Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Judges chapter 18 verses 16 through 31:
16While the six hundred men of the Danites, armed with their weapons of war, stood by the entrance of the gate, 17the five men who had gone to spy out the land proceeded to enter and take the idol of cast metal, the ephod, and the teraphim.* The priest was standing by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war.18When the men went into Micah’s house and took the idol of cast metal, the ephod, and the teraphim, the priest said to them, ‘What are you doing?’ 19They said to him, ‘Keep quiet! Put your hand over your mouth, and come with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one person, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?’ 20Then the priest accepted the offer. He took the ephod, the teraphim, and the idol, and went along with the people.
21 So they resumed their journey, putting the little ones, the livestock, and the goods in front of them.22When they were some distance from the home of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house were called out, and they overtook the Danites. 23They shouted to the Danites, who turned around and said to Micah, ‘What is the matter that you come with such a company?’ 24He replied, ‘You take my gods that I made, and the priest, and go away, and what have I left? How then can you ask me, “What is the matter?” ’ 25And the Danites said to him, ‘You had better not let your voice be heard among us or else hot-tempered fellows will attack you, and you will lose your life and the lives of your household.’ 26Then the Danites went on their way. When Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home.
27 The Danites, having taken what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, put them to the sword, and burned down the city. 28There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with Aram.* It was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob. They rebuilt the city, and lived in it. 29They named the city Dan, after their ancestor Dan, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was formerly Laish. 30Then the Danites set up the idol for themselves. Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Moses,* and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the time the land went into captivity.31So they maintained as their own Micah’s idol that he had made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.
A lengthy read, and the culmination of an even lengthier narrative which I have been exploring the past two days. (Find these on the August 20 and 21st, 2018 posts on ryonprice.blogspot.com.
What this man Micah learns in today’s story is just how fickle and self-serving and ultimately abandoning for-hire religion can be. When there was nothing more to be gained from Micah, his personal priest dropped him to go and serve the tribe of the marauding Danites. It was into their camp that he brought his idols — recorded as a foreshadowed indictment in the Biblical narrative of the book of Judges.
So, the decadence of one man’s hyper-individualist and narcissistic prosperity religion, shows itself to be both a symptom and also a cause of a much larger social calamity threatening all the tribes of Israel. The whole federation is in jeopardy at the end of this narrative. And there is no one to lead the fractured people towards a more united and moral vision of themselves.
And so we hear the book’s continuous and lamentable refrain once more:
“In those days, there was no king in Israel; and everyone did as he saw fit.”
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