Unintentionally Humorous Texts: Micah’s Misfortunes, Part 2

Introduction: The first verses of Judges 17 tell the story of Micah. In a word, he stole a lot of money from his mother, but returned it to her after she pronounced a curse on the stuff—and, probably, the thief whoever it may have been. The section concludes with Micah establishing his own religion, we may as well call it, with idols, and his own son as a priest.

But now, here comes a renegade Levite into the picture and Micah is about to encounter more of the misfortunes he thought he’d escaped!

Text: Judges 17:7-13, KJV: 7 And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. 8 And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehemjudah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed. 9 And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehemjudah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. 10 And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in. 11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons. 12 And Micah consecrated the Levite; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. 13 Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

Thoughts:

The entire tribe of Levi, including the priests, did not receive an inheritance in the land of Canaan. The LORD’s promise was that HE was their inheritance and as long as Israel followed the Law, bringing in the offerings and doing what the LORD commanded, all would be well. Deuteronomy 28 has an excellent summary of this.

Something, though, seems to have gone wrong because a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. We don’t know much about him, except that he may have been a descendant of Kohath, one of Levi’s sons, as the Kohathites were given cities located in Judah’s and Simeon’s territory. Bethlehem was not one of these cities, though (see Joshua 21), so I’ve sometimes wondered just what this guy was doing there!

Apparently things didn’t work out in Bethlehem so this Levite continued north towards Mount Ephraim—amd of all places, he was headed to Micah’s house (verse 8)! Of note, there were cities for Levites in Ephraim’s territory, as well; Shechem, Gezer, Kibzaim, and Bethhoron were cities for Kohathites (Joshua 21:21-23); perhaps this Levite thought he’d have better luck at one of these cities for Levites.

Anyway, the Levite speaks with Micah and Micah cons the Levite into staying with him! Here’s the “deal”, so to speak: Micah promised the Levite ten “shekels” or actually a rather small pittance—10 whatever they were amounts to less than 1 per month for the year—and a suit of apparel (clothes, but only one set?), and, to me, this is the clincher, “victuals” or food! I think this event took place during one of the times when Israel had abandoned the God of Israel for any number of pagan deities. If they—Israel—was not worshiping God as they should have been, then they were not bringing in the tithes of the produce such as the LORD had commanded in the Books of Exodus through Deuteronomy.

And if they weren’t bringing in the food for the priests, and the Levites (who, yes, got their food from the various offerings; see Numbers 18:24-32 and Deuteronomy 18:1-8 for two references), then some, like this man, decided they’d, maybe, help God out and find something on their own.

The Levite listened to Micah’s offer and must have thought something like, “He’s not offering me very much but it’s better than what I’m getting now . . .so, I’m in!” This Levite was “content” to stay with Micah.

Micah must have been somewhat older than the Levite because the writer says he treated the Levite like ‘one of his sons”. Micah also consecrated the Levite, so that the Levite became Micah’s priest—for the collection of idols Micah had collected! And Micah closes this chapter by exclaiming; “Now I know the LORD will do me good! I have a Levite to be my priest!”

Micah had started off on the wrong way by stealing his mother’s money. His next step in the wrong direction was to make an assortment of idols. Worse, he set up one of his own sons to be “priest” but made things worse beyond that by recruiting a Levite, one of the people who assisted Israel in worship of the True God, into becoming a priest and “father” to him.

This was part 2 of Micah’s misfortunes—corrupting a Levite—but something very bad was going to be coming his

way before very long.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).