Judges 17:1

Mount Ephraim. See on ch. 2:9 and 3:27. The exact place of Micah’s home is left indefinite. The implication is that it was somewhere along the road that ran through the central mountains of Palestine in the territory of Ephraim.

Micah. Heb. mikayehu. This Hebrew form occurs only here and in v. 4. Elsewhere in this narrative the shortened form, mikah, is used. The full form of the name means “who is like God [Yahweh],” whereas the shortened form means merely “who is like.”

Beginning with ch. 17, the remainder of the book of Judges is composed of two appendixes to the history of the preceding chapters. Up to this point in the narrative of the book of Judges the incidents have centered around apostasy, oppression, and deliverance. The remaining five chapters contain the record of two events that happened earlier in the judges period. They are related to show the lawless state of affairs during this era.

Chapters 17 and 18 give incidents in the life of Micah and show the migration of a part of the tribe of Dan from its allotted territory between the sea and the southern boundary of Ephraim to the northern section of Palestine adjacent to the territory of Naphtali. The narrative falls into three parts: (1) the origin of Micah’s idolatry (ch. 17:1—6), (2) how a renegade Levite became the priest of this idolatrous worship (ch. 17:7-13), (3) how the image happened to be transferred to Dan along with the migration of a portion of that tribe. The events here described probably took place during the time of the elders that followed Joshua (ch. 2:6-10; see on ch. 18:29).