“The 600 soldiers from Dan stayed at the gate, while the five who had spied out the land went in and took the idol overlaid with silver, the vest and the household gods. The cohen had stayed with the 600 soldiers by the gate. But when they went into Mikhah’s house and took the silver-covered image, the vest and the household gods, the cohen asked them, “What are you doing?”-Judges 18:16-18
So the five scouts along with 600 men have returned to Micah’s place…
But this time with no good intentions.
Now I want you to take a good look at the situation described here…
Because it gives us a pretty good idea of just how steeped in idolatry Israel was at this time.
The five scouts had held a little discussion among themselves and decided that since the tribe of Dan would need gods and images to worship at their new tribal home in Layish, why not take Micah’s idols and the Levite “priest” he had hired?
That was the perverted reasoning going on inside of their minds.
In addition, notice verse 17 says the five scouts decided to not just rip off the silver graven image Micah had made to honor the God of Israel, they also started stealing all of his other household gods.
In Hebrew these household idols are called TERAPHIM.
These little idols operated much like the URIM and THUMMIM that provided yes or no answers to questions directed to God.
But again, there was a big problem with all of this.
TERAPHIM are strictly forbidden by Torah.
Yet we can see here that Micah and his little Levite priest had incorporated these idols into their worship of the God of Israel.
The irony is so thick you could cut it with a wooden chopstick.
Finally, let’s take a look at verse 14:
“The men who had gone to spy out the land of Layish then said to their kinsmen, ‘Are you aware that in these buildings there is a ritual vest, household gods and a carved image overlaid with silver? Decide what you ought to do.””
“Buildings“?!
The NIV actually says “houses”.
But the original Hebrew here is בבתים (bah-bateem).
Which is the plural form of “house” or “dwelling”.
So Micah’s BEIT-ELOHIM (house of God) was actually a BAH-BATEEM located in a totally separate building.
My point is this indicates that Micah and his family were quite wealthy…
And this fact was connected to the Danite scouts’ motivation to wanna raid Micah’s home.
So again, we can see how quickly Israel had fallen away from the divine revelation they had received at Sinai from Moses.
But what’s even more tragic is they didn’t realize it.
Do you think they had made a deliberate decision to offend the Lord?
The answer is no.
Every character we’ve encountered in this story so far, Micah, the Levite and the five scouts, every one of them were simply following the common customs and beliefs of the day.
And no one questioned it.
Heck, it seems like even Israel’s priesthood didn’t question anything.
No one had bothered to check the Scriptures…
Probably because they already thought they weren’t doing anything wrong…
Or just preferred to remain in a state of ignorance…
Because it would be too much of a pain in the neck to find out later…
And then be forced to change their behavior…
Rich,
On point, as ever.
Please excuse my nitpicky nature, but I I checked my JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh and the Hebrew word in verse 14 is actually בבתים, (bah-bateem) which means “in the houses”, as you say. I point this out because you said the Hebrew word “Bayit” meant houses, but that is actually the singular form of “house”, whereas bayteem is plural.
If I may add one more reason why people prefer to remain biblically ignorant, I can describe it in one word – comfort. Often ignorance is not bliss, it is comfortable.
Many people find that just doing as everyone else does makes them comfortable, and why not? Joining in makes you one of the crowd, and maybe that need is instinctual?
You know, like fish in a school to be protected from the sharks, or wildebeests in a herd to be protected from the lions?
The Jews back then were surrounded by enemies (and how is that any different today?), and as such the more things they did that were similar to their neighbors, the safer they would feel.
And that hasn’t changed at all- today churches are marrying same-sex couples, they have graven images all over their sanctuary, and some even bury their dead under the altar!
And let’s not forget my own people- Reform and Conservative synagogues are doing many of the same thing in order to be “PC”.
Standing outside of the crowd is an exposure, and only the truly faithful can do that.
Hey Steven,
Thanks for keeping me on my toes brother!
I just made the change to BAH-BATEEM per your correction.
Shalom!