Judges Chapter 17

After the death of Samson, the book of Judges no longer mentioned raising any other judge to deliver Israel (even though Samuel was Israel’s last judge – see 1Sam7:15-17).

Instead, the focus turns towards the breakdown of Israel’s faith, with the phrases “In those days… there was no king in Israel,” and “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” first appearing in this chapter (v6).

A few incidents are recorded in the coming chapters to illustrate the extent of this breakdown. This chapter records the first of them, revolving around Micah and his household worship.

When Micah’s mother realized her money that was meant for religious use went missing, she put a curse on it. But when Micah returned it to her, she blessed him instead. Perhaps she was no longer angry that the (rather large – see v10) sum of money was found, or she didn’t want to be angry towards her son, being a loved one.

Regardless, Micah should have been at least reprimanded for theft. God’s truth and justice were no longer seen in their lives.

After Micah returned the silver, his mother decided to proceed with plans to make their own household idol, thinking that they could worship God in their own house as they pleased. This demonstrated the breakdown of the Israelites’ personal relationships with God.

We also see a breakdown in structural worship in Israel.

The Levite, who was looking for a place to stay, came to Micah’s house. The very fact that the Levite had to try his luck around the country to look for a place to stay indicates that the service of the Levites had stopped. This further implies that the Israelites would also have stopped tithing, thus putting the Levites out of their jobs.

The Israelites reached this stage of their faith after generations of neglect; even though they were given numerous opportunities to turn over a new leaf, their response was always to keep returning to sin.

Let us therefore take this as a warning, that not only does our neglect of faith pull ourselves further from God, the adverse consequences would continue to affect future generations as well.