“Judges 17:13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me seeing I have a Levite as a priest.”
After the story of Samson in the Book of Judges we have a rather odd story. Chances are you never heard this story in Sunday School and you may never even have heard this story in a sermon. Yet, it is in Scripture and its message seems to be quite clear.
The story in Chapter 17 centers on a man from Ephraim name Micah who stole 1,100 pieces of silver from his mother. Curious that the Bible specifically mentions 1,100. Jewish tradition teaches that this mother was really Delilah who received 1,100 pieces of silver to rat on Samson. Of course Delilah was a Philistine and this is apparently an Israelite woman, but then maybe Delilah had a conversion experience.
Another idea is that one thousand in Hebrew is the word Aleph which is in a Hiphal demonstrative form. In this form coupled with the word ma’ah which means one hundred would then mean to bring forth thousands. We learn in verse three that Micah’s mother had intended to consecrate this silver to God, or some perversion of her concept of God. Aleph also means a bull or calf not unlike the golden calf of the wilderness wanderings or the pagan god Apis. She might have been planning to offer this in hopes of it being multiplied. Sort of like a seed faith offering.
When Micah fessed up she declared that she would restore it to him. The word restore is shuv which is in a Hiphal form and would more correctly mean to recall or revoke. In other words she would revoke her curse. We learn in verse two that Micah’s mother cursed the loss of the silver. The word used for cursed is alah. Alah is rarely rendered as curse as it really means to call upon God. The mother called upon God to restore her silver which she was going to use to offer to her god or her concept of God to get a multiple blessing. Sounds crazy? No? Sort of like using the money God has given you to buy a lottery ticket and then asking God to help you choose the correct number. Of course we, as Christians, would never do such a thing.
We find Micah now has a change of heart and returns the silver to her. However, I think he had a little nudge. Leviticus 5:1 tells us, “‘If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.” Micah knew that when his mother invoked her alah (appeal to God), God was going to get him so he fessed up before the lightning bolt descended. Once returned she took 200 pieces of the silver and made them into a graven image. Why 200 and not the entire 1,100? She was using a portion of this silver to make an idol. Why 200? This was a fifth of the 1,100 and according to Leviticus 6:5 “All that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, [and] give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.” This 200 pieces of silver was meant to be a trespass offering. So how does she offer it? She makes an idol out of it, then uses the rest of the nine hundred pieces of silver for its original intention which was to bribe her god for a blessing. The nine hundred would go to maintain the place of worship and pay the light bill so to speak. I mean this story gets even crazier. Jewish tradition teaches that Micah then builds a little altar and makes an ephod, most likely using some of the silver from the remaining nine hundred pieces of silver and consecrates one of his sons to be a priest and set up a little backyard worship center where the object of worship was an idol made from the silver which Micah stole and returned. The bottom line is that Micah began to worship his own good deed hoping that such a good deed would bring him good fortune. But wait this story gets more wild.
Then to really add the frosting on the cake along comes a real, honest to goodness, Levite. The Levites were members of the priestly tribe. This Levite, however, was homeless which leads one to believe that he comes out of a shady background. However, he was a Levite none the less, and Micah gave him a good job offer to be priest for his backyard temple. Now he can add some real professionalism to his do it yourself temple. A Levite priest will really give him creditability with God and bring good fortune.
In verse 13 Micah declares that the Lord will indeed prosper him because he now has a Levite priest. The word prosper is the Hebrew word tov with a double Yod which indicates that this is in a Hiphal form. In other words this will cause the Lord to prosper him. The Hebrew word for Lord here is the word Jehovah.
Ridiculous, don’t you think. Yeah, about as ridiculous as thinking that if you spend your rent money to buy a ticket to fly to some convention where there is a true man of God preaching and you give a big portion of your rent money as an offering to him he will lay hands on you and of course if you have an honest to goodness holy man pray for you God will surely bless you and give you your miracle. Of course we Christians today are too sophisticated to do such things. That Levi was no more than a Levitical rabbit’s foot to Micah. We would never consider our preachers or religious teachers to be a Levitical rabbit’s foot now, would we? Of course we learn later that poor Micah did not get toved or blessed or get his miracle, in fact he ended up losing everything, empty handed.
Maybe the reason we never read this story in Sunday School or heard sermons on it is because we are most certainly not as foolish as Micah. Could we be so foolish as to think that we would take our good works and good deeds and actually worship them? Then when we face a real need we run and get a preacher to lay his hands on us as we hold our good deeds up to God and say: “With these good deeds I have done and with this Godly man laying hands on me, I know God will prosper me now and give me my miracle.” Surely God would respond by saying; “Oy, what good things you’ve done for me Bunkie, and now you have an honest to goodness ordained preacher praying over you I will surely bless you. How can I not answer your prayer, you deserve it, you earned it.”
No, none of us can be that foolish in our thinking. Such a story would have no application to any of us today. We all know better than that.
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