or tribe of Judah. Some explain the words that counsel to those who came to inquire to be merely B more accurate definition of (see note to ver. 5). It may be added that llethlchcm-juda.h, as if he would say, I the idea. of counsellor seems to be inherent mean Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah. in the word <XJhen or priest, as in 2 Sam. Others explain them to mean that he was viii. 18 ; 1 Kings iv. 5, &c. Ten shekels- one of B family of Levites who had settled a little over a pound of our money, but pro- in Bethlehem, and 110 came to be reckoned bably equivalent to £20, when considered in civil matters o.s belonging to Judah, relatively to articles of consumption. A Others, that he was of the family of Judah suit of apparel. There is great doubt as to on his mother's side, which might be the the exact meaning of the word rendered suit cause of his settling at Bethlehem. . But in this connection. The word means anything many commentators think them spurious, arranged, i. e. put in a rank, or row, or as they are not found in the Septuagint order. In Exod. xl. 23 it is applied to the (Cod. Vat.), nor in the Peschito, nor in No. shewbread : "He ordered the bread in 440 of De Rossi's MSS. The Septuagint has order." Thence it came to mean the esti- Bethlehem of the family of Judah. mation or worth of a person or thing-some- Ver. 8.-From Bethlehem-judah. Rather, what a.s we use the word rank. From this out of. The whole :phrase means, out of last sense some interpret the word here t,i the city, viz., out of Bethlehem. Mount mean the worth or price of his clothes. Ephraim-the hill country of Ephraim, a.s Others, including St. Jerome and the ver. 1, where see note. Septuagint, interpret it a pair of vestments, Vers. 10, 11.-A father. This is not a meaning summer and winter clothing. But common application of the word father in perhaps the A. V., auit, meaning the whole the Old Testament. The prominent idea set of under and npper garments, is after all seems to be one of honour, combined with the best interpretation. The Levite went authority to teach and advise. It is applied in. The Hebrew is went, i. e. according to to prophets (2 Kings ii 12; vi. 21 ; xiii. 14), the common use of the word, 1oent his way. and to Joseph (Gen. xlv. 8). The idea is And such is probably the meaning here. He implied in the converse phrase of son, applied went his way to consider the proposal made to those to whom the prophets stood in the to him. The result is given in the next relation of spiritual fathers (see 2 Kings viii verse: And the Levite was content, &c. 9; Prov. iv. 10, 20, and frequently elsewhere). Ver. 13. - Then se.id Micah, &c. We The abuse of the feeling which dictates the may notice this incidental proof that the term as applied to human teachers is reproved Levites in the time of Micah held the re- by our Lord (Matt. x.xiii. 9). It has been ligious position which is a.scribed to them in freely used in the Christian Church, as in the Pentateuch. I have a Levite. Rather, the titles/apa or pope applied to bishops, the Levite, meaning the particular Levite of abbot an abbas, fat her in God, fathers whom it is the question. A Lwite would of the Church, &c. Here there is perhaps a. be without the article, as in ver. 7, or would special reference to the function of Micah' s be expressed as in eh. m. 1 (Heb. ), a man a priest to ask counsel of God, and then give Levite.
HOMILETICS. Vers. 1-13.-T/te superstitious worship of the true God. The natural history of religion is a very curious one. • There is first the broad division between worship given to false gods and that which is given to the one true and living God, Creator of heaven and earth. The· l;ieathen of old, like the heathen of to-day, worshipped those that were no gods. Either they had no existence at all, and were the creatures of man's imagination, divinities supposed to preside over the various powers o.E nature and the -affections of the human heart; gods of the weather, of the eorth, and sea, and sky; malignant spirits supposed to influence human destiny, and requiring gifts to propitiate them; personifications of light, or death, or even of criminal human passions; or else they were beings who hod indeed a real existence,- sun, moon, stars, stones, animals, angels, demons, or the spirits of dead men,-but who were not God. This worship of false gods we know from. Holy Scripture, and from the annals of all nations, was prevalent over the whole ancient world, and we know that it exists in heathen lands to the present day. But that is not the form of corrupt religion to which this chapter calls our attention, nor is it that into which there is any probability of Christians falling in this nineteenth century. 'Ne tnrn, therefore, to the varieties of the worship offered to the one true God. And first to look at the particular case before us. The mother of Micah seems to have been in L'I 2 180 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [CH. XVII. 1-13.