JUDGES Chapters 17-21 The following chapters illustrate what happens morally and religiously in a nation when every man does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:21). In these chapters we will find immorality, callousness, apostasy, lawlessness, legalism, and so on. If we depart from the Scriptures, we are bound to become just as backward and darkened in our own thinking. The inconsistently, hypocrisy and overreaction in these chapters, reminds me of the statement made by Jesus, “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24).
Chapter 17 17:1 The name “Micah” (MIE kuh), means, “Who is like Yahweh”. It is ironic that a man with a name like that should establish an idolatrous shrine and an unlawful priesthood. 17:2 Here we learn that Micah had previously stole 1100 pieces of silver from his own mother! Evidently, Micah had heard that his mother had pronounced a cursed upon the person who had stolen her money and he was frightened into confessing his guilt. “In tune with the moral chaos of the day, a man named Micah stole a substantial sum of silver from his own mother. The eleven hundred shekels—about twenty-eight pounds—is an amount also mentioned in 16:5. Compared with the yearly wage of ten shekels (verse 10), its value represents a fortune. No wonder Micah’s mother cursed the thief!” (Gaebelein p. 480). 17:3-4 Both Micah and his mother are two superstitious individuals. “He is a thief but at least he is an honest thief” (Inrig p. 267). Apparently the blessing pronounced by his mother was intended to cancel out the effect of the curse she had uttered. Note that his mother never really condemned Micah and there is a good reason for that: “She was a thief too. Look at what she said in verse 3. ‘I wholly dedicate the silver…to the Lord.’ But then, in verse 4, we read that she paid out 200 silver pieces for