10 And Micah saith to him, `Dwell with me, and be to me for a father and for a priest, and I give to thee ten silverlings for the days, and a suit of garments, and thy sustenance;' and the Levite goeth `in'.
and now, ye -- ye have not sent me hither, but God, and He doth set me for a father to Pharaoh, and for lord to all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
And the Levite is willing to dwell with the man, and the young man is to him as one of his sons.
and they say to him, `Keep silent, lay thy hand on thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us for a father and for a priest: is it better thy being a priest to the house of one man, or thy being priest to a tribe and to a family in Israel?' And the heart of the priest is glad, and he taketh the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and goeth into the midst of the people,
and it hath been, every one who is left in thy house doth come in to bow himself to him, for a wage of silver, and a cake of bread, and hath said, Admit me, I pray thee, unto one of the priest's offices, to eat a morsel of bread.'
And the king of Israel saith unto Elisha, at his seeing them, `Do I smite -- do I smite -- my father?'
And the king saith unto Hazael, `Take in thy hand a present, and go to meet the man of God, and thou hast sought Jehovah by him, saying, Do I revive from this sickness?' And Hazael goeth to meet him, and taketh a present in his hand, even of every good thing of Damascus, a burden of forty camels, and he cometh in and standeth before him, and saith, `Thy son Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, hath sent me unto thee, saying, Do I revive from this sickness?'
And Elisha hath been sick with his sickness in which he dieth, and come down unto him doth Joash king of Israel, and weepeth on his face, and saith, `My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and its horsemen.'
A father I `am' to the needy, And the cause I have not known I search out.
Yea, ye pierce Me concerning My people, For handfuls of barley, And for pieces of bread, to put to death Souls that should not die, And to keep alive souls that should not live, By your lying to My people -- hearkening to lies.
`What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver him up to you?' and they weighed out to him thirty silverlings,
for a root of all the evils is the love of money, which certain longing for did go astray from the faith, and themselves did pierce through with many sorrows;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 17
Commentary on Judges 17 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 17
All agree that what is related in this and the rest of the chapters to the end of this book was not done, as the narrative occurs, after Samson, but long before, even soon after the death of Joshua, in the days of Phinehas the son of Eleazar, ch. 20:28. But it is cast here into the latter part of the book that it might not interrupt the history of the Judges. That it might appear how happy the nation was in the judges it is here shown how unhappy they were when there was none.
Jdg 17:1-6
Here we have,
Jdg 17:7-13
We have here an account of Micah's furnishing himself with a Levite for his chaplain, either thinking his son, because the heir of his estate, too good to officiate, or rather, because not of God's tribe, not good enough. Observe,