Judges 17

In his well-known poem “The Second Coming,” the Irish poet William Butler Yeats describes the collapse of civilization in vivid and frightening imagery. Each time I read the poem, I feel chilled within, and then I give thanks that I know the One who is coming.

“Things fall apart,” writes Yeats; “the center cannot hold.”

The closing chapters of the book of Judges echo that theme: “the center cannot hold.” The nation that once marched triumphantly through Canaan to the glory of God now disintegrates morally and politically and brings disgrace to His name. But what else can you expect when there is “no king in Israel” and the people are flouting the laws of God?

The events described in chapters 17–21 took place earlier in the period of the judges, probably before the forty-year rule of the Philistines. The movements of the tribe of Dan would have been difficult and the war against Benjamin impossible if the Philistines had been in charge at that time. The writer departed from historical chronology and put these events together as an “appendix” to the book to show how wicked the people had become. In three major areas of life, things were falling apart: the home, the ministry, and society.

God has established three institutions in society: the home, human government, and the worshipping community—Israel under the old covenant and the church under the new covenant. The first of these, in both time and significance, is the home, because the home is the basis for society. When God wedded Adam to Eve in the garden, He laid the foundation for the social institutions humanity would build. When that foundation crumbles, society begins to fall apart. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3).

The name Micah means “Who is like Jehovah?” but the man certainly didn’t live to honor the Lord. He had a family (Judg. 17:5), although nothing is said about his wife, and we get the impression that his mother lived with him and that she was wealthy. The “extended family” was normal in Israel.

Somebody stole 1,100 shekels of silver from Grandmother, and she pronounced a curse on the thief, not knowing that she was cursing her own son. It was the fear of the curse, not the fear of the Lord, that motivated the son to confess his crime and restore the money. Then Grandmother joyfully neutralized the curse by blessing her son. In gratitude for the return of her money, she dedicated part of the silver to the Lord and made an idol out of it. Her son added the new idol to his “god collection” in his house, a “shrine” cared for by one of his sons whom Micah had consecrated as priest.

Have you ever seen a family more spiritually and morally confused than this one? They managed to break almost all the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–17) and yet not feel the least bit guilty before the Lord! In fact, they thought they were serving the Lord by the bizarre things they did!

The son didn’t honor his mother; instead, he stole Disorder: Israel sinks into anarchy from her and then lied about it. First, he coveted the silver, and then he took it. (According to Col. 3:5, covetousness is idolatry.)

Then he lied about the whole enterprise until the curse scared him into confessing. Thus he broke the fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments, and he broke the first and second commandments by having a shrine of false gods in his home. According to Proverbs 30:8–9, when he stole the silver, he broke the third commandment and took the name of the Lord in vain. Breaking seven of the Ten Commandments without leaving your own home is quite an achievement!

The man’s mother broke the first two commandments by making an idol and encouraging her son to maintain a private “shrine” in his home. According to Deuteronomy 12:1–14, there was to be but one place of worship in Israel, and the people were not permitted to have their own private shrines. Furthermore, Micah’s mother didn’t really deal with her son’s sins; his character certainly didn’t improve by the way she handled the matter. But she was a corrupt person herself, so what else could he expect?

Micah not only had a private shrine, but also he ordained his own son to serve as priest. Certainly Micah knew that the Lord had appointed the family of Aaron to be the only priests in Israel, and if anybody outside Aaron’s family served as priests, they were to be killed (Num. 3:10).

Because Micah and his family didn’t submit to the authority of God’s Word, their home was a place of religious and moral confusion. But their home was a good deal like many homes today where money is the god the family worships, where children steal from their parents and lie about what they do, where family honor is unknown, and where the true God is unwanted. Television provides all the “images” the family will ever want to “worship,” and few worry about “thus saith the Lord.”

I recall hearing Vance Havner say, “We shouldn’t worry because the government won’t allow children to have Bibles in school. They’ll get free Bibles when they go to prison.”

But today our prisons are so crowded that the government doesn’t know what to do. If every family would make Christ the head of the home, we could stop some of the nation’s crime right at the source. Godly homes are the foundation for a just and happy society.

Not only did God establish the home and instruct parents how to raise their children (Deut. 6), but He also instituted spiritual leadership in the worshipping community. Under the old covenant, the tabernacle and then the temple were the center of the community, and the Aaronic priesthood supervised both. Under the new covenant, the church of Jesus Christ is the temple of God (Eph. 2:19–22), and the Holy Spirit calls and equips ministers to serve Him and His people (1 Cor. 12–14; Eph. 4:1–16). In His Word, God told the Old Testament priests what they were supposed to do, and in His Word today, the Holy Spirit guides His church and explains its order and its ministry.

A young Levite named Jonathan (18:30) had been living in Bethlehem of Judah, which was not one of the cities assigned to the priests and Levites (Josh. 21; Num. 35). He was probably there because the people of Israel weren’t supporting the tabernacle and its ministry with their tithes and offerings as God commanded them to do (Num. 18:21–32; Deut. 14:28–29; 26:12–15). Why live in one of the Levitical cities if you’re going to starve? When God’s people grow indifferent to spiritual things, one of the first evidences of their apathy is a decline in their giving to the work of the Lord; as a result, everybody suffers.

Instead of seeking the mind of the Lord, Jonathan set out to find a place to live and work, even if it meant abandoning his calling as a servant of God. The nation was at a low ebb spiritually, and he could have done something to help bring the people back to God. He was only one man, but that’s all God needs to begin a great work that can make a difference in the history of a nation. Instead of being available to God, Jonathan was agreeable only to men, and he eventually found himself a comfortable home and job with Micah.

If Jonathan is typical of God’s servants in that period of history, then it’s no wonder the nation of Israel was confused and corrupt. He had no appreciation for his high calling as a Levite, a chosen servant of God. Not only were the Levites to assist the priests in their ministries (Num. 3:6–13; 8:17–18), but they were also to teach the law to the people (Neh. 8:7–9; 2 Chron. 17:7–9; 35:3) and be involved in the sacred music and the praises of Israel (1 Chron. 23:28–32; Ezra 3:10). Jonathan gave up all that for comfort and security in the home of an idolater.

Jonathan’s ministry, however, wasn’t a spiritual ministry at all. To begin with, he was a hireling and not a true shepherd (Judg. 18:4; John 10:12–13). He didn’t serve the true and living God; he worked for Micah and his idols. Jonathan wasn’t a spokesperson for the Lord; he gave people just the message they wanted to hear (Judg. 18:6). When he was offered a place involving more money, more people, and more prestige, he took it immediately and gave thanks for it (v. 19). And then he assisted his new employers in stealing his former employer’s gods!

Whenever the church has a “hireling ministry,” it can’t enjoy the blessing of God. The church needs true and faithful shepherds who work for the Lord, not for personal gain, and who will stay with the flock to feed them and protect them. True shepherds don’t see their work as a “career” and run off to a “better job” when the opportunity comes. They stay where God puts them and don’t move until He sends them.

True shepherds receive their calling and authority from God, not from people (Gal. 1:6ff.), and they honor the true God, not the idols that people make. It must grieve the Lord today to see people worshipping the idols of ministerial “success:” statistics, buildings, and reputation. In today’s “consumer society,” selfappointed preachers and “prophets” have no problem getting a following and peddling their religious wares to a church that acts more like a Hollywood fan club than a holy people of God. And to make it worse, these hirelings will call what’s happening “the blessing of God.” Jonathans and Micahs will always find each other because they need each other.

The sad part of the story is that Micah now thought he had the favor of God because a genuine Levitical priest was serving as his private chaplain. Micah practiced a false religion and worshipped false gods (with Jehovah thrown in for good measure), and all the while he rested on the false confidence that God was blessing him! Little did he know that the day would come when his priest and his gods would be taken from him and nothing would be left of his religion.