Judges 17

Judges 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans in the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the activities of Micah of Ephraim. belonging to a section comprising Judges 17 to 21.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 13 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

Double Introduction and Double Conclusion

Chapters 17 to 21 contain the "Double Conclusion" of the Book of Judges and form a type of inclusio together with their counterpart, the "Double Introduction", in chapters 1 to 3:6 as in the following structure of the whole book:
There are similar parallels between the double introduction and the double conclusion as the following:

Introduction 1	Conclusion 2
The Israelites asked the, saying, "Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?" The answered, "Judah is to go…."	The Israelites … inquired of God … "Who of us shall go first to fight against the Benjaminites?" The replied, "Judah…."
The story of how Othniel got his wife	The story of how the remainder of the Benjaminites got their wives
The Benjaminites fail to drive out the Jebusites from Jebus	A Levite carefully avoiding the Jebusites in Jebus suffers terrible outrage in Gibeah of Benjamin
Bochim: God's covenant; Israel's unlawful covenants with the Canaanites; Israel weeping before the angel of YHWH	Bethel: the ark of the covenant of God; Israel weeps and fasts before the
Introduction 2	Conclusion 1
The degeneration of the generations after the death of Joshua ; God leaves certain nations "to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the 's commands, which he had given… through Moses"	A mother dedicates silver to the Lord for her son to make an idol; That son makes one of his own sons a priest in his idolatrous shrine, then replaces him with a Levite. That Levite is Moses' grandson. He and his sons become priests at Dan's shrine

The entire double conclusion is connected by the four-time repetition of a unique statement: twice in full at the beginning and the end of the double conclusion and twice in the center of the section as follows:
It also contains internal links:
Both sections end with a reference to Shiloh.

The Bethlehem Trilogy

Three sections of the Hebrew Bible — Judges 17–18, Judges 19–21, Ruth 1–4 — form a trilogy with a link to the city Bethlehem of Judah and characterized by the repetitive unique statement:
as in the following chart:

Judges 17–18	Judges 19–20	Ruth 1–4
A Levite of Bethlehem	A Levite of Ephraim who took as his maiden a concubine from Bethlehem	A movement from a Moabite to David in Bethlehem
Left to seek employment	Received his concubine from Bethlehem to which she had fled	A man left Bethlehem, but unlike the other two stories does not ultimately deface the town, but enhances its name
Came to a young man of Ephraim	Returned to Ephraim by way of Gibeah of Benjamin	Bethlehem became the subtle setting for the birthplace of King David
Served as a private chaplain in Micah’s illicit chapel	Set upon by evil men who brutalized her and left her for dead
Hired by the tribe of Dan as a priest and relocated in Laish	Her husband related the event to all of Israel
Established a cult center which continually caused God’s people to stumble	They attacked the tribe of Benjamin almost annihilating it
The Levite was Jonathan the son of Gershom and the grandson of Moses	Repopulated Benjamin with women from Shiloh and Jabesh Gilead for the 600 surviving men of Benjamin
	Jabesh-Gilead was the home of Saul’s ancestors
	Reflects badly on Benjamin and by implication Saul—Saul’s ancestors humiliated and disgraced a Bethlehemite
	Bethlehem suffered at the hands of Benjaminites

The founding myth of Dan

Chapters 17–18 record a Danite founding myth that gives insight into Israelite early religious lives, and the ideology of war as background to the establishment of Dan as a city. Reading the entire section in the light of Deuteronomy 12:1–13:1, there are several thematic elements and concerns in common, although Judges 17:1–18:31 usually portrays them antithetically.

Micah's idols (17:1–6)

The section starts with a confession of a guilty son named Micah, who had stolen his mother's money, but now returned it to her. The mother was not angry, but instead praised God for her son's remorse and asked him to dedicate the money to YHWH by making a "a carved statue" and "a cast metal icon", which were used as symbols of a deity's indwelling presence. Micah completed his private shrine with a 'divinatory ephod' and teraphim, then installed one of his own sons to serve as priest.

Verse 2

"Eleven hundred shekels of silver": About 28 pounds, or 13 kilograms. This is exactly the amount of money offered to Delilah to betray Samson from each of the five Philistine lord's. There is no support that Delilah could be Micah's mother, so the phrase "1100 shekels of silver" serves only as a literary link between the two stories.
Micah and the Levite (17:7–13)

This section shows the venerable status of Levites in Israel, so the presence of a levitical priest would lend a special recognition to a shrine, 'granting its owner prestige and divine blessing'.

Verses 7–8

"Out of Bethlehemjudah": Among the cities of Judah, Bethlehem is not a Levitical town, and Judges 18:30 states that this Levite is actually a descendant of Gershom, the son of Moses, so he is a member of the Kohathite clan, which are allotted ten towns from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, of the tribe of Dan and of the half-tribe of Manasseh. Therefore, this Levite should not have been living in Bethlehem in Judah and probably did not get enough support, so he had to find a place somewhere else.