MICAH
21^
MICAH
carried off to Laish, and the "molten" one remained be- hind with Micah (xviii, 20,30; comp. 18). True the Sept. adds the molten image in ver. 20, but in ver. 30 it agrees with the Hebrew text.
(3.) But the transaction becomes still more remark- able wlien we consider that this was no obscure or ordi- nary Levite. He belonged to the chief family in the tribe ; nay, we may say to the chief family of the na- tion, for, though not himself a priest, he was closely al- lied to the priestly house, and was the grandson of no less a person than the great Moses himself. For the " Manasseh" in xviii, 30 is nothing less than an altera- tion of " Moses," to shield that venerable name from the discredit which such a descendant would cast upon it. See Maxasseh, 3. In this fact we possibly have the explanation of the much-debated passage, xviii, 3: '• They knew the voice of the young man the Levite." The grandson of the Lawgiver was not unlikely to be personally known to the Danites; when they heard his voice (whether in casual speech or in loud devotion we are not told) they recognised it, and their inquiries as to who brought him hither, what he did there, and what he had there, were in this case the eager questions of old acquaintances long separated.
(4.) The narrative gives us a most vivid idea of the terrible anarchy in which the country was placed when " there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes," and shows how urgently necessar\^ a central authority had become. A body of six hundred men completely armed, besides the train of their families and cattle, traverses the length and breadth of the land, not on any mission for the ruler or the nation, as on later occasions (2 Sam. ii, 12, etc. ; XX, 7, U), but simply for their private ends. iMitirely disregarding the rights of private property, they burst in wherever they please along their route, and, plunder- ing the valuables and carrying off persons, reply to all remonstrances by taunts and threats. The Turkish rule, to which the same district has now the misfortune to be subjected, can hardly be worse.
At the same time it is startling to our Western minds — accustomed to associate the blessings of order with religion — to observe how religious were these lawless freebooters : " Do ye know that in these houses there is an ephod, and teraphim, and a graven image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what ye have to do" (xviii, 14). " Hold th\' peace and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest" (ver. 19).
(5.) As to the date of these interesting events, the narrative gives us no direct information beyond the fact that it was before the beginning of the monarchy ; but we may at least infer that it was also before the time of Samson, because in this narrative (xvii, 12) we meet with the origin of the name of Mahaneh-dan, a place Avhich already bore that name in Samson's childhood (xiii, 25, where it is translated in the Auth. Vers. " the camp of Dan"), That the Danites had opponents to their establishment in their proper territory before the Philistines entered the field is evident from .Judg. i, 34. Josephus entirely omits the story of Micah, but he places the narrative of the Levite and his concubine, and the destruction of Gibeah (chaps, xix, xx, xxi) — a docu- ment generally recognised as part of the same (see Ber- theau, KommenUir, p. 192) with the story of Jlicah, and that document by a different hand from the previous por- tions of the book— at the very beginning of his account of the period of the judges, before Deborah or even Ehud {Ant. V, 2, 8-12). This is supported bj' the mention of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, in Judg. xx, 28. An argument against the date being before the time of Deborah is drawn by Bertheau (p. 197) from the fact that at that time the north of Palestine was in the pos- session of the Canaanites— " Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor," in the immediate neighborhood of Laish. The records of the southern Dan are too scanty to permit our fixing the date from the statement that the Danites had not yet entered on their allotment.—
I that is to say, the allotment specified in Josh, xix, 40- 48. But that statement strengthens the conclusion ar- rived at from other passages, that these lists in Joshua contain the towns allotted, but not therefore necessarily 230ssessed by the various tribes. '• Divide the land first, in confidence, and then possess it afterwards," seems to be the principle implied in such passages as Josh, xiii, 7 (comp. 1) ; xix, 49, 51 (Sept. " So they went to take possession of the laxid").
The date of the insertion of the record may perhaps be more nearly arrived at. That, on the one hand, it was after the beginning of the monarchy is evident from the references to the ante-monarchical times (xviii, 1 ; xix, 1 ; xxi, 25) ; and, on the other hand, we may perhaps infer from the name of Bethlehem being given as "Bethlehem-judah," that it was before the fame of David had conferred on it a notoriety which would ren- der any such afhx unnecessary. The reference to the establishment of the house of God in Shiloh (xviii, 31) seems also to point to the early part of Saul's reign, be- fore the incursions of the Philistines had made it neces- sary to remove the tabernacle and ephod to Nob, in the vicinity of Gibeah, Saul's head-quarters. — Smith. Some, like Le C'lerc, argue for a later date, from the phrase, " until the day of the captivity of the land," in xviii, 30, as if it necessarily referred to the Assyrian in- vasion. The reading is doubtful. Studer and Hitzig take the 30th verse as a later interpolation; Kimchi, Hiivernick, Hengstenberg, and Bleek refer the phrase- to the captivity of the ark in the time of Eli, but on no good ground, unless the reading V^Nfl be changed, as some prefer, into '|"'"''!*'7- Stiihelin and Ewald, regard- ing the verse as a later addition, place the composition about the period of Asa or Jehoshaphat ; Stiihelin in- sisting, too, that the diction does not belong to the purer period of the language. Verse 30, indeed, does not quite agree with 31, which seems to limit the duration of the Danite idolatrj' to the period of the station of the ark at Shiloh ; and the phrase, "until the day of the captivit}-," as Keil remarks {Commentm-y, ad loc), may refer to some unknown invasion on the part of the neighboring Syr- ians. Besides, it can scarcely be supposed that this idol- atrous cultus, so directly and openly opposed to the spirit and letter of the Mosaic law, would have been allowed to stand in the zealous daj'S of Samuel and David. See Stanley's Lectures on the Jeicish Church, p. 296, 297. — Kitto. See Judges, Book of.