The Pulpit Commentary — Judges — Section 166

exitet meaning of tho two words here used, took two hundred shekels nnd gnve them to and their relation to one e.notlter in the the founder. It is a great puzzle to explnin worship to which they belong. The molten why two hmidred shekels onlr e.re hero image (massech.ah), however, seems to be spoken of, and wl111t became o the other pretty certainly the metal, here the silver, nine hundred. Berthenu thinks tho two image of a calf, the form which the corrupt hund,·ed were different from the eleven worship of Jehovah took from the time when hundred,· and were tho fifth part of the Ae.rou made the molten calf (Exod. xxxii. 4, whole valuA stolen, which the thief, accord- called there 'eqel ma,ssechah, a molten calf) ing to Levit. vi. 6, was bound to give in e.d- to the time when Jeroboam set up the dition to the principal. He therefore trans- golden calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings lates ver. 4 thus : "So he restored the money xii. 2S, 29). And that massechah means to his mother (and his mother took two something molten is certain both from its hundred shekels), and she gave it (the money etymology (nasach, to pour) and from what = 1100 shekels) to the founder," &c. Others Aaron said in Exod. xxrii. 24: " I cast it understand that two hundred only were in to the fire, and there came out this calf." !1ctually made into the graven and molten Here too Micah's mother gives the silver to image, and the other nine hundred were the founder, i. e. to the fuser of metals. devoted to other expenses of the worship. The pesel, or graven image, on the other In the house of Mioah. This explains, Now hand, is something hewn or graven, whether I will restore it unto thee, and, for my son in wood or stone, and sometimes overlaid to 11iake, &c., in ver. 3 . • with gold and silver (Deut. vii. 25). One Ver. 5.-And the man Micah, &c. . It is might have thought, from the language of .impossibl~ to say for certain whether ·the ver. 4, and from the mention of the pesel state of things here described in respect of alone in eh. xviii 30, 31, that only one Micah preceded the events· 'narra.ted in the image is here intended, which was graven preceding verses, or was consequent upon with the chisel after it was cast, as Aaron's them. If it preceded, then we have the calf seems to have been. But in eh. rri.ii. reason of his mother's vow : she wished to 17, 18 they are mentioned separately, with make her son's "house of God" complete the ephod and teraphim named between by the addition of a graven and molten them, so that they must be distinct. From image. • If it was consequent upon his the above p1tSS11ges the pesel or graven mother's vow, then we have in the opening image would seem to have been ,the most verses of this chapter a history of the cir- important object, and the difficulty is to cumstances of the foundation of Micah's assign the true relation of the ma,ssechah or "house of God," which was to play an molten image to it. Hengstenberg thinks important part in the colony of Danites, the massechah was a pedestal on which whose proceedings are related in the follow- the pesel stood, and that the ephod was ing chapter, and for the sake of which this the .robe with which the pesel was clothed, domestic history of l\Iicah is introduced. and that the teraphim were certain tokens House of gods. Rather, of God (Elohim) ; or emblems attached to the ephod which for the worship was of Jehovah, only with gave oracular answers. But this is not a corrupt and semi-idolatrous ceremcnial. much more than guess-work. Bertheau An ephod. See eh. viii. 26, 27, note. Tera- considers the ephod, here as elsewhere, to phim. See Gen. xxxi. 19 (images, A. V.; be the priest's garment, put on when per- teraphim, Heh.); I Sam. xv. 23 (idolatry, forming the most solemn services, and A. V.; teraphim, Heh.); xix. 13 (an image, specially when seeking an answer from God. A. V.; teraphim, Heh.); Hosea iii. 4, &c. .And he thinks that the ma,ssechah formed a They seem to have been a kind of Penates, pa.rt of the ornament of the ephod, because or household gods, and were used for divina- in eh. xviii 18 the Hebrew has "the pesel tion (Ezek. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2). :Beoe.me of the ephod." The temphim he thinks are his priest. One function of the priest, and • idols, a kind of Dii mirwres associated with for which it is likely he was much resorted the worship of Jehovah in this impure wor- to, was to inquire of God by the ephod (eh. ship. But there does not seem to be any xviii. 5, 6). What his other duties might be means at present of arriving at any certainty. does not appear. The ma,ssechah might be a rich gold or silver Ver. 6.-There was no king. This must ~verlaying of the wooden image, possibly have been written in the days of the kings of movable, or it might be the separate image Israel and Judah, and perhaps with reference of a calf supposed to belong, as it were, to to the efforts of such kings as Asa (1 Kings the pesel, and to symbolise the attributes of xv.13) e.ndJehoshaphe.t (1 Kingsxxii. 43) to the Godhead. put down idolatry. Ver. 4.-Yet he restored. Rather, So he Ver. 7.-0f the family of J'udah. These restored, repeating what was said in ver. 3, words are difficult to explain. If the man and aci.diDg the consequence, that his mother • was a Levite he could not be of the family en. XVII. 1-13.] THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 179