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Judges 17:5

King James Version (KJV)

“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody

Judges 17:5

Verse 5 of 13

Scripture focus

And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

Judges 17:5 — KJV

Commentary

Commentary on Judges 17:5

Theological / Devotional

House of gods. The Hebrew may be translated “a house of God” (see ch. 18:31). It means that Micah built a private shrine or sanctuary.

Ephod. For a description of the ephod see on Judges 8:27; Ex. 28:6. The ephod was worn by the priest when inquiring of God.

Teraphim. These were household idols (Gen. 31:19, 34 [Heb. teraphim]; etc.; see on Gen. 31:19). They were also used as oracular instruments (Eze. 21:21; Zech. 10:2). Some of them seemed to be in human form (1 Sam. 19:13-17).

Consecrated. The Hebrew phrase thus translated literally means “filled the hand.”

The expression may have originated from the custom of filling the hands of the newly consecrated priests with portions of the sacrifice.

One of his sons. Micah had apostatized so fully that he not only made an image and a private sanctuary but actually installed one of his sons as the priest of the sanctuary.

Every one of these acts was in direct violation of the requirements of the law of Moses.

By SdaBc