Judges 18 Study Notes

18:1-2 During this same period of apostasy, a group of Danites were also on the move. Like the Levite in chap. 17, they were not content with the situation assigned them by the Lord and were looking for something better. They had earlier captured the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol on the border between their territory and that of Judah, but they had been unable to conquer the rest of the territory allotted to them in Jos 19:40-48 (see Jdg 1:34). Instead of seeking the Lord’s help in their struggle, they sent out spies in a reenactment of Nm 13-14, seeking a new land for themselves.

18:3-4 The spies came to Micah’s house, where they encountered the Levite. Their questions exposed the underlying issue: “What is a Levite doing in a house of idolatry?” The Levite’s reply revealed his mercenary motives. Micah had hired him, so the Levite was serving as his priest.

18:5-7 The spies asked the Levite to inquire of God whether their trip would be successful. It is significant that they used the generic description “God” rather than the personal, covenant name Yahweh. In response, without any effort to consult God, the Levite declared that their journey would be a success because the Lord was watching over them. Since the Lord had assigned the Danites different territory, the Levite was misusing the Lord’s name (Ex 20:7) to tell the Danites what they wanted to hear. Indeed, their mission was a success—in their terms. Laish was located in a productive agricultural area at the foot of Mount Hermon. Its inhabitants were living . . . in the same way as the Sidonians, which likely means that they viewed themselves as under the protection of Sidon. However, Sidon was a long way off, on the coast near Tyre.

18:8-13 The spies brought home a positive response about their journey, a report that contrasts starkly with that of the majority of the spies about the real promised land (Nm 13-14). Six hundred Danites responded, and they set up a staging post near Kiriath-jearim, which became known as the Camp of Dan. This location was, at least temporarily, given the same name as the nearby place where Samson started out in 13:25, which invites comparison between the Danites’ self-centered conquests and those of Samson.

18:14-21 On the way to their new homeland, the Danites visited the home of Micah. The spies reported Micah’s idolatry and invited a response. The right response would have been to destroy the idols and the shrine, to root out the sin from their midst. Instead, supported by the six hundred men armed with weapons of war, the spies went into the house and took the carved image, the ephod, and the household idols. When the young Levite objected, they bribed him to join them, offering him the prospect of being a father and a priest to an entire tribe rather than a single family. The party then formed up for travel again, with the most vulnerable members, the small children and livestock, positioned at the front, in case of reprisals by Micah.

18:22-26 When Micah mustered (lit “cried out to”) his neighbors and pursued the Danites, the Danites asked him why he had done this. “Mustered” is the same verb used to describe Israel’s cry to the Lord when harassed by enemies. Here the Israelites had become their own oppressors. Micah had made his own gods and appointed his own priest, concluding that “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me” (17:13). In fact, his gods could be carried off by a passing band of brigands, and the priest he had appointed for money could be lured away by a higher salary. He was left with nothing except his own life, and the Danites were quick to threaten that as well as the lives of his family. The silver he stole at the outset was now stolen from him; his mother’s curse in 17:2 was fulfilled.

18:27-29 Laish was in a valley that belonged to Beth-rehob, a name that links this conquest by the Danites once again with the spying mission of Nm 13-14, where Rehob was the northern limit of the land (Nm 13:21). They renamed Laish Dan, after their ancestor, and established it as the primary center for their idolatrous cult. Later, Jeroboam would locate one of his two golden calves in Dan, continuing the city’s tradition of idolatry (1Kg 12:29).

18:30-31 The idol set up by the Danites served as a rival for the true worship of God, which was conducted where the ark was, in Shiloh. The Levite, introduced in 17:7, is finally named and is revealed to have an illustrious ancestry. He is Jonathan, the grandson of Moses. Later scribes who wrote out copies of the book of Judges naturally disdained the corrupt “Jonathan” and wished to show that he had greater affinity with the later idolatrous King Manasseh than he did with Moses. Thus they placed the Hebrew letter nun in the middle of the name “Moses,” making it read “Manasseh” instead. In this way they passed judgment on the false priest, linking him to evil Manasseh rather than righteous Moses. Since the scribes were careful to superscript the letter nun above the rest of the text, making it clear that it was not original to the text, we are not left in doubt that the original reading is “Moses.”

Such an idolatrous cult as the Danites, even when served by a priesthood that enjoyed an exalted ancestry, could only have a negative outcome, as the reference to an exile makes clear. The mention of the exile suggests that the final editing of Judges occurred some time after the exile of the northern kingdom in 722 BC.