, but one family of them, to whose lot, in the subdivision of Canaan, that city fell. Hitherto this family had sojourned with their brethren, who had taken possession of their lot, which lay between Judah and the Philistines, and had declined going to their own city, because there was no king in Israel to rule over them, Jdg 18:1. It lay a great way off, separate from the rest of their tribe; it was entirely in the enemy's hand, and therefore they would sponge upon their brethren rather than go far to provide for themselves. But at length necessity forced them to arouse themselves, and they began to think of an inheritance to dwell in. It is better to have a little of one's own than always to hang upon others. 2. The enquiry which this family of the Danites made concerning Laish: They sent five men to search the land (Jdg 18:2), that they might know the character of the country, whether it was an inheritance worth going so far for, and the posture of the people, whether the making of themselves masters of it was a thing practicable, what force was necessary in order thereunto, and which was the best way of making an attack upon it. The men they sent were men of valour, who, if they fell into their enemies' hands, knew how to look danger in the face. It is prudent to look before we leap. Dan had the subtlety of a serpent by the way (Gen 49:17), as well as the courage of a lion's whelp, leaping from Bashan, Deu 33:22. 3. The acquaintance which their spies got with Micah's priest, and the use they made of that acquaintance. It seems, they had know this Levite formerly, he having in his rambles been sometimes in their country; and, though his countenance might be altered, they knew him again by his voice, Jdg 18:3. They were surprised to find him so far off, enquired what brought him thither, and he told them (Jdg 18:4) what business he had there, and what encouragement. They, understanding that he had an oracle in his custody, desired he would tell them whether they should prosper in their present undertaking, Jdg 18:5. See their carelessness and regardlessness of God and his providence; they would not have enquired of the Lord at all if this Levite's mentioning the teraphim he had with him had not put it into their heads. Many never think of religion but just when it falls in their way and they cannot avoid it, like chance customers. 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. Should he be enquired of by them? Eze 14:3. They seem to have had a greater opinion of Micah's teraphim than of God's urim; for they had passed by Shiloh, and, for aught that appears, had not enquired there of God's high priest, but Micah's shabby Levite shall be an oracle to them. He betakes himself to his usual method of consulting his teraphim; and, whether he himself believed it or no, he humoured the thing so well that he made them believe he had an answer from God encouraging them to go on, and assuring them of good success (Jdg 18:6): "Go in peace, you shall be safe, and may be easy, for before the Lord is your way," that is, "he approves it" (as the Lord is said to know the way of the righteous with acceptation), "and therefore he will make it prosperous, his eye will be upon you for good, he will direct your way, and preserve your going out and coming in." Note, Our great care should be that our way be such as God approves, and, if it be so, we may go in peace. If God care for us, on him let us cast our care, and be satisfied that we cannot miss our way if he go before us.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–31 In those days there was no king in Israel,....…
In those days there was no king in Israel,.... No supreme magistrate, no judge, for it was before the time of the judges, after the death of Joshua and before Othniel the first judge; this is observed before, Jdg 17:6 and here repeated to account for the evil things done by the Danites, their consulting Micah's oracle, taking away his priest and his gods, and setting up his graven image in Dan, by which means idolatry was spread in Israel, and brought on their servitude to Chushanrishathaim, from which Othniel the first judge was their deliverer:
and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; that is, a family of them, as in the next verse, not the whole tribe; for as a family is sometimes put for a tribe, Jos 7:17 so a tribe for a family, Jdg 20:12.
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for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen to them among the tribes of Israel: we rightly supply the words "all their"; for otherwise an inheritance had fallen to them by lot, as the other tribes. Jos 19:40, but that was not only too little for them, Jos 19:47 but all that was allotted to them did not come into their possession, but a part remained unsubdued; and some they had possession of they could not keep, either through the superior strength of the Amorites, or their own sloth and cowardice, or for want of the help of their brethren; see Jdg 1:34.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30 The Danish spies call at Micah's house, ver. 1-6.…
The Danish spies call at Micah's house, ver. 1-6. The report they bring back, ver. 7-10. The Danites send forces, who by the way plunder Micah of his gods, ver. 11-26. They take Laish and set up idolatry there, ver. 27-31.
Those days - Not long after Joshua's death. The tribe - A part of that tribe, consisting only of six hundred men of war, with their families, ver. 16, 21. Inheritance - The lot had fallen to them before this time, but not the actual possession, because the Philistines and Amorites opposed them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30 Some Danites, seeking an inheritance, send five men to…
CHAPTER XVIII
Some Danites, seeking an inheritance, send five men to search
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the land, who arrive at the house of Micah, 1, 2.
They employ the Levite, who served to his house as priest, to
ask counsel for them of God, 3-5.
He inquires, and promises them success, 6.
They depart, and go to Laish, and find the inhabitants secure,
7.
They return to their brethren, and encourage them to attempt
the conquest of the place, 8-10.
They send six hundred men, who, coming to the place where Micah
dwelt, enter the house, and carry off the priest and his
consecrated things, 11-21.
Micah and his friends pursue them; but, being threatened, are
obliged to return, 22-26.
The Danites come to Laish, and smite it, and build a city there,
which they call Dan, 27-29.
They make the Levite their priest, and set up the images at this
new city, 30, 31.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVIII
Verse 1. There was no king in Israel] See Jdg 17:6. The circumstances related here show that this must have happened about the time of the preceding transactions.
The tribe of the Danites] That is, a part of this tribe; some families of it.
All their inheritance] That is, they had not got an extent of country sufficient for them. Some families were still unprovided for, or had not sufficient territory; for we find from Jos 19:40, &c., that, although the tribe of Dan did receive their inheritance with the rest of the tribes of Israel, yet their coasts went out too little for them, and they went and fought against LESHEM, (called here Laish,) and took it, &c. This circumstance is marked here more particularly than in the book of Joshua. See on Jos 19:47.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 30 Jdg 18:1. In those days there was no king…
Jdg 18:1. In those days there was no king in Israel — These words seem to be repeated in order to assign the reason of such enormous practices as are recorded in this and the preceding chapter. They appear to have taken place not long after Joshua’s death, probably between his death and that of the elders who survived him, and the time of Othniel, who was the first judge raised up for them by God. The tribe of the Danites — A part of that tribe, consisting only of six hundred men of war, with their families, Jdg 18:21. Sought them an inheritance — An inheritance had been allotted them as well as the rest of the tribes, (Jos 19:40, &c.,) but partly by their indolence, and partly for want of that brotherly assistance which ought to have been afforded them by other tribes, a considerable portion of this inheritance could not be acquired by them. Wanting room, therefore, for all their people and cattle, and being unable to contend with the Amorites, they sent some, as it here follows, to search out a new dwelling elsewhere.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 17, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30 This identity of locality with the scene of Samson’s…
This identity of locality with the scene of Samson’s birth and death indicates that both narratives are drawn from the same source, probably the annals of the tribe of Dan.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Days, after the death of Josue and the ancients.…
Days, after the death of Josue and the ancients. Debbora speaks of the tribe of Dan, as addicted to navigation, chap. v. 17. (Calmet) --- It had now conquered most of the enemies who had formerly forced some to seek fresh settlements, (Haydock) as it is hinted at, Josue xix. The particulars are here given in detail. (Calmet) --- Received, &c. They had their portions assigned them, Josue xix. 40. But through their own sloth, possessed as yet but a small part of it. See Judges i. 34. (Challoner; Worthington) --- Protestants supply, "all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel." (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 14 The tribe of Dan, desirous of more room, despatches…
The tribe of Dan, desirous of more room, despatches explorers. These, after spending a night near Micah’s religious establishment, become aware of its existence, and consult its oracle. Proceeding, they find at Laish an inviting place, easy of conquest. They return home, and a colony of six hundred families is sent out
Jdg_18:1-13.
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1In those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their [no] inheritance1 had not [omit: not] fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel. 2And the children [sons] of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts [of their whole number], men of valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who when [and] they came to mount Ephraim, to [as far as] the house of Micah, [and] they 3lodged there. When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice2 of the young man the Levite: and they turned in thither, and said unto him, Who brought thee hither? and what makest [doest] thou in this place? and what hast thou here? 4And he said unto them, Thus and thus dealeth Micah with me, and hath [he] hired me, and I am [became] his priest. 5And they said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous. 6And the priest said unto them, Go in peace: before the Lord 7[Jehovah] is your way wherein ye go. Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt3 careless [securely], after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate [potentate] in the land, that might put them to shame [injure them] in any thing and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man [had no intercourse with other men]. 8And they came unto their brethren to Zorah and Eshtaol: and their brethren said unto them, What say ye? 9And they said, Arise, that we may [and let us] go up against them: for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good: and are ye still? be not slothful to go, and to enter [come] to possess the land. 10When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth [land]. 11And there went from thence of the family of the Danites, out of Zorah and out of Eshtaol, six hundred men appointed [girded] with weapons of war. 12And they went up, and pitched [encamped] in Kirjath-jearim, in Judah: wherefore they called [call] that place Mahaneh-dan [Camp of Dan] unto this day: behold, it is behind Kirjath-jearim. 13And they passed thence unto mount Ephraim, and came unto [as far as] the house of Micah.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_18:1.—בְּנַחֲלָה properly means: “in the character of an inheritance, as an inheritance,” cf. Num_26:53, etc. The nominative to לאֹ־נָפְלָה is to be supplied from the thought of the preceding clause, either in the form of נַחֲלָה or, better, in the more general form of אֶרֶץץ, land. The writer probably intended to introduce the subject after the verb, but as he proceeded his attention was diverted by subordinate clauses, and so he ended with an anacoluthon.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_18:3.—קוֹל. Dr. Cassel renders “sound,” see his explanation below. Keil and others understand it of dialectic pronunciation or other peculiarities of speech. Bertheau thinks that inasmuch as the envoys had to “turn aside” from their way in order to get to Micah’s temple, they could not have been near enough to hear the Levite’s voice or note his pronunciation. He therefore assumes that what they recognized was the “tidings” that were told them of the sanctuary near by. But why not take the words in the sense in which any man would naturally take them at the first reading? The Levite had been a wanderer; some one (or more) of the five envoys had met with him, and now recognizes his voice, as they lie encamped near by. The conversation that ensues when they meet with him is certainly exactly such as would be expected under such circumstances; and the account which Micah gives of his personal affairs (Jdg_18:4), can scarcely be explained on any other supposition.—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_18:7.—יוֹשֶׁבֶת is predicate to אֶת־הָעָם, and as such ought to be masculine. The feminine is accounted for on the principle that the writer’s imagination identifies the people with the city in which they live, and so speaks of them as feminine, of Ewald, Lehrb. 174 b; Green, Gram. 275, 2, b. The appositional masculine participles שׂקֵט וּבֹטֵחַ only show that this identification is no longer in the mind of the writer.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_18:1. In those days there was no king in Israel. This is repeated in order to intimate that the author does not approve of what he is about to relate concerning the Danites. Such a piratical expedition was possible only when there was no organic national authority to guard the public peace and watch over the enforcement of law. The kingly office is a guaranty of the safety of property and of the continuance of public peace, and does not permit adventurous expeditions, undertaken for the injury of others. These very evils, however, were prevalent in Germany, notwithstanding imperial rule; and that not only in the Middle Ages. It was a matter of great difficulty, in the fourteenth century, to bring about the formation of local peace-compacts; and even then they had inserted in them the clause of the West-phalian treaty of 1371, according to which a city or lord was only forbidden to engage in hostilities without a previous declaration of war. Even this principle would have condemned the Danites, it is true, but the organic government in the interests of peace and order which Israel understood by מַלכוּת, kingdom, royal dominion, had no existence in Germany, even until after the thirty years’ war.
For that unto that day no inheritance had fallen unto them. These words do not express the view of the narrator, but rehearse the complaint of the Danites, which was causeless however. Dan had certainly received an inheritance; and in proof of it is the fact that even at this time the tribe dwelt in the district of Zorah and Eshtaol. Its territory extended over Timnah and Ekron, as far as Joppa on the coast (Jos_19:41-46); but it had been crowded into the mountains by the Amorites (Jdg_1:34), and had failed to dispossess the Philistines of the plain along the sea-coast. On this account the tribe might indeed have too narrow bounds; but instead of enlarging their borders by making war on their heathen neighbors, they complained. If they had not been lacking in the true enthusiasm of faith in Jehovah, their onsets of irresistible prowess would not have failed to win the territory allotted to them. But it was easier, it must be allowed, to surprise undefended houses and lands, than to contend with the five princes of the Philistines, and their numerous armies. The words before us are only the subterfuge with which Dan defended the unusual resolution it had taken before the other tribes.
Jdg_18:2. And the sons of Dan sent of their family five men. Only in Israel was it an unusual thing to look about for other possessions than those which had been assigned. Among other nations, the reduction of a too numerous population by means of colonization, was a matter of frequent occurrence (cf. Movers, Phönizier, iii. 5, etc.). In the case of Dan, however, the resolution to look about for new territory was not arrived at by a few adventurers, who unceremoniously cut themselves loose from their people, but by the whole community. The commissioners and envoys to whom the promotion of the scheme was entrusted, were elected from among the whole (מִקְצוֹתָם) and were not ordinary spies, but chosen men (אַנְשֵׁי חַיִל), upon whom the matter naturally devolved. (Compare the Roman plan of appointing commissioners to supervise the establishment of a colony.) The express statement that they were told “Go, explore the land,” is added, in order to relieve them from every appearance of having acted only on their own responsibility.
Jdg_18:3-4. There, near the house of Micah, they recognized the sound. “There” (שָׁם),4i. e., in the vicinity of the “temple-house,” which is here, in a special sense, called the “house of Micah.” When they were near this house (עִם־בֵּית), they heard the “sound (קוֹל) of the young Levite.” This has been curiously enough understood of the voice of the Levite. But how could the Danites tell by the voice that it belonged to a Levite? The statement, however, becomes instructive, when we call to mind what is written in Exo_28:35. The Levite in Micah’s House wore the priestly dress, which was provided with bells, in order “that their sound may be heard (נִשְׁמַע קוֹלוֹ) when he enters into and comes out of the Holy Place.” The Danites, having passed the night (וַיָּלִינוּ), heard, in the morning, the bells of the officiating priest, and thus learned, to their astonishment, that there was a Levite there.
Jdg_18:5-6. Inquire, we pray thee, of God (Elohim). The Danites, it is evident from all they do, are not steadfast in their faith in Jehovah. Hence, also, they find no fault with the Levite for having “hired” himself to Micah; nor do they hesitate, when they learn that he has an ephod and teraphim (Jdg_18:14), to consult his oracle about the success of their undertaking; but that Jehovah was worshipped here, did not appear to them to be the case. The narrator indicates this very delicately, by making them say, “Inquire of Elohim,” although the Levite, in the account he gave of himself, had used the name Jehovah, for to his service Micah’s House was nominally devoted. The Levite’s response is oracular, i. e., thoroughly ambiguous: “Go in peace: נֹכַח יְהוָֹה דַּרְכְּכֶם.” נֹכַח is simply equivalent to coram; no such accessory idea as “favorable,” lies in the words. “Your way is before Jehovah”—an answer unquestionably correct. The Danites probably explained it in a favorable sense, on account of the “go in peace” which preceded it.
Jdg_18:7. And the five went, and came to Laish. Since the city was afterwards called Dan, whose name and situation at one of the sources of the Jordan (and that not the spring at Bâniâs), was known in the time of Josephus, Robinson was doubtless right in saying (B. R. iii. 392), that “of the identity of its situation and that of Tell el-Kâdy there can be no question.” Ritter (xv. 217) even communicates Wilson’s observation, according to which the name Dan, i. e., judge, survives by translation in Kâdy, the surname of the Tell Laish, however, lay “in the valley that leads to Beth-rehob” (Jdg_18:28). This valley can scarcely be any other than the present Wady et-Teim, the great longitudinal valley which extends from the plain of Lake Hûleh upward to Râsheiya. Through this valley and the Buka’a runs the direct road from the sources of the Jordan to Hamath (Rob. iii. 371). The spies of Moses explored the land as far as Rehob, where the road leads to Hamath (Num_13:21). Rehob (prop. Rechob) is a name suggested by topographical characteristics, and recurs therefore in various places. It always presupposes the presence of a plain or level surface.5 It is to be noted that Scripture itself does not speak of either Dan or Laish, as situated at the sources of the Jordan. We may, nevertheless, venture the conjecture that this situation may be found indicated in the name Laish (לַיִשׁ). Laish signifies a lion; and ancient, originally Egyptian, symbology, has made the lion the sign of flowing stream-sources. For as soon as the sun enters his sign in the zodiac, the sources of the Nile begin to rise. Hence, says Horapollo, the mouths of fountains are provided with the figures of lions. This also accounts for the statement of Pollux, that the lion is called κρηνοφύλαξ, “guardian of springs,” and for the wide-extended usage of setting up figures of the lion near springs. The place of the source of the Orontes is named Lebweh, which also means lion. The river which rises near Baalbek-Heliopolis was called Leontes (at present Lîtâny); and the lion himself, as Egyptian symbol, signified “House of the Sun.” On the front-side of a building over the spring of Ain ’Anûb there are found figures of animals, considered to be either lions or dogs (Ritter, xvii. 676). The name Laish may be supposed to indicate in a similar manner the fountain, “one of the largest in the world,” which leaps down in an “immense stream” from Tell el-Kâdy (Rob. iii. 390). We are reminded by it of the blessing of Moses (Deu_33:22): “And of Dan he said, Dan is a גּו̇ר אַרְיֵה (lion’s whelp); he leaps forth from Bashan.” The attribute thus expressed corresponds, as it were, to that indicated in the name Laish. Leshem, the name under which the place appears in Jos_19:47, gives literal expression, perhaps, to the same idea which was figuratively indicated by Laish. The verb לָשַׁע, to break through (of a spring), to flow, belongs to an ancient and widely diffused root. Hence, as the source of the Jordan was called לֶשֶׁם, so the warm springs near the Dead Sea were called לֶשַׁע, Lesha, changed afterwards into Callirrhoë (cf. lehhan, Licus, Lech, Celtic, Leis, Lias, and numerous similar river names).
Jdg_18:7. There was no hereditary potentate in the land, to oppress them in any respect. The observations of the five envoys are remarkable. They find the city, as a colony of Sidon, quietly devoted to industrial arts, after the manner of the mother city. It had not entered into relations for mutual protection with other cities, probably on the ground of its being a colony. That notwithstanding this, it could feel itself secure, and live without much warlike vigilance, although Sidon was so far away, evinces the very peaceful condition of the Syria of that day. The envoys observe also, that “there is no יוֹרֵשׁ עֶצֶר in the land.” The expression is obscure by reasou of its uncommonness. It seems to me, that it can only be understood in this way: The Danite envoys, during their stay in Laish, investigate particularly the ability of the city to defend itself. In this investigation they find not only that the people are engaged in peaceful industry (שֹׁקֵט), while their natural allies are far away, but also that there is no יוֹרֵשׁ עֶצֶר, i. e., no dynast or tyrant, in the land, with armed troops in his pay, ready for war. The presence of such a one would make it necessary to anticipate serious and ready resistance. Hence, the Persians, when they took possession of Ionia, deposed the tyrants and instituted popular governments everywhere (Herod, vi. 43). Under the יוֹרֵשׁ עֶצֶר of our passage, we are to understand what the Greeks called dynasts, hereditary despots, who exercised supreme control in the city. There is no thought here of a king or of suffetes, but of a tyrannical oppressor, who without consent of the inhabitants has become their master, and who surrounds himself with armed troops, in order, as instances in both Greek and Phœnician islands and cities sufficiently prove, to preserve the succession to this sort of government in his own family by means of force. In this explanation, עֶצֶר may either be taken as the object after יוֹרֵשׁ, in the sense of enforced supremacy,—in which case 1Sa_9:17 may be compared, for עָצַר is indeed, both in letter and sense, the Latin arcere, and sometimes also equivalent to coercere; or it may be regarded as standing in subjective opposition to יו̇רֵשׁ and be compared with אֵסַר=אֲצַר, lord, commander (cf. the Sanskrit çira), in the Aramaic names Nebuchadnezzar and Esarhaddon (cf. my Ortsnamen, i. 118). Since such a Joresh-etser wields his power by violence and without the consent of his subjects, it is not said that none such “reigns” in the land, but אֵין־מַכְלִים, none such “injures, oppresses.”6 But for defense against attacks from without, such a ruler is undoubtedly well adapted, as may be seen in the instance of Polycrates. The envoys, therefore, are right, when they consider the absence of such a commander, where powerful friends are far away, and military activity is altogether wanting, as favorable to the success of an assailant.
Jdg_18:8-10. And they said, Arise, and let us go up against them. The narrative allows ancient manners to speak for themselves in a very delicate way. The five envoys, on their arrival at home, keep quiet, until they are asked, What have ye? Then, however, they are the ones who stimulate the irresolute and doubtful: “why are you silent? be not slothful לָלֶכֶת ,לָבוֹא ,לָרֶשֶׁת;” for to go, to come, and to have what you desire, is one and the same thing. You will find an attractive country without defense, a large land, to which nothing (either of wealth or attractiveness) is wanting. This representation was not extravagant. Laish was situated in the valley, perhaps on the same spot afterwards occupied by the Daphne mentioned by Josephus; which name, in the Hellenistic period, was only given to attractively situated places. Accordingly, Josephus himself also speaks of his Daphne as a delicious place, rich in water-springs (Wars, iv. 1, 1). The tract of land in which it lay, is still called Ard Difneh, and is covered with glorious wheat-fields and noble old trees (Rob. iii. 394). The emigrating Messenians were in similar manner invited by Anaxilaus of Rhegium to make themselves masters of Zankle in Sicily, being told that it was a blessed land, and in a fine part of the island (Paus. iv. 23). Seneca remarks (Consolatio ad Helviam matrem, cap. 6.), that many emigrants have been deceived by unmeasured praises of the fertile territory.
The envoys, in order to strengthen their people add that “Elohim has given the land into their hands,” referring probably to the response of the Levite’s oracle.
Jdg_18:11. And there broke up from thence six hundred men, girded with weapons of war. Six hundred families either volunteered, or were selected. The number may correspond with ancient usage. Livy relates that the Romans, when engaged in a colonizing enterprise, in the year 197 before Christ, sent out three hundred families into each several city (xxxii. 29). The Danites, like Greek and Roman colonies, set out as if for war, with banners, arms, and means of subsistence (Jdg_18:21). In a speech of Demosthenes it is said: ’Ελάμβανον πεμπόμενοι ὅπλα ἐκ τοῦ δημοσίου καὶ ἐφόδια (cf. Hermann, Griech. staatsalterthümer, § 75, 2).
Jdg_18:12. Wherefore that place is called “Camp of Dan,” unto this day: behold, it is behind Kirjath-jearim. The expedition was at that time an extraordinary event. It seemed to renew the old marches of Israel in the desert, for the conquest of Canaan. There doubtless existed notices concerning the various stations which they made on the journey. It seems, however, that only three of the stations are known to us. The first was the “Machaneh Dan,” with which the first awakening of Samson to his life of heroism was connected (Jdg_13:25). It lay between Zorah and Eshtaol, and was therefore doubtless the place of rendezvous for the expedition, which came for the most part from those cities (Jdg_18:11, cf. Jdg_18:2). This cannot be the same with the Machaneh Dan near Kirjath-jearim, in the tribe of Judah, of which mention is here made. The researches of Robinson enable us to locate the latter near the modern Kuryet el-’Enab, whence the high road appears to have gone over the mountains of Ephraim. The third is the sanctuary of Micah, where likewise the “camping-place of Dan” was probably long remembered. At all events, the remark, that since this expedition the name Machaneh Dan existed, shows that the event took place before the days of Samson (during which Dan appears also to have been in an enfeebled condition), and is therefore to be put between Gideon and Samson.
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg_18:1.—בְּנַחֲלָה properly means: “in the character of an inheritance, as an inheritance,” cf. Num_26:53, etc. The nominative to לאֹ־נָפְלָה is to be supplied from the thought of the preceding clause, either in the form of נַחֲלָה or, better, in the more general form of אֶרֶץץ, land. The writer probably intended to introduce the subject after the verb, but as he proceeded his attention was diverted by subordinate clauses, and so he ended with an anacoluthon.—Tr.]
[2][Jdg_18:3.—קוֹל. Dr. Cassel renders “sound,” see his explanation below. Keil and others understand it of dialectic pronunciation or other peculiarities of speech. Bertheau thinks that inasmuch as the envoys had to “turn aside” from their way in order to get to Micah’s temple, they could not have been near enough to hear the Levite’s voice or note his pronunciation. He therefore assumes that what they recognized was the “tidings” that were told them of the sanctuary near by. But why not take the words in the sense in which any man would naturally take them at the first reading? The Levite had been a wanderer; some one (or more) of the five envoys had met with him, and now recognizes his voice, as they lie encamped near by. The conversation that ensues when they meet with him is certainly exactly such as would be expected under such circumstances; and the account which Micah gives of his personal affairs (Jdg_18:4), can scarcely be explained on any other supposition.—Tr.]
[3][Jdg_18:7.—יוֹשֶׁבֶת is predicate to אֶת־הָעָם, and as such ought to be masculine. The feminine is accounted for on the principle that the writer’s imagination identifies the people with the city in which they live, and so speaks of them as feminine, of Ewald, Lehrb. 174 b; Green, Gram. 275, 2, b. The appositional masculine participles שׂקֵט וּבֹטֵחַ only show that this identification is no longer in the mind of the writer.—Tr.]
[4][Our author, both in his version of the Hebrew text and here, transfers שָׁם from the end of one verse to the beginning of another, but without good reason.—Tr.]
[5]On Rehob, equivalent to Paltos, compare above, on Jdg_1:31.
[6][Keil’s explanation of this passage is in all essential points very similar, except that he defines יוֹרֵשׁ עֶצֶר is “one who seizes on power,” and derives (rightly, no doubt) יוֹרֵשׁ from יָרַשׁ in the sense of seizing, and not as our author does, in the sense of “inheriting,” or rather, perhaps, in both senses at the same time.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7, 11, 22, 27, 28, 30 the five men departed, and came to Laish--or, "Leshem"…
the five men departed, and came to Laish--or, "Leshem" (Jos 19:47), supposed to have been peopled by a colony of Zidonians. The place was very secluded--the soil rich in the abundance and variety of its produce, and the inhabitants, following the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, lived in their fertile and sequestered valley, according to the Zidonian style of ease and security, happy among themselves, and maintaining little or no communication with the rest of the world. The discovery of this northern paradise seemed, to the delight of the Danite spies, an accomplishment of the priest's prediction. They hastened back to inform their brethren in the south both of the value of their prize, and how easily it could be made their prey.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31 THE DANITE CONQUESTS IN THE NORTH, Jdg_18:1-31.
THE DANITE CONQUESTS IN THE NORTH, Jdg_18:1-31.
1. The Danites sought them an inheritance — The Danites were the last of the tribes to receive their portion of the Promised Land, but, according to Jos_19:47, their coast “went out too little for them.” Their lot fell in the rich and fertile plain of northern Philistia. but, according to Jdg_1:34, “the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain; for they would not suffer them to come down into the valley.” Being thus shut in among the hills about Zorah and Eshtaol, they felt the necessity of seeking an addition to their inheritance, and, finding themselves unable to drive out the inhabitants of the neighbouring valley, they sent an exploring party northward to spy the land.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Jdg_18:1. In those days … in Israel] An excuse…
Jdg_18:1. In those days … in Israel] An excuse for the irregularity of Micah’s proceedings as described in the foregoing verses. See Jdg_17:6 n.
and in those days … to dwell in] At first the Danites tried to settle on the low land between the coast and the hills (Jdg_1:34). Then they were forced into the hills (ib.), and we find them, both in this ch. and in the story of Samson, settled at Zorah and Eshtaol, on the W. of Judah. Now comes a migration to the sources of the Jordan in the North, cf. Jos_19:47 JE. As we have seen, ch. Jdg_5:17 implies that Dan was already established in its northern home at the time of Deborah; the present narrative therefore carries us back to the early days.
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for unto that day … of Israel] On the theory of an allotment of territory among the tribes (Joshua 13-24), a wholly different reason for the migration is suggested by these words; note the technical fallen, i.e. by lot, cf. Num_34:2, Jos_17:5, Eze_47:14 : obviously the comment of a later hand. The awkwardness of the original is disguised by the RV.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 (1) In those days . . .—The repetition of…
(1) In those days . . .—The repetition of the phrase does not necessarily prove the use of different documents. It may only emphasise the reason for the occurrence of such disorders and irregularities.
The tribe.—Shebet sometimes means a whole tribe, and sometimes apparently the division of a tribe (Jdg_20:12).
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The tribe of the Danites.—There seems to be a difference between “tribe of Dan” (Shebet Dan) and “tribesmen of the Danites” (Shebet had-Dani). In Jdg_18:11 they are called Mishpecath had-Dani; but the distinctions between Mishpecath (“family”) and Shebet (“tribe”) do not seem to be accurately kept. (See Notes on Jdg_18:19 and Jdg_20:12.)
Sought them an inheritance.—See Jdg_1:34; Jos_19:47-48.
Unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them.—Their inheritance is described in Jos_19:40-46. The inheritance had been assigned to them; but they had not been able to conquer it, owing to the opposition of the Philistines and the Amorates. The English Version interpolates the words “all their” before “inheritance,” apparently to avoid difficulties. But these glosses, however well meant, are almost always a violation of the primary duty of translation, which is to be rigidly faithful to the* original. The failure of the Danites to conquer their allotment, and the low condition to which they dwindled, are the more remarkable because in the wilderness they were the strongest of all the tribes, numbering 62,700, and because they received the smallest assignment of land of all the tribes.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 In those days, etc. See Jud_1:17:6. The tribe of…
In those days, etc. See Jud_1:17:6. The tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance, etc. This does not mean that the whole tribe of Dan were still seeking their inheritance. The bulk of the tribe, as we read in Jos_19:40-48, did receive their inheritance by lot before the death of Joshua (ibid. ver. 49) and Eleazar (ibid. ver. 51). But as long as any part of the tribe was not settled, the tribe as such, in its unity, was still seeking a settlement. The land for their inheritance had not yet fallen to the tribe in its integrity. This is in part accounted for by what we read Jud 1:34, that the Amorites would not suffer the children of Dan to come down to the valley, so that those who could not get possession of their land there would be crowded into other parts of the tribal territory. These Danites, of whom we are here reading, were dwelling in Zorah and Eshtaol, (Jud_1:13:1, 25) as we see by vers. 2, 11. Unto that day, etc. Translate this clause, For unto that day the land (meaning the whole land) had not fallen unto them in the midst of the tribes of Israel for an inheritance. The words the land must be supplied after the analogy Num_34:2. What follows in this chapter is a more detailed account of what was briefly mentioned in Jos_19:47, where, however, the A.V went out too little for them is not a translation of the Hebrew text, which is very difficult to explain. Houbigant, by an ingenious conjecture, gives the sense was too narrow for them. Prom the mention of this migration in the Book of Joshua, it is probable that it took place not many years after Joshua"s death.
Vers. 1-31. Society without a head ceasing to be society.
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The writer of the five last chapters of the Book of Judges had a painful task to perform. Writing the history of his people, and they the people of God, he had to tell a tale of violence, plunder, bloodshed, brutality, civil war, and extermination, on the secular side, and of superstition, schism, and idolatry, on the religious side of his story. And we may observe, by the way, that we have a striking evidence of the truthfulness and impartiality of the narrator in this merciless exposure of the sins and misdeeds of his countrymen. Nor are we at a loss to draw the lesson which he intended us to draw from the account which he has given; for no fewer than four times in the course of his brief narrative does he impress upon the mind of his readers the fact that in the days when these shameful deeds were done "there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes". (Jud_1:17:6 18:1 19:1 21:25) No doubt the writer referred particularly to that government with which he was acquainted, the government of kings properly so called, of whom Saul was the first, and David and his long line were the successors. But when we remember that in its best days the Israelitish nation had no king but God, and was governed under him by such rulers as Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, and the other judges, we shall perceive that the lesson to be learnt is not so much that of the superiority of monarchy over other forms of government (however true this may be), as of the absolute necessity, for the religious and civil welfare of a people, that a firm government should exist, to control by the force of law the excesses of individual will, and to compel within certain limits the action of individuals for the sake of the public good. Looking at their several influences upon the body of the Israelite people, how pernicious was the theft by Micah of his mother"s hoarded treasure; how injurious to the community was the idolatrous worship set up by Micah, and that for generation upon generation; how disastrous to the commonwealth of Israel was the brutal outrage of the men of Gibeah; how intolerable was the marauding expedition of the Danites, both to the quiet dwellers in the land and to peaceful neighbours beyond its border; and what a complete loosening of all the joints of social life do the several transactions display! Nowhere do we see any common aim for the common good, but each man"s covetousness, superstition, lust, anger, cruelty, pursuing private objects at the expense of public interests. The ideas of a society, a commonwealth, a Church, a nation, were lost in individual selfishness. Now this was in a great measure due to the want of a central supreme authority to repress, to direct, and to overrule. Just as material nature, if the power of gravitation were removed, would fall to pieces, and all cohesion would be gone, so, without a common authority wielding the power of law, human society would fall to pieces, and be reduced to chaos. Men are blinded by their own passions; particular sections of society can see nothing but their own fancied interests; lawless violence would plunder here; impulsive zeal would rush onwards there; a fanatical superstition would set up its altars where it ought not; fierce rivalry would rise upon the ruins of its antagonist; revenge would glut itself with destruction; one trade would seek the suppression of all that stood in its way; one interest would devour another, one class supplant another, one rank tread down another. It is the business of law wielded by sovereign power to look with an equal eye upon all the different interests of the State, to favour all by favouring none at the expense of others, to repress all individual action which would hurt the whole, and to regulate all the separate forces which would be injurious to the whole. Law, like the eye of God, is impartial in its look-out; its end is to produce order, harmony, and peace. Under the even reign of law eccentric violence is unknown, and its steady but irresistible pressure gives consistency and strength to the whole fabric of society. Under its reign full scope is given to every energy for good, and all the scattered forces of the separate parts are concentrated for the benefit of the whole. Under its wholesome restraints the selfish passions of man are not allowed to injure themselves or others, and the folly of the foolish and the wickedness of the wicked are checked in their injurious courses. Not that which is right in his own eyes, and which self-will desires, but that which the law, the reflection of God"s mind, commands, is the rule by which every man"s actions must be squared. The perfection of a human polity is one in which wise laws govern the whole social movement as surely as the laws of nature govern the material world. It is the interest of all classes of the community to bow to this supremacy of law, and to unite in a firm compact to support the central authority in repressing every act of lawlessness, whether committed by an individual or by a company. It is only thus that social chaos can be avoided, and that civil cosmos, which alone is civilisation, can be maintained for the true liberty and welfare of mankind. It is just the same with the Church of God, which is the commonwealth of his saints. In it the word of God must reign supreme. In it individual opinions, sentiments, wishes, and feelings must all be subordinated to the Divine law. In it selfish eccentricities, ambitions, activities must all be restrained by a wise and even rule if the Church is to be the abode of order, peace, and love. In the surrender of individual will to the discipline of the supreme authority the sacred commonwealth finds its perfect balance, and each member is enabled to yield that service which indeed is perfect freedom; because the unchecked power to do that which is right in his own eyes is not a man"s liberty, but his bondage. Self-will is set in motion by sin; but law is the fruit of wisdom and justice moving for the happiness of all, securing right, and stopping up the gangways of wrong. From the spirit of lawlessness deliver thy Church, O Lord!
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR. Vers. 1-13. The history of a man-made ministry: 2. Its abuse.
A special instance of the manner in which it wrought mischief afforded in the migration of the Danites. The proximity of Micah"s house to the great northern highway made it a natural resting-place for travellers, and so the spies find their way there. By them the young priest, who turns out to be a previous acquaintance, is recognised. The existence of the "house of gods" is thus made known, and they desire him to consult the oracle concerning their fortunes. Although their adventure was a wicked and unscrupulous one, they are told, "Go in peace: before the Lord is your way wherein ye go." The visit of the spies to Laish, their report to their brethren, and the setting out of the 600 Danites, who arrive in the first stage of their march once more at Micah"s house, are then narrated. We see, therefore
I HOW A MERCENARY PRIESTHOOD AND SHRINE MAY BE PROSTITUTED TO BASE USES. The oracle at Shiloh was symbol and seal of the national, unity, and its priesthood represented the national conscience. It would have been impossible for them to sanction such a crime. But it was otherwise with Micah"s priest and "house of gods." The latter was a mercantile speculation, a private enterprise, and was therefore obnoxious to any temptation like this. A striking parallel to this is afforded by the Church of Rome, with its sale of indulgences, etc.
II HOW EAGER UNHOLY MEN ARE FOR RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS IN THEIR FRAUDULENT AND MURDEROUS DEEDS. When religion becomes a matter of money, and its advantages are sold to the highest bidder, it ceases to be the judge of right and wrong. The contradiction between the errand upon which they were sent and the spirit of God"s revelation ought to have struck them. Yet this is but one instance of an all but universal error. They imagine that true religion can call evil good and good evil.
III HOW THEREBY A TURBULENT TRIBE IS ENCOURAGED IN ITS DESIGNS UPON" A PEACEFUL DISTRICT, AND A PERMANENT WRONG IS INFLICTED. The moral latent in the incident is thereby sharply pointed. It must appear to all how mischievous, how subversive of human society and of religion, such an institution must be. The only safeguard against such evils is in the central authority at Shiloh being recognised, and that authority being enforced by a duly elected king. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 The Danites sought them an inheritance . . .…
Jdg_18:1-31
The Danites sought them an inheritance . . . They set them up Micahs graven image.
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The image-worship expanding into tribal idolatry
I. The straits to which unbelief reduces the strong (Jdg_18:1).
II. Discontent with a divinely-marked lot leads to evil (Jdg_18:2).
III. Trifling circumstances often lead to the discovery of sinful schemes (Jdg_18:3).
IV. Silent neglect at first, leads afterwards to open rejection of Gods ordinances (Jdg_18:5).
V. The most inoffensive people are not safe from the attacks of evil men (Jdg_18:7; Jdg_18:9-10).
VI. Religion is sometimes invoked to aid the plots of the ungodly (Jdg_18:5).
VII. Indirectness is a character of the worlds counsel (Jdg_18:6).
VIII. False worshippers take refuge in imitating the appearances of the true (Jdg_18:14; Jdg_18:17).
IX. Divine providence often offers no interruption to the execution of the designs of the wicked.
X. The sudden destruction of the man-made religion (Jdg_18:15-20).
XI. Prayer will not secure the Divine blessing on a wrong action (Jdg_18:5-6, also Jdg_18:18-19).
XII. Worldly minds care little for accuracy in spiritual things (Jdg_18:17-19).
XIII. Neither moral principle nor sound reason can be expected of those who deny to God His natural rights.
XIV. Success in evil is no proof of the Divine approval.
XV. True service is not to be expected from a false priest (Jdg_18:20).
XVI. The excessive importance which an idolater Attaches to his gods (Jdg_18:24). (J. P. Millar.)
Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God.
Counsel of God
Seeking counsel of God is the first duty of Christian men.
I. Why we should ask.
1. On account of our ignorance and short-sightedness. The way before us dark, uncertain. So reason would suggest to ask, etc. it is the course Gods people have ever adopted. See Jacob at Bethel (Gen_27:20); Moses (Exo_33:12); David (2Sa_7:29).
2. On account of Gods ability to give. He knows all the way before us.
3. On account of the fact that our best interests are involved in the counsel God can give. It is like the pillar and cloud, the compass of the mariner, light of day, etc.
II. What we may ask.
1. As to our temporal concerns. Duties in the world, engagements, plans, and changes.
2. As to our relative concerns. Families, children, friends, etc. So Abraham and David; so all the truly pious.
3. As to our spiritual concerns. The way of experimental piety, usefulness, etc. Influence for good. The text speaks of the way being prosperous.
III. How we must ask.
1. With a deep conviction of our exigency. Not self-sufficient.
2. With believing confidence. The promises are abundant for every scene. To lead, direct, keep, deliver, strengthen, protect, sanctify, save; hence we must calmly look and plead.
3. With a resolution to follow the counsel.
4. Through the person and advocacy of Christ. (J. Burns, D. D.)
We have seen the land, and behold, it is very good.--
Report from the promised land
This was a model report, because it urged the brethren to take advantage of an opportunity that meant benefit to themselves. The believer in Jesus Christ is an explorer, and he brings back a report to his brethren who are unbelievers. Religion, like science, to be exact, must be grounded in truth and fact. We listen to Livingstone and believe him, as we would but few who might tell us of the wastes of Africa, for we know that he has seen. Let your life be a life fragrant with peace, a life unselfish, devoted, Christ-like, a life of beauty, and it will bring a winning report of the land, and your hearers will say, We will go with you. It will be a good land, for God is with you. Suppose a man from the cold and cheerless Arctic comes here. He comes from a land of chill and blasts, where the suns warmth never falls, where no birds sing, and where flowers never bloom. Suppose a man from this zone of the Arctic were to come to our city and open an office upon Broadway. How many would listen and go back with him to the terrors of that frozen north? But suppose a man from the sunny south should come. He would tell of the birds that sing the whole year round, of the flowers that bloomed season after season, and the bubbling streams that flowed on for ever. Which of the two would repel and which attract? Gods people are weak. Do not attribute their failures to the land from which they come. Do not set your reproof against the land. It is a glorious land. Go and make that land your land, your hope and your eternity. (W. T. Sabine.)
And are ye still?--
Indifference to religion
It may be that we wonder at the slowness of the Danites--wonder that they should hesitate to press forward and possess themselves of such an earthly inheritance; of such an inheritance because it was a part of the land promised by God to their fathers. May we not, however, be the more astonished at ourselves, as we remember our own indifference towards a heavenly inheritance? The habitation we now hold, straitened as it is, and but for time, must be resigned at the call of death, whether we have made any advance towards the heavenly inheritance or not. And why are we still? Is it because we are required to withdraw our affections from the earth? If so, we are to be gainers by it (1Pe_1:4). And we ourselves often profess a desire to possess such a home. And often do we picture to ourselves a home where all that renders this life painful will be found no more. We desire a land which is very good. Such a home, such a land, Gods Word speaks of to us, and says that it is laid up for those who seek it (1Co_2:9). Yet few of us really seek this home; and so, in the words of the spies, we are again and again rebuked for our indifference. Behold the land is very good: and are ye still? be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land. Now the spies declared, concerning the people of Laish: When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land.
1. The security here alluded to was a false security. It was that careless indifference to danger--that want of thought for their own safety--which the people of Laish indulged. There was peace about them. They did not think of the possibility of its being broken. They, in fact, prepared the way for their own destruction. And Holy Scripture tells us who seek the heavenly inheritance: When ye go ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land. But this security is a true one (2Sa_22:2-3).
2. It is a large land. In it we shall dwell in peace with those who now enjoy its blessedness. Our entrance there will be followed by the gift of our God to us of fuller measures of love. Could we possibly desire a life more blessed than this?--a life passed with angels, and archangels, and all Gods faithful ones. Behold, then, the land is very good, and the people dwell secure: and are ye still? In order to rouse their countrymen, and to hasten them forward towards Laish, the spies declared, God hath given it into your hands. Now these words either set forth the faith of the spies, and mean, God will give it into your hands, or they refer to Gods promise of old to Abraham (Gen_15:18), and mean, Know ye not that it is yours already by promise? God hath given it into your hands, since He sware unto Abraham that he and his seed should possess it. And we would borrow their words, and say of heaven, God hath given it into your hands. For ever since the Saviour shed His blood for you, heaven has been purchased thereby for your everlasting inheritance. Heirs, by promise, thereof, your baptism made you. Citizens of heaven ye are now. Take heed that ye forfeit not, by following the world and its lusts, your citizenship. Moreover, it was not purchased to be bestowed arbitrarily, and after the manner of men, upon a few. And this is evident from the whole of our blessed Lords teaching. In it there are many mansions. It is a large country. And though many have passed from the earth, and are sure to enter it, yet there is room. But for whom is their room? Oh, not for the proud and the haughty. Not for those who cry Lord, Lord, yet do not the things which He hath commanded. Not for those who love this present world, yet profess to seek a better, but are still! There is room in heaven for the poor and humble in spirit, for those who follow temperance, soberness, and chastity. The spies also sought to urge their countrymen on by declaring, concerning Laish, that it was a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth. So tempting a prize as this would, we should think, put away all hesitation, all fear of difficulties. And we declare the same of heaven. The blessings offered to the Danites had respect unto the present life. The blessings offered to us are those of the eternal life with God in heaven. Do you desire peace? It is there. Heaven is the abode of holiness; and where holiness is, there also is peace. Do you desire joy? It is there. In heaven sorrows and tears are not. Do you desire security? In heaven nothing shall disturb your peace, nothing shall diminish your joy. Do you long to offer unto God a worship holy and undefiled? In heaven you shall offer it. There you will join the sinless angels, and the just made perfect, and with them worship and adore your God. (C. P. Longland.)
Be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land.--
Practical attention to religion
I. Some considerations to induce an earnest, practical attention to religion.
1. Consider the glory and the grandeur of the inheritance to which you aspire. You see much of the wisdom of God in furnishing figurative descriptions of the blessedness of heaven.
2. Consider the encouraging assurances we have of success in our pursuit.
3. Consider the danger of remissness and indifference where interests so momentous are at stake.
II. Brief suggestions as to the means of promoting spirituality of mind.
1. Endeavour to form a high standard of that holiness of character in which fitness for heaven consists.
2. Serious and devout meditation upon the Word of God should form a part of the business of every day.
3. Cultivate a devotional spirit. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Fetched the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim.--
The stolen gods
Micah and his household worshipping the images of silver, the Levite officiating at the altar, seeking counsel of Jehovah by ephod and teraphim, the Danites who steal the gods, carry off the priest, and set up a new worship in the city they build--all these represent to us types and stages of what is really schism, pitiful and disastrous--that is, separation from the truth of things and from the sacred realities of Divine faith. Selfish untruth and infidelity are schism, the wilderness and outlawry of the soul.
1. Micah and his household, with their chapel of images, their ephod and teraphim, represent those who fall into the superstition that religion is good as insuring temporal success and prosperity, that God will see to the worldly comfort of those who pay respect to Him. Even among Christians this is a very common and a very debasing superstition. The sacraments are often observed as signs of a covenant which secures for men Divine favour through social arrangements and human law. The spiritual nature and power of religion are not denied, but they are uncomprehended. The national custom and the worldly hope have to do with the observance of devout forms rather than any movement of the soul heavenward. A Church may in this way become like Micahs household, and prayer may mean seeking good terms with Him who can fill the land with plenty or send famine and cleanness of teeth.
2. The Levite represents an unworthy, worldly ministry. Very few of those in the ranks of the Christian ministry are entirely concerned with the respect paid to them in society and the number of shekels to be got in a year. That he keeps pace with the crowd instead of going before it is perhaps the hardest thing that can be said of the worldly pastor. He is humane, active, intelligent; but it is for the Church as a great institution, or the Church as his temporal hope and stay. So his ministry becomes at the best a matter of serving tables and providing alms--we shall not say amusement. Here, indeed, is schism; for what is farther from the truth of things, from Christ?
3. Once more, we have with us to-day, very much with us, certain Danites of science, politics, and the press, who, if they could, would take away our God and our Bible, our Eternal Father and spiritual hope, not from a desire to possess, but because they hate to see us believing, hate to see any weight of silver given to religious uses. Not a few of these are marching, as they think, triumphantly to commanding and opulent positions, whence they will rule the thought of the world. And on the way, even while they deride and detest the supernatural, they will have the priest go with them. They care nothing for what he says; to listen to the voice of a spiritual teacher is an absurdity of which they would not be guilty; for to their own vague prophesying all mankind is to give heed, and their interpretations of human life are to be received as the Bible of the age. Of the same order is the socialist who would make use of a faith he intends to destroy, and a priesthood whose claim is offensive to him, on his way to what he calls the organisation of society. In his view the uses of Christianity and the Bible are temporal and earthly. He will not have Christ the Redeemer of the soul, yet he attempts to conjure with Christs words, and appropriate the power of His name. The audacity of these would-be robbers is matched only by their ignorance of the needs and ends of human life. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
Ye have taken away my gods.--
The loss of gods
I. All men have a God.
1. Whatever a mans god be, he deems it the greatest good.
2. But mans ideas of God are very deficient and conflicting. Some make a god of the means of gratifying their passions and lusts; others make money and riches their god; others the praise and approbation of their fellow-creatures, and others the outward rites and ceremonies of religion.
3. It is one thing to be religious; another and a very different matter to be godly, worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth.
II. False gods can be taken from their devotees.
1. Often in life. Many, long before they die, lose the means of gratifying sense; many, early in life, though lovers of money, become pitifully poor; and many, by some means or other, are deprived of the means to pursue their accustomed mode of attending to religious rites, and therefore lose their gods.
2. In death. Sense cannot be gratified in the grave. No miser has ever been able to take a grain of his adored money to another world. The worlds praise and blame are equally unimportant when a man feels he is to be ushered before the judgment-seat; and all religious rites and formularies are left behind for ever when we enter a world of spirits.
III. The loss, even of a false god, will be felt to be a great loss. What have I more? To tear the thing we have made our god from us is the greatest bereavement. Even though the thing is bad, it has been loved supremely, and the loss of it will create a vacuum and an agony intolerable. But the conscious loss of the true God--this is the climax of suffering. Then the soul is a chaos, an orphan in the universe. (Homilist.)
Micah the Ephraimite
Consider the plan of life he made, and the reason why it turned out so badly.
1. He was not a heathen, though he was an idolater. He thought to serve God through the medium of idols. It was more comfortable to remain at home, and it was more easy to worship by means of what could be seen. He was like people who say that it is not necessary to go to church, because they can read the Bible and say their prayers at home; as if reading the Bible and saying prayers were the whole duty of the man! He was also like those who think that worship must be comfortable: they are not called upon to rise early or to adopt more than a sitting posture. You can see what the influence of idols would become in this mans life. Micah would gradually forget the unseen world of which they were supposed to remind him, and his image-shop would call for his constant care and attention. What soul he possessed would be centred there, and the presence of the Levite would soothe him with the notion that all was well. Nor was the life a lonely one, for others, it seems, lived near, and took an interest in the carved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and molten image: in fact, there was quite a comfortable little schism formed into which no one was likely to inquire. Such was the plan of Micahs religious life--a cheap one, you will observe, in spite of the ten shekels of silver and apparel and victuals, for no journeys need now be undertaken to other seats of worship, and no money offered to them.
2. And why did such an inexpensive way of serving God fail? Some rude travellers robbed him of his gods and his priest, and what had he more? It might have been possible to replace them, but the cost would have been much; besides, he had grown fond of these images, and this priest, and his heart was with them. It was too late to begin life again, and such handsome images it would be difficult to make. All might still have been well had he known what worship meant, but unfortunately in his service of God he had left out God. God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, Is there anything akin to us in the character of this poor man, who began by cheating others and ended by being cheated himself?
1. True religion cannot be easy, at least at first. It never can be cheap. To do Gods will entails the sacrifice of ourselves, soul and body, to the Almighty. And so easy-going religion is popular. Men will not go far to a service. If they have their temple at their door they can drag their wearied limbs so far, but, unlike their forefathers, they do not care to walk a few miles to Gods house. As for time and money, what a little suffices often to soothe the sleepy conscience!
2. Micahs religion was self-made. Has he not followers in those who teach that we can please ourselves in the manner and method of worship? Is it perfectly immaterial whether our Saviour made a Church or not, whether we continue steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayer, or not? And if these things do matter, surely they are worth a little hard thought. We are all going the same way, people tell you. Yet it is inconceivable that all can be equally right. Are we not bound to give, each for himself, a reason for the form of the faith we hold?
3. Micahs religion failed him. His gods were taken away, and his priest, and what had he more? God was left out of sight. We can take the warning to ourselves. Our religion, it may be, has been largely outward: we have said formal prayers morning and evening; we have come to church and gone through services; we have read a few verses of the Bible as a disagreeable duty; we have hoped all was well; and suddenly, a big blow falls--and where are we? Is our religion a comfort? does it help to support us? Not a bit. Why? Because it was only skin-deep. (W. R. Hutton, M. A.)
The stable and the unstable in religion
This story has but a faint analogy with what I wish to speak of--but yet it illustrates a principle applicable in all ages, that essential religion is some thing which cannot be stolen. Now there are all sorts of Danites--real hostile Danites, and men accounted such by timid souls who are not so at all. There are ruthless Danites, whose honest, or dishonest, aim it is to remove what they really seem to think religion is wrapped up in. And then there are friendly Danites, who would remove idol images out of a real love for a more spiritual and vital faith. But whoever the Danites be, this is true--that nobody is afraid of the Danites unless he has gotten a Micah religion; and nobody encourages the raids and raileries of the Danites--What aileth thee?--like the man who cries, What have I more?
I. Any religion which centres in a form or organisation can be stolen. This is only to say that external aids to devotion, and diverse organisation of Gods host may be changed, and yet destroy none but a Micah faith which is wrapped up in them. But what has seemed so permanent and vital at different times, and to different souls, is just this very thing! The Micah faith of the Jews could be, must be, stolen away. But what was permanent? Reverence and worship of Almighty God. Again, take the New Testament. It was a zeal in Gods name by which Jesus Himself cleansed the temple of His Father! And who ever stole away the Micah elements of religion as did our Lord Himself, in mingled love and indignation for Gods eternal law? Again, have you ever realised that the great argument all through the Epistles of Paul is just this carrying-off process of that system, glorious in its purity and needed for its day, but now to pass, in its essential elements, into a different form of growth? His great contention every where is that there were shadow and substance both in the old Mosaic economy; that form was vanishing, its truth permanent; that Christ had fulfilled, or filled full, those great moral and spiritual needs of men which once were best fed by other means. Did He take away a single element that was permanent?
II. Standards of what is right and wrong in conduct may be stolen, and yet not carry off the eternal obligations of mortality. How often people have been trying to say that this, that, and the other thing is eternally right or wrong for everybody and all nations to do or not to do! It is this spirit which goes to the Bible, and in Leviticus and Ecclesiastes, as well as in John and Romans, would find, on one level of authority, some word to decide, as by a talisman, whether this or that is consistent for everybody everywhere to do or not to do. How this confuses and misrepresents the Bible! The Bible is a book of life, and so it has progressively changed and raised its forms of moral obligation from age to age. Right in the midst of the Old Testament, like a lighthouse in a storm, stand the ten commandments--true, not because they are there, but there because universally true; and yet even they are not true because that is the best or highest form of moral obligation; for Jesus says of that law, It says so and so, but I say--carrying those same principles further and higher, and adding entirely new and deeper motives and sanctions. Negative Thou shalt not accomplishes for one man or one age what Jesus positive Thou shalt love does for another--two forms of the same thing. See the progress in Bible standards!
1. Thou shalt not do wrong.
2. Thou shalt love God and man.
3. Love one another, as I have loved you. There is a vast difference between these three ways of looking at one thing.
III. What is true of forms of worship and standards of morals is true also of forms and proportions of theological issues. Judged by the Micah creeds of men we might suppose the Christian world would have nothing left of faith after the Danites of each generation had carried away some things upon which every thing seemed to hang. We are living in a time when hosts of Christian people think the ark of God is in danger as it never was before. But when was there an age in which people did not say the same thing? This is said to be an era of readjustment and revolution. Yes; but so has nearly every age been accounted since Jesus came, if we may judge from the fearful auguries of every century. There are always some people perfectly sure if this or that doctrine is not held just as their fathers, or their Church or themselves hold it, that men are cutting loose from all sure anchorage. The reassuring thing is that that is just what men have always been saying, and yet despite dark doubt and augury, hostile Danites, and men so counted Danites in one age to be canonised in the next, have all stolen only what was either false or only one-sided and temporary. There is not a great fact or essential truth of Christian revelation which is not held as firmly this very day as ever before. (A. R. Merriam.)
The Indian problem
Do we consider that a man situated as this man was a fit object of pity and sympathy or not? The stern, uncompromising iconoclast would certainly say, No. He would feel that it was better for such an one to find out by bitter experience how vain and useless were the idols in which he trusted. In and through his desolation he might be brought to seek for help where alone it could be found. The mild, tolerant student of comparative religion would probably say, Yes. He would urge on his behalf that at that particular point in the evolution of Jewish religion from its primitive worship of invisible forces it was inevitable that the worshipper should seek to give concrete form and embodiment to the anthropomorphic idea of God which was then being assimilated from the nations around. For such an one to be deprived of his idols was to be put out of rapport and correspondence with his religious environment, and as that meant spiritual death, he clearly deserves our pity in his destitution. Turning, however, from the merely speculative interest which the ancient Israelites case presents, I wish to transfer it, as in a figure, to the very real and practical interest presented by the parallel situation of a large section of our fellow-subjects in India, and to endeavour to answer the question just raised by considering what our duty to them is. For in the main the plea of the Jew of Mount Ephraim is being echoed now either in unexpressed feeling or in outspoken utterance by thousands of religious-minded Hindus in India. It is only with one portion of the problem that I would attempt to deal; that, namely, which is connected with the sphere of Christian education. It would be to repeat an oft-told tale to recount at any length what has been and will be increasingly the necessary result of such contact of the West with the East as our rule in India has brought about. That contact is unique and unprecedented in some if not all of its conditions, and must be expected to produce strange and unlooked-for, even contradictory, results. But it is of the moral aspect of them only that I wish to speak. When the Government of India decided that State education must be conducted on the principle of religious neutrality and non-interference, it does not appear whether the disintegrating effect of purely secular instruction was fully realised. What, in short, was not foreseen, but is now being daily found to be the inevitable result of the State system of education, is that while it tends to destroy much that was hurtful and fatal to progress, it fails to supply the place of what it destroys by any new and vital principle of cohesion and solidarity. The son goes back to his home and announces to his parents that he has learnt to rise superior to caste traditions and prejudices, and it is found that what this amounts to practically is, that while he has a veneer of Western learning and science, he has lost his hold of what is the very life and soul of any society, the sense of obedience, of reverence, of duty in the family and in the State. He has gained, indeed, ideas of freedom, of independence, of equality, of self-assertion, but if he has lost or is in danger of losing these other ideas, which surely it is true to say are more fundamental and indispensable for the well-being of the family and the nation, is not the loss likely to be greater than the gain, at any rate for the Indian? If there is any virtue which the caste system can claim to have developed and preserved, it is the instinct of reverence and obedience. And it is this instinct which it is the tendency of our education to weaken if not to destroy. And further, it is precisely in those parts of India which are most advanced in Western knowledge where this tendency is seen in its fullest development. What wonder is it, then, that the parent who hears of the boasted advantages of Western science and education bewails the result of it in words which seem an echo of the cry of the Jew of Mount Ephraim Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and what have I more? and how then say ye unto me, What aileth thee? But this is not all. The student, bereft of the moral sanctions of his religion, and supplied with no new motives of obedience and rectitude, is exposed to yet other dangers. If the demon of superstition has been expelled, there are the seven other spirits more wicked than the first, ready to rush in and occupy the vacant, cheerless room. For the mental facilities of the Indian student are far in advance of his moral faculties. This is so naturally; and when the course of education tends almost exclusively to develop the intellectual part of him, the disparsity becomes all the more marked. The moral element in him, already of weakened vitality, is gradually starved out, and the struggle for superiority is rather between the animal and the intellectual. There are many noble exceptions, but they cannot redeem a system which condemns the majority to moral sterility. It is to the Christian Church, and that alone, that we must turn for the assertion and vindication of the principles of true reform, as well as for the moral dynamic which is to energise and embody them in and through an actual visible living society. And it is quite wonderful to notice how Indias need of the gospel is being recognised on all sides and in the most unexpected quarters. The politician looks to the spread of Christianity as one great source of strength and stability for the permanence of British Empire. The educationalist looks to our native Christian women as at present the most hopeful means of making female education effective among the upper classes. Sir W. W. Hunter has lately said, Christianity holds out advantages of social organisation not offered by Hinduism or Islam. It provides for the education and moral supervision of its people with a pastoral care which Islam, destitute of a regular priesthood, does not pretend to. It receives the new members into its body with a cordiality and a completeness to which Hinduism is a stranger. I believe, he says, it is reserved for Christianity to develop the highest uses of Indian caste, as a system of conservative socialism. . . . But it will be Indian caste humanised by a new spiritual life.Or to take one or two more specific cases. The tahsildar or head native officer of a large country town appeals to a missionary to send a Christian teacher for a Hindu school, because he finds the Hindu teachers have yielded to the prevailing immorality of the town. The municipality of a large city in the Punjab appoints a native Christian minister its chairman because they can find no other man so high-minded and honest for the post. The only great modern religious reformer India has produced bore witness on his death-bed to Indias need of Christ. When the man of Macedonia stood before St. Paul that night in the vision, did not the pathos of the cry, Come over and help us, arise from the very fact of its being the unconscious appeal of the heathen world for help? And if the response to that cry was the mission to Europe, which was the origin and cause of all that is highest and best and noblest in our life and thought here to-day, shall the Churchs response to Indias cry be less prompt, less devoted, less full of faith and hope and love, when she has that greatest of all examples to inspire and stimulate her, the experience of the power of the message he bore to support and guide her in her task, the certainty of final victory, not in our time, but in Gods time, to cheer and encourage her till Christ comes to claim the kingdom for His own? (S. S Allnutt, M. A.)
And what have I more?--
The beyond in religion
It was natural that Micah should deplore the loss of his images. We may smile at his grief, and say that he was a very ignorant and a very superstitious man. Doubtless he might have reflected that the loss was not irreparable; doubtless he might have consoled himself with the thought of what remained. And yet we, with our purer faith and nobler creed, need to remind ourselves that such superstition is not altogether unknown amongst us. There has always been a tendency to mistake the outward and visible for the inward and spiritual, to think or to act as if these were all, and to forget the beyond; even to imagine that if these are withdrawn and taken from us, then all is gone and nothing more is left. Idolatry in its grosset forms has passed away, and it is not likely to return; but the tendency still exists to pay undue deference to and to depend upon what is visible and material and transitory, while we ignore those unseen and abiding elements in which alone the true vitality of religion consists. Let us trace this tendency in three directions.
1. Religion is enshrined in ceremonies. Forms may be not only useful in religion, they are to certain extent necessary. In Christian worship there has always been more or less of form, ceremonial, ritual. Men have tried at various times to maintain a religion which should be purely spiritual, but the effort has not in the long run been successful. In early days Christian worship was severely simple. It was so partly by design, in contrast with the sensuous materialism of surrounding idolatry; partly of necessity, because of the poverty of the worshippers. In later times came the elaboration of ceremonial. The question for us is, What have we more? Do our worship, our ceremonies lead us to what is beyond? Are we relying on the accessories, or on the everlasting truths they enshrine? What have we more? I may, for instance, be accustomed to a place of worship where the services are rendered with the most exquisite musical taste, where the art of the sculptor or the painter ministers to my sense of culture and refinement; but what have I more? If altered circumstances should force me to worship with none of those surroundings, could I know that there in the meanest and poorest temple is no less the presence of God? If I should be condemned as an invalid to pass weary months and even years within the four walls of my sick-room, could I rest in the assurance that still Christ is with me, and that possessing Him I possess all things? This is to penetrate into the kernel of religion; this is to have the power as well as the form of godliness, and it is to this that all form, all ritual, should lead up, and without this they profit nothing.
2. But religion is not only enshrined in form; it is embodied in phrases. Churches have their creeds and their catechisms. Religious truth must find its expression in doctrine, in portable forms which are easily remembered, though the doctrine probably expresses very inadequately the truth it inculcates. A sound creed is the basis of a strong character. Words are the necessary embodiment of truth. But there is always a danger lest the mere framework of words be taken as a substitute for the truth it indicates. There are those who worship, instead of a living Christ, their own wooden and stony forms of theology, which may leave them just as hard and just as narrow and just as loveless as any other form of superstition. The history of Christianity is full of examples. This tendency to depend on words is especially seen in the decadence of any religious movement. Phrases which were at one time pregnant with meaning are repeated with parrot-like accuracy by those who are very far from being animated by their spirit. They think that because they have the words they must also have the truth. What have I more? We have our doctrines, our creeds, our catechisms; but do they lead us to what is beyond? Do we reach forth with the strong grasp of a living faith to the unchanging and eternal truths which the words embody? Do you remember that it is one thing to say, I believe in God, another to believe in God with heart and soul as the great Factor in our lives? Phrases may change; but God does not change. Truth cannot change, though it may be conveyed through different means. Creed is important, but character is greater than creed. Life is more than orthodoxy, and goodness than correct opinions.
3. Once more, religion is not only enshrined in ceremonies and creeds, but also in persons. When St. Paul says that the Church is the body of Christ, he implies that our Lord works through Christian people, and that they are His representatives on earth. As a matter of fact all our earlier impressions, and many of our later impressions, in religion, have come to us through persons. The mother who taught our infant lips to pray, the teacher who first instructed us in the simple truths of the gospel, the pastor at whose feet we sat as children, the friend so noble and so brave on whom we leaned for counsel and guidance--these and others were those who first brought religion to our notice as the great power in the world. And no one can overrate the power and the value of religious training and Christian friendship. But yet even the best and purest and holiest of earthly influences may sometimes be almost the idol, whose removal may be the wreck of our hopes. I sometimes tremble for the religion of the young lad who goes forth from a holy and happy village home into the crowded thoroughfares of the great city. Will he stand fast in the future? Will he be true to the teaching of his boyhood in the presence of increasing temptations? Will he keep to the old faith in the land that is new? He will not, if his faith is merely second-hand. He will not if he has never really made his parents belief to be his own belief. The great question is, What have I more? I have Christian influence around me, I have religious friends; but what have I more? If God should see fit to take away these, have I learnt to trust in the one Friend from whom neither distance nor death can part? Can I lean on Him when every earthly prop is removed? Some years ago I was called to visit an aged lady who was on her death-bed. She was a very sincere Christian, who had led an exceptionally useful life of active benevolence. But she had drunk deep of the cup of sorrow; she had been reduced through monetary losses to comparative poverty; her husband had deserted her, and she had few, if any, relatives who could help her. And as I sat by her bedside, a few hours before her death, she talked of her trials, her sorrows, her losses, when, suddenly raising herself, she pointed upward to a text above her bed, and said, But I have found that true all along. I looked up and read the text. It was the familiar promise, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Yes, earthly friends might fail and leave her, but there was One who would never forsake her, the unchanging Friend who had strengthened and supported her in life as in death. Certainly the day will come to us all when all earthly helps will leave us, and we shall have to fall back on the unseen realities, or on--nothing. At such a time, if ever, we shall need to depend on the reality and not the shadow. No forms, no phrases, no friends can help us then. Nothing but the living Christ can then be our strength and stay; He and He only can say, When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee. May God keep us from trusting in the shadow rather than the substance. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. (Christian World Pulpit.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 I. The straits to which unbelief reduces the strong.…
THE IMAGE WORSHIP EXPANDING INTO TRIBAL IDOLATRY
HOMILETICS
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I. The straits to which unbelief reduces the strong. Jdg_18:1.
“The tribe of Dan sought them an inheritance to dwell in.” Not that they had had no inheritance till now. When a distribution was made of the land by Joshua, a considerable territory was allotted to the tribe of Dan (Jos_19:40-47). The other tribes, having received their proportion first, a small area comparatively was left for this tribe. But Judah gave up to them several of its northern towns, such as Zorah, Eshtaol, Bethshemesh, etc. This latter town, however, was afterwards given to the Levites. Ephraim also gave to Dan some of its southern towns. Stretching from the west of Benjamin on to the Mediterranean, the territory included first the hill country, and then all the lowlands, or the shephelah, being a large part of the extremely fertile plain of Sharon, having in it such towns as Jehud, Bene-barak, and others, all the way to Joppa.
But a large part of this terrestrial paradise was, at the time of the appointment, occupied by the Philistines, or Amorites, and these had to be subdued ere the Danites could enter on possession. This was no easy matter, for these enemies had iron chariots. The all-conquering faith, through which the Israelites gained all their victories, was awanting in this tribe, so that they did not succeed in driving out these doomed inhabitants. On the contrary, the Amorites forced Dan up into the mountains, and would not let them come down into the plain (Jdg_1:34-35). As the plain, or valley, was much the larger part of their inheritance, this confined the Danites within very narrow limits indeed, and hence the great straits to which they were reduced. Yet that tribe was strong in numbers, and not deficient in courage. At the latest enumeration, previous to this date, they had upwards of 64,000 men able to go forth to war. Their weak point was their unbelief. They could do nothing without their God, and He would do nothing for them, unless in so far as they trusted Him. If they had had but a strong faith, not an Amorite would have been left in all the plain, and the whole expanse of Sharon would have been theirs.
In the Christian life, from how many causes of trouble and disquiet on every side would the Saviour’s friends be set free, were their trust in “the Angel that redeems from all evil,” only more complete! Over how many green pastures would they roam, and beside how many still waters would they sit down, telling to all around that one day spent in the presence of the Rose of Sharon was worth a thousand of the best days the world could give!
II. Discontent with a Divinely marked lot leads to evil. Jdg_18:2.
The Danites would have been pleased with the shephelah, or rich plains between the hill country and the sea. But with the conditions attached, that they must drive out the Amorites, they were greatly offended. It was not impossible to comply with that condition. The fathers of that generation had conquered the larger part of the land through that faith, and in the same manner, they might have finished the conquest through faith. But it was irksome, and they wanted the faith; so that they refused to take their inheritance in God’s appointed way, and sought another way of their own. It is always dangerous to reject the lot which God has appointed for us, and instead, to take the ordering of our lot into our own hand. The consequence in this case was, that God left them to fall into idolatry. For if they had remained on their own proper soil, they would not have entered into the house of Micah, nor have been tainted with his forbidden image-worship (Psa_125:5; 2Ch_15:2). We cannot walk long in ways of our own devising, without meeting with checks to show that we are wrong.
III. Trifling circumstances often lead to the discovery of sinful schemes. Jdg_18:3.
“They knew the voice of the young man.” Some say, it should be “the sound of”—not his voice, but of the bells that were attached to the priest’s dress, and which the Levite was wearing (Jdg_17:10). The reference here is to the passage in Exo_28:35—an explanation more ingenious than accurate, for it was not at all likely, that there was a supposed need for bells in Micah’s house. Either these spies had known the Levite before, and now recognised the voice of their old friend, or they noticed at once from his speech, that he wanted the peculiar accent of the Ephraimites. This led to their questions, and those again revealed the whole truth of Micah’s evil arrangement. How simply it is done! and yet how complete is the revelation! What an illustration of the solemn assurance, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” This story must soon have come to be known all over Israel. Very numerous are the instances where dark plots against the ways of righteousness and truth are unexpectedly brought to light, and men are made to know that there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
IV. Silent neglect at first, leads afterwards to open rejection of God’s ordinances. Jdg_18:5.
These Danites seem never to have given one thought to God’s appointed way of worship at Shiloh, and they must have gone near to it in passing through Mount Ephraim. They simply entirely neglected the worship which God had instituted in connection with His people, through the Ark of the Covenant, but the moment they hear of an illegitimate method of worship of Micah’s invention, they turn aside and ask counsel at this new shrine. They practically renounce Shiloh, and place their confidence in Micah’s priest, and Teraphim. This was an advanced step in the downhill road, and ere long they ceased to acknowledge Shiloh at all, and set up a system of idol-worship systematically, when they reached their new settlement in the north (Jdg_18:30-31). Sin grows.
V. The most inoffensive people are not safe from the attacks of evil men. Jdg_18:7; Jdg_18:9-10.
When God’s claims are put aside, the rights of fellowmen are but lightly regarded. The fear of God is the true restraint on man’s lawless passions everywhere, and in every form. What a relief to Joseph’s brethren, when in the hands of those who seemed to be rough men they heard the ruler say, “I fear God!” (Gen_42:18). How uncomfortable did Abraham feel when residing for a little time in Gerar, he was constrained to say to himself, “Surely the fear of God is not in this place!” In the antediluvian age, “the earth was filled with violence,” because all fear of God was gone. Lot had a very troubled life in Sodom for the same reason. No chain is so binding, no clasp is so secure on its victim, as the fear of God on the conscience of man. Among the Danites, the knowledge of the God of Israel had already become very faint in their minds, and placed little or no restraint on their evil desires. On how many sides is the wisdom of true religion as a benefit to man vindicated.
VI. Religion is sometimes invoked to aid the plots of the ungodly. Jdg_18:5.
Though there is no real reverence for God’s name and character with this class, there is yet a secret conviction that it would be safe to have Him on their side. However intense the wish of the heart to get away from the thought of God, that is not able to smother the conviction of the understanding, that there is a God, and that our lot and life are really in His hands. So strong is this conviction, that even when the knowledge of the true God is lost, false gods start up in the mind in His stead (2Ki_1:1-16).
VII. Indirectness is a character of the world’s counsel. Jdg_18:6.
How vague the reply of the Levite priest. It simply said nothing. To the ear it had the sound of success, but to a calm analysis it might be construed into either success or failure. But this is a feature of the world’s speech on religious subjects. It seems to sound well, yet it wants the true ring. A haze hangs over their language, and there is no direct coming to the point. Instead of plain, straightforward statement, there is a certain indefiniteness in the expressions employed; you see the crook of “the old serpent,” and the meaning is left in doubt and uncertainty. On the contrary, when the heart is right with itself, and with its God, everything is distinct, direct, and unhesitating. These are the characters impressed on truth.
VIII. False worshippers take refuge in imitating the appearances of the true. Jdg_18:14; Jdg_18:17, etc.
The symbols of worship which Micah adopted were a copy of those made use of at Shiloh. The ephod was the most important part of the priest’s vestments, the graven image and molten image corresponded probably with the Shekinah and the ark, the teraphim answered to the Urim and Thummim, and the Levite belonged to the sacred tribe. Now be felt sure of the Divine blessing, though everything was but a caricature of the true. Thus multitudes believe that if they but wear the semblance of religion, keep up an external form of respect for its requirements, show reform of manners, and go through certain observances, all will be well with them, though there is no real giving of the heart to the Lord. They retain their idols, and so many of their evil ways, but because they proudly “do many things, and hear the gospel gladly,” they think themselves in a good way for the Divine blessing here, and for heaven itself hereafter. The Jews also thought that because they had Abraham as their father, because they had the temple of God among them, and had the name of being God’s people, therefore it was, and must be, well with them, though they lived wicked lives, and refused to walk in the way of God’s commandments. Many still build similar hopes on their having pious parents, being enrolled as members of a Christian church, and enjoying the privileges of Christian society, though they have nothing of the spiritual life in their hearts.
IX. Divine Providence often offers no interruption to the execution of the designs of the wicked.
We assume that the designs of the Danites were wicked, because, first—the district of Leshem appears to have been beyond the doomed territory of the Canaanites that was marked out for destruction; and second—because the motives by which they were actuated were simply lust of territory, without regard to any question of title or right. And besides Leshem was not any portion of the land given to them. They were therefore guilty of robbery on the one hand, and of wholesale murder on the other. Yet no thunders roll, and no lightnings flash, to show the anger of righteous heaven against such conduct. Thus it often is in daily life. Men are allowed to go on in their wickedness meantime, and even atrocious deeds are done while God keeps silence. Yet for all these things God will bring them one day to judgment (2Pe_2:3; Rom_2:4-9; Ecc_12:14).
X. The sudden destruction of the man-made religion. Jdg_18:15-20.
Micah’s religion was, like that of many others, only an appearance, not a reality. It had no foundation of principle to stand on. It was a case of building on the sand. Job_8:11-16.
XI. Prayer will not secure the Divine blessing on a wrong action. Jdg_18:5-6, also Jdg_18:18-19.
The Danites wished prayer to be offered for them by the priest, that God might prosper their journey. Yet that journey meant high-handed robbery and murder. How could they presume to expect that God would prosper such villany? How could they dare to ask God’s countenance in sin?
XII. Worldly minds care little for accuracy in spiritual things. Jdg_18:17-19.
They would stand out for rigid accuracy as to the measure of land allotted to them. And in any mercantile transaction, they would see to it with the keenest particularity that the exact thing stipulated for was given. But when it is a matter of paying to God the reverence which is due, they make small inquiry whether they do it in the appointed manner or not. “Those that are curious in their diet, in their purchases, in their attire, in their contracts, are yet in God’s business very indifferent.”
XIII. Neither moral principle nor sound reason can be expected of those who deny to God His natural rights.
It was base in the extreme for those very men whom Micah had so hospitably entertained to turn upon him, and callously rob him of all that he counted most sacred in his dwelling. To take away forcibly his graven and molten images, his ephod, and his teraphim, along with the priest himself, was a rough act of brigandage at the very least, if it should not rather be called sacrilege. True it was a righteous judgment from God on the transgression of Micah, but the Danites did not mean it so, neither in their hearts did they know it to be so.
And what a miserable mockery of reason was it, for the lawless men to set up as gods, objects that could not save themselves from being stolen! How could they expect the gods, to bless the men that stole them—men who had virtually been guilty of sacrilege! Why make so much of objects that are graven by art, or man’s device? Why should rational creatures worship the work of their own hand?
XIV. Success in evil is no proof of the Divine approval.
God gives temporal gifts (not blessings) or successes to the wicked—spiritual good things only to His own children.
XV. True service is not to be expected from a false priest. Jdg_18:20.
The Levite priest was a mere mercenary. Good wages were all that he cared about; and having no religion he had no morality. What a miserable caricature of a priest!
XVI. The excessive importance which an idolater attaches to his gods. Jdg_18:24.
The exclamation, “Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?” was the truest thing to which Micah gave utterance in this short but sad history. It may have arisen from two causes.
(1.) The apparatus of images, ephod, teraphim, and priest, was really all the religion he had. In his heart of hearts he had none. When the externals were taken away he was left absolutely bare. He had the delusion, that he was a religious man, and he could not afford to want the delusion. Alas! how many are in the same predicament. It is a fancy, not a power. It is all paper money with no gold in exchange; or rather when the cheque is presented, the reply is, “No effects.” But the mere name of having something, such persons cannot want. When the consciousness breaks in on the soul that it is utterly religionless, in a moment the inward monitor is aroused, and the very thunder in the heavens is too feeble, to echo the voice that rolls through the soul of the poor spiritual bankrupt! Also.
(2.) His worldly estate was invested in his gods. True, only 200 shekels were given to the founder for making the images, but the remaining 900, spoken of may have been expended on the ephod, the teraphim, the fitting up of the house as a temple, the support of the priest, and other matters not mentioned. But the main idea is, that for the future, he looked to the proceeds that might be derived from consulting his oracle as his real income. He meant in fact to trade on the superstitious fears of the community all around him. His “house of gods” was his mint. He coined money thereby. How easily is the formalist deprived of his religion! It is not shut up in the iron safe, and doubly, trebly locked, but is left outside the dwelling, exposed to the fierce winds, and a prey to the passer by. Only that religion we can keep safely in all circumstances, which is laid up in our heart of hearts, and which gives colour, variety and force to all the outgoings of the life.
How different from Micah’s complaint is that of the truly pious man! The light of God’s countenance is his riches, and his language is, “O that I knew where I might find Him!” “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory!” “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me; restore to me the joy of Thy salvation,” &c.
XVII. The extraordinary development of an evil seed. Jdg_18:30-31.
Little did the mother and son think that day, when the one told the other, that the supposed lost money was after all safely treasured up, and when the proposal was made to carve a graven image with it, that the little seedling would in a few months’ time wax into a wide-spreading tree, covering hundreds of homes in Israel with a deadly night-shade. It was the opening of a little poisonous spring which soon acquired the breadth and force of a river, and for many years proved a curse to a large section of a tribe among the people of God.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Danites go in Quest of an Inheritance. They…
The Danites go in Quest of an Inheritance. They rob Micah of his Images, capture and settle in Laish, and set up Idol-Worship there
1-10. The Danite Spies.
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2. From their coasts] RV 'from their whole number.' For Zorah and Eshtaol see on Jdg_13:25.
3. They knew] They recognised him as a Levite from the prayers he was saying.
Makest] RV 'doest.'
6. Before the lord] i.e. under Jehovah's care.
7. Laish] In Jos_19:47 the name appears as Leshem. Later on it was called Dan, from its new inhabitants (cp. Jdg_18:29, and chapter Jdg_20:1). It lay near Lebanon and the sources of the Jordan in the extreme N. of Palestine, and was about 40 m. from Sidon, the famous commercial city on the sea-coast. The rest of the v. implies that the residents were a colony from Zidon. Put them to shame] The Hebrew here gives no intelligible sense. Business] RV 'dealings.'
With any man] LXX (in some Mss) reads 'with Syria' whose capital, Damascus, was about as distant as Sidon.
10. Secure] as always in AV,' free from care or apprehension.'
11-31. The Danite Expedition to Laish.
11. Six hundred men] cp. Jdg_20:47 a very small number when compared with those given in Jdg_20:15, Jdg_20:17 or Jdg_15:15; Jdg_16:27. Yet it would seem that the larger part of the tribe went northwards. Appointed] RV 'girt.'
12. Mahanehdan] see on Jdg_13:25 they then turn northwards.
16. The gate] of the village.
17. An amplification of Jdg_18:15 farther repeated in Jdg_18:18. Here and in Jdg_18:18 'graven image' and 'molten image' are understood as two distinct objects. In Jdg_18:20, Jdg_18:30-31 the 'molten image' is left unmentioned.
19. See on Jdg_17:10.
21. Carriage] RV 'goods': cp. Act_21:15 (what is carried: cp. the word 'luggage'). The armed men marched last, expecting pursuit.
28. See on Jdg_18:7. The building of one city on the ruins of another was common, as excavations at Gezer and Lachish have made clear. Beth-rehob] unknown.
29. Israel] Jacob: see Gen_35:10.
30. The possession of this image was evidently an important thing. Jonathan] This must refer to the young Levite, who has been hitherto unnamed, unless his name has dropped out of the text previously. Manasseh] RV 'Moses.' This, the true text, was altered in later times, to save Moses from any connexion with such a priesthood as this. Captivity] Probably the depopulation of Northern Israel by Tiglath Pileser in 734 b.c.
31. In Shiloh] NE. of Bethel, where the ark was kept in the 'house of God' (1 Samuel 1-4). The destruction of this 'house' is mentioned in Jer_7:12; Jer_26:9. Possibly it was destroyed by the Philistines. In 1Sa_22:11 the priesthood settled formerly at Shiloh appears at Nob.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 Now know I
Now know I
A striking illustration of all apostasy. With his entire departure from the revealed will of God concerning worship and priesthood, there is yet an exaltation of false priesthood. Saying, "Blessed be thou of Jehovah," Micah’s mother makes an idol; and Micah expects the blessing of Jehovah because he has linked his idolatry to the ancient levitical order.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 18 The Danite Idolatry
CHAPTER 18 The Danite Idolatry
1. The Danites seek an inheritance (Jdg 18:1-12)
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2. Their robbery (Jdg 18:13-26)
3. Laish taken and idolatry consummated (Jdg 18:27-31)
The history of this chapter is closely linked with the preceding. The tribe of Dan had failed to take the God-given inheritance (Jos 19:40-46). “The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley” (Jdg 1:34). Then in self-will, entirely disregarding the will of God, they sent out spies to seek another inheritance. They meet Micah’s priest, the hireling. Micah’s idolatrous outfit including the hired priest are taken by the invaders. The hireling sees an advantage for himself, his “usefulness” is enlarged for filthy lucre’s sake. Then they killed the people of Laish and set their city on fire. The whole tribe of Dan becomes idolatrous. We have in all a picture of complete apostasy.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 The Danites Seek a New Location
The Danites Seek a New Location
v. 1. In those days there was no king in Israel, this fact being noted here again to explain the behavior of the Danites and to register the author’s disapproval of their action; and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel. Dan had indeed been given an allotment, in Northern Philistia, in the foothills and in the plain along the Mediterranean, Jos 19:40-48, but their territory had been insufficient for their needs from the beginning, chiefly because they could not summon the necessary courage and warlike valor to force out the heathen inhabitants of that country.
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v. 2. And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, men specially qualified for that purpose, selected from their whole tribe, men of valor, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, two cities in the eastern part of their territory, to spy out the land and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land, namely, for a place where they might settle without great trouble; who when they came to Mount Ephraim, on that great highway from the south to the north, to the house of Micah, they lodged there, in some part of Micah’s great establishment.
v. 3. When they were by the house of Micah, probably on the next morning, when they passed the apartments of the family, they knew the voice of the young man, the Levite, they recognized the dialect of his speech, which differed from that of the Ephraimites, or they heard the sound of the bells on his priestly garments; and they turned in thither, their curiosity having been aroused, and said unto him, Who brought thee hither? And what makest thou in this place? And what hast thou here? The situation seemed so strange to them that they demanded a detailed explanation.
v. 4. And he said unto them, Thus and thus dealeth Micah with me, giving an outline of his history, and hath hired me, and I am his priest.
v. 5. And they, also so weak in their religious convictions and knowledge that they found no fault with the man for his action, said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous; the Levite’s oracle was to give them information concerning the probable success of their undertaking.
v. 6. And the priest, after having made a great show with his copy of the priest’s ephod and his teraphim, said unto them, Go in peace; before the Lord is your way wherein ye go. The answer, "Your way is in the sight of Jehovah," was thoroughly ambiguous, but they chose to explain it in a manner favorable to their enterprise, as the Levite intended them to do.
v. 7. Then the five men departed, continuing their scouting expedition, and came to Laish, in the extreme northern part of Canaan, east of the headwaters of Jordan, and saw the people that were therein, who belonged to the Canaanitish tribes of Northern Palestine, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, to whom they were probably related, quiet and secure, concerned chiefly with commercial interests and not given to warlike enterprises; and there was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in any thing, no hereditary ruler to oppress them in any respect, no conqueror, no tyrant, bothered them; and they were far from the Zidonians, their city may have been a colony of Zidon, but they were so far from the coast of the Mediterranean that assistance from there could hardly be expected, and had no business with any man, they had entered neither into an offensive nor a defensive alliance with any of the neighboring cities. They hurt no man, and therefore did not expect to be hurt by any one, although they belonged to the nations whom the children of Israel had been commanded to exterminate.
v. 8. And they, the spies, came unto their brethren to Zorah and Eshtaol, they returned with their report; and their brethren said unto them, What say ye?
v. 9. And they said, Arise, that ye may go up against them; for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good; and are ye still? The Danites were sitting there inactive, while they had such a fine opportunity to gain this city. Be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land.
v. 10. When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, living in careless security, and therefore easily overcome, and to a large land, with room for expansion on all sides; for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth, with all the wealth and attractiveness which distinguished the rest of Canaan.
v. 11. And there went from thence of the family of the Danites, out of Zorah and out of Eshtaol, six hundred men appointed with weapons of war, fully armed for battle, each man with his family.
v. 12. And they went up, and pitched in Kirjath-jearim, in Judah, on the northern boundary of Judah, wherefore they called that place Mahaneh-dan (camp of Dan) unto this day; behold, it is behind Kirjath-jearim. An expedition for the purpose of planting a colony in this manner was at that time such an extraordinary event that the name of the camp was ever afterward remembered. But the entire undertaking was a self-appointed task on the part of Dan and was not commanded by God. It is God’s will that we remain in our station and take its burdens upon us, until He Himself shows us another way. Then His mercy and blessings will be with us.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27, 30 In those days
In those days
This phrase introduces the beginning of another event in the story line. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
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In those days ... from among the tribes of Israel
This is background information about Israel and the people of the tribe of Dan. (See: Background Information)
not received any inheritance from
This refers specifically to land inherited where they would live. AT: "not received a land inheritance from" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
from the whole number of their tribe
The phrase "the whole number" refers to all of the men in the tribe. AT: "from among all of the men in their tribe" (See: Metonymy)
experienced warriors
"experienced fighters"
Zorah
See how you translated the name of this town in Judges 13:2.
Eshtaol
See how you translated the name of this town in Judges 13:25.
to scout the land on foot
The phrase "on foot" means to walk. AT: "to scout the land by walking through it" (See: Idiom)
Micah
See how you translated this man's name in Judges 17:1.
translationWords
king
Israel
tribe
descend
Dan
receive
inherit
people group
Ephraim
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.