5 And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an ephod and family gods and put one of his sons in the position of priest.
Now Laban had gone to see to the cutting of the wool of his sheep; so Rachel secretly took the images of the gods of her father's house.
And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.
And now, it seems, you are going because your heart's desire is for your father's house; but why have you taken my gods?
And he said, You have taken my gods which I made, and my priest, and have gone away; what is there for me now? Why then do you say to me, What is your trouble?
And put the linen bands round Aaron and his sons, and the head-dresses on them, to make them priests by my order for ever: so you are to make Aaron and his sons holy to me.
For the children of Israel will for a long time be without king and without ruler, without offerings and without pillars, and without ephod or images.
This is what they are to make: a priest's bag, an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of coloured needlework, a head-dress, and a linen band; they are to make holy robes for Aaron your brother and for his sons, so that they may do the work of priests for me.
Now when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, went in flight to David, he came down to Keilah with the ephod in his hand.
After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places. And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.
And Cyrus the king got out the vessels of the house of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 17
Commentary on Judges 17 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 17
All agree that what is related in this and the rest of the chapters to the end of this book was not done, as the narrative occurs, after Samson, but long before, even soon after the death of Joshua, in the days of Phinehas the son of Eleazar, ch. 20:28. But it is cast here into the latter part of the book that it might not interrupt the history of the Judges. That it might appear how happy the nation was in the judges it is here shown how unhappy they were when there was none.
Jdg 17:1-6
Here we have,
Jdg 17:7-13
We have here an account of Micah's furnishing himself with a Levite for his chaplain, either thinking his son, because the heir of his estate, too good to officiate, or rather, because not of God's tribe, not good enough. Observe,