Judges 18:4 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And he said to them, "This is how Micah dealt with me: he has hired me, and I have become his priest."

NIV: He told them what Micah had done for him, and said, "He has hired me and I am his priest."

NASB: He said to them, 'Micah has done this and that for me, and he has hired me and I have become his priest.'

CSB: He told them, "This is what Micah has done for me: He has hired me, and I became his priest."

NLT: He told them about his agreement with Micah and that he had been hired as Micah’s personal priest.

KJV: And he said unto them, Thus and thus dealeth Micah with me, and hath hired me, and I am his priest.

NKJV: He said to them, “Thus and so Micah did for me. He has hired me, and I have become his priest.”

The Levite priest (Judges 17:13) in Micah's home (Judges 17:1–5) is under rapid-fire questioning. His interrogators are five strong Danite scouts. Their mission is to find a new region for their people to occupy, taking them through the hill country of Ephraim (Judges 18:1–3). It's possible Micah ran a kind of lodging house for travelers.

The Danites recognized the Levite man's voice. While that might mean they knew him from previous travels, it's far more likely they recognize his accent. This clearly identifies him as being from Judah and not Ephraim. They pepper him with questions about what he is doing there. The Levite tells them the story. Micah hired him to serve as a personal priest to the family, as part of a personalized family religion.

Everyone involved in the conversation is an Israelite who should have cared about following God's law. Every detail of this scenario ought to have generated concern. There was no room in God's commands for a personal priest to serve just one family in that family's home (Numbers 3:5–10). Even more alarming, Micah had a shrine with other gods in it (Exodus 20:1–6). As for the Danites, they are in Ephraim instead of their own territory (Joshua 19:40–46), seeking other lands to conquer.

This spiritual anarchy is likely the reason the book of Judges often repeats that Israel had no king during this era (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). They were without government leadership, but far more dangerously, they were not living in submission to their Lord (Exodus 6:7).

Here, all the Danites see is an opportunity. Like Micah, they seem to think that the Levite man's heritage automatically makes him a conduit to the voice of God (Judges 17:13). They take their chance to ask if their quest—one blatantly in defiance of God's commands—is blessed.

Judges 18:1–13 finds five scouts from the tribe of Dan seeking a new place to live. They stop at Micah's house in Ephraim and get to know his Levite priest (Judges 17:1–5). They continue north and identify Laish as a soft target, as well as a good place to live. Before long, six hundred armed Danite men set out with their families and belongings. The entire company arrives at the home of Micah in Ephraim to camp for the night.

The people of the tribe of Dan want to relocate because they failed to take their allotted territory in the Promised Land. They send five scouts to find land. The men stop at Micah's home (Judges 17:1–5, 13) and meet his priest before continuing north. They find Laish and realize it's a soft, vulnerable, peaceful town. A six hundred-man army and their families stop at Micah's home to steal his house gods and hired priest. When they arrive at Laish, the Danites slaughter the Sidonians living there, burn the city, rebuild it, and move in. Dan becomes a center of false worship.

In the prior chapter, Micah hires a personal cleric for his family religion. Judges 18 describes how he loses all his religious objects and that priest to raiders from the tribe of Dan. That convoy continues north to their target, the town of Laish. This town was selected, in part, for being helpless against attackers. The raiders rename the city "Dan." The people and the priest establish a center for false worship which lasts for centuries. Joshua 19:40–48 describes how Dan moved from their allotted land into this unapproved territory (Joshua 17).

The Book of Judges describes Israel's history from the death of Joshua to shortly before Israel's first king, Saul. Israel fails to complete God's command to purge the wicked Canaanites from the land (Deuteronomy 7:1–5; 9:4). This results in a centuries-long cycle where Israel falls into sin and is oppressed by local enemies. After each oppression, God sends a civil-military leader, labeled using a Hebrew word loosely translated into English as "judge." These appointed rescuers would free Israel from enemy control and govern for a certain time. After each judge's death, the cycle of sin and oppression begins again. This continues until the people of Israel choose a king, during the ministry of the prophet-and-judge Samuel (1 Samuel 1—7).