Judges 17:1-7- Micah the Ephraimite

The story of Samson had three scenes. Similarly, Judges 17-18 has three scenes.

• Judges 17:1-6, Judges 17:7-13, Judges 18.

Today we will consider Judges 17:1-6 and the main point of this story is, “When God’s people lose their focus on understanding and obeying God’s Word, their spiritual health will quickly deteriorate. The evidenced of this will be seen in the home, in the congregation, and in the community with long lasting consequences."

If we were reading the Book of Judges for the first time and read verse 1 we might think there was some hope that something good was going to happen. It says, “There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.” There are two reasons for this hope.

• First, we are introduced to a man from the hill country of Ephraim.

• Second, this man’s name is Micah.

Reason #1 for optimism: In the beginning of this story the focus has shifted from Samson and the Danites to the tribe of Ephraim. We read, “There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim...”. Even though there has been a couple times in Judges when the Ephraimites cause trouble (Judges 8&12); however, Ephraim already has a storied tradition within Israel which might give us a reason for hope.

For example, the tribe of Ephraim have descended from Joseph. In the Book of Genesis we see that Joseph was a faithful and righteous man. Throughout his life he resisted the temptation to become bitter during long and difficult trials. Unlike Samson, Joseph cobnsistently resisted temptation. And when Joseph did experience God’s blessings he did not become prideful with the prosperity and power that God gave him. In other words, Joseph avoided the spiral of decline that Israel always experiences.

• Ephraim descended from Joseph and consider the blessing that Jacob gave to Joseph, saying, “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel), by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.” (Gen 49:22-26) Will Joseph’s descendants be like this?

• At the end of Joseph’s life he had a strong faith and a steady hope that God would fulfill every promise that He had given to Israel. (Genesis 50:22-26;Hebrews 11:22) He knew that God would bring Israel out of Egypt and his descendants were to his bones into the Promised Land.

• There is another reason to be hopeful that this man from Ephraim will change this narrative for the better. For example, Joseph had two sons. Manasseh was the oldest and Ephraim was the youngest, but when Jacob gave the blessing to the youngest- Ephraim. (Genesis 48) Because of thisblessing Ephraim was a strong tribe.

Question: Could it be that this man will be faithful like Joseph and opporate in the blessing that this tribe had been given?

Reason 2 for optimism: We read in Judges 17:1b that this man is named Micah, “There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.”

This is the first of many times that this name will appear in the scriptures. In the future there will be a great prophet named Micah who will point Israel to the Christ. The meaning of this man’s name should catch our attention and give us a reason to be hopeful. His name means, ‘Who Is Like Jehovah’. Will this man be like the psalmist in Psalm 113: 2-6 who proclaims, “Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised! The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high, who looks down on the heavens and the earth.”

You would think that if this man’s parents gave him this name that they would be godly couple who would raise their son according to the Word of God. You think that they would raise their child according to Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

With a name like ‘Micah’ we’d hope that this man’s life will be a reflection of his ancestor Joseph whose life was described in Scriptures as a man who knew Yahweh and trusted in His sovereign providence, Consider these two scriptures about Joseph’s relationship with the LORD.

• Genesis 39:2, “The LORD (Jehovah) was with Joseph, and he became a successful man…”.

• Genesis 39:21, “The LORD (Jehovah) was with Joseph and (the LORD) showed him steadfast love and gave him favor…”.

Question: Wouldn’t it be great if this man is a man lived for the glory of the LORD?

Question: Wouldn’t it be great if Micah prospered because he loved the LORD and obeyed Him?

As we continue to read any hope that we’d hope to see quickly disappears. In verses 2 we see that this man and his family have some serious problems, “And he (Micah) said to his mother, ‘The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.’” (2)

Ok, Micah is not the man that we had hoped he would be. As soon as we are introduced to him we discover that he has taken a large sum of money from his mother. In Samson’s story we saw that 1,100 pieces of silver is a very significant amount of money. (Judges 16:5) In Judges 17:10, we see that ten pieces of silver is a good yearly wage. Therefore, Micah has stolen over a hundred and ten years of wages!

When Micah’s mom discovers that the silver is missing she uttered a curse against whoever stole it. When Micah hears this curse he is convicted by it and he confess his sin to her, saying, “Behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” (2)

Observation#1: I wonder what this says about Micah’s manner of life? Most people who get to the point where they can take such a large sum of money from their mother have probably been sinning for quite some time. Then over time their conscience gets hardened and it becomes easier for them to sin even more. Micah is not the man we hoped he would be.

Observation#2: Micah seems to have some twisted sort of fear of God because he responds like this. Today, if someone heard a curse like this I don’t think that it would effect them like it does Micah. Because Micah had a responsive conscience to this curse we might hope that this story is going to be salvaged in some way. Maybe, like Samson, Micah will address this sin with true repentance and things will improve. (Matthew 3:8)

Observation#3: In the story of Samson it took some pretty strong discipline from God to bring about his repentance. One reason Samson sinned so much is because initially his parents enabled him in it and they did not instruct him according to the Word of God. (14:1-5) Regrettably, we see the same thing happening in this story. This could be a decisive turning point in Micah’s life if he were aided by his parents to move towards godly repentance, but he will not receive this help. Micah’s repentance will fall short of true repentance and his heart will become even more deceived and hardened to the truth of God’s Word. How quickly sin grows in the heart if parents fail to discipling and instruct their children in the LORD.

Observation#4: When you read this story you get the impression that Micah has a natural inclination towards religious idolatry. Later we see that Micah’s son apparently has this inclination as well. (17:5) I often wondered if Micah wanted that money to make idols so he stole this silver to do it. When Micah’s mother is told by Micah that he stole the silver she very quickly offers to make idols with it.

We read these things and we hope that Micah’s mother would use this as a teaching moment. (Dt.6:4-9) We want her to say, “Micah, if you are truly repentant you need to confess your sin, restore what has been stolen plus an extra fifth, and bring an offering to the priest to sacrifice it to the LORD.” This is exactly what Leviticus 6:1-7 would tell Micah to do.

This is not what she will do. We read in Judges 17:2b, “And his mother said, ‘Blessed be my son by the LORD. And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, ‘I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you. ’” (2b-3)

Micah’s mother is ignorant of God’s Word and so she does not instruct her son so that he might truly repent, be forgiven, not continue in his sinful idolatry, and so that he would not lead others into sin.

This woman had spoken a curse, but like Jephthah in Judges 11, her ignorance of biblical truth will not help her know how to deal with it. She thinks this curse can be replaced by simply speaking a blessing over Micah. (Leviticus 27) In our culture, we hear about generational wealth, but what we don’t hear a lot about is the generational spiritual poverty that we are passing down to our kids. That is what is going to happen here. (17:5-6)

When Micah gives the silver back to his mother things get even worse. We read, “So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah.” (4)

Shortly after the Fall in Genesis 4 Cain brought an offering to the LORD. He did not bring an animal to sacrifice; instead, he brought the fruit of the ground so the LORD did not accept this offering. (Genesis 4:3-5) Similarly, Micah’s mother is making all this stuff up and doing it in the name of Jehovah, saying, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son...”. (3) This will not please God, but only provoke God’s anger.

Even though she promised to dedicate all of the silver to the LORD, saying, “I dedicate the silver to the LORD…”, she only gives 200 pieces of silver. This is similar to what Ananias and Sapphira do in Acts 5:1-11. She covets the silver, it is her idol, and she cannot part with all of it. (Hebrews 13:5-6) She is not like the psalmist who says, “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and pieces of silver.” (119:72)

Leviticus 6:6 required that a lamb without blemish needed to be offered by the priest and restitution made, but instead of doing this Micah’s mother does something worse. She says, “I dedicate this silver...to make a carved image and a metal image.” (3) This mother and her son are not going to do what the LORD has commanded them to do. Instead, they are going to do what they are commanded not to do! (Deuteronomy 5:1-15)

I’ve wondered, “Is idolatry so rampant in Israel that they can find a Jewish person in Israel who would take this gold and make it into an idol? Has idolatry gotten that bad in Israel?” There are two things to consider. First, because of Israel’s failure to conquer the land from the Canaanites, the Canaanites could be helping with this. Remember what Judges 1:29 says, “And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.” Faithless people will never have a problem helping God’s people to sin!

Secondly, because Ephraim did not remove the Canaanites, they were being influenced by them and becoming more and more like them in their idolatrous practices. (Deuteronomy 14:2, 26:18) Judges 2 spoke of this, saying, “They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them...They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.” (12-13) The faithlessness of past generations are still effecting Ephraim.

Verse 1 began with the words, “There was a man…”. The end of verse 4 begins with similar words, “And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest.” (5) We had hope for Micah in verse 1, but this man is an idolater who was faithless and wicked. He will pass these this idolatry onto his kids. When we do not pass on the faith we actually train our kids in something else! What a responsibility we have been given to instruct the next generation.

In this first scene we have seen that three generations of a family have gone terribly wrong. The text shows us that this problem is much worse than a single family. All of Israel is in trouble because of what we read in verse 6, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

These last two stories in the Book of Judges shows us just how quickly Israel turned away from the LORD. Every family, church, denomination, and community that turns away from God and His Word will quickly drift away from the truth and all the blessings associated with it. The Book of Judges shows us just how hard it is to recover from this downward slide.

To do so, there must turn to Jesus Christ in true repentance. Let’s do this together by reciting as a corporate prayer Psalm 119:33-30, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. Behold I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!” (119:33-40)