Judges 18

Judges 18

The tragic story of Micah continues in Judges 18, but the focus shifts to the tribe of Dan. It begins by saying that Dan had not found a place to settle yet, so the time period of this story is a little confusing. If they did not have their tribal allotment, then this probably happened before most of the stories in the book of Judges. The time of this story really does not matter, but that does put the story in perspective, and it also shows how far Israel had drifted since the time of Joshua. These people from Dan stumbled upon Micah and recognized his Levite priest. They asked him why he was with Micah (and they did not know the situation) and he answered by saying that he was Micah’s priest. They assumed that he was still a priest for God, so they asked him to see if their journey would be a success. He told them it would and sent them on their way.


After scouting out the land, they returned to the Levite and noticed the idols that were in the house. At this point in the story it seemed as if the Danites were going to stand up for God. They believed that they would gain control of the land (possibly because of the promise God had made to all the tribes about their possessions), and they were disturbed that Micah had the idols in his house. They even went as far as to remove the idols from the house and take the Levite away from Micah as well. They told the Levite it was better for him to serve all of Israel than one household. At this point, it seemed as if the Danites had truly come to save the day by condemning Micah’s actions and restoring the Levite.

Sadly, that was not the case. Like Judges 17, Judges 18 opens by saying that there was no king of Israel at that time, alluding to the fact that the people had no sense of order. They did whatever pleased them, whatever they thought best for themselves. Instead of setting things right in Micah’s house and with the Levite, the Danites took the idols for themselves. They went into the land that they wanted and were able to conquer it. They renamed the land Dan, and it was there that they set up the idols they had taken from Micah. Furthermore, they took the Levite and set him up as their priest. They ended up doing the same things that Micah had done only on a larger scale. Instead of a single household being misled, now an entire tribe was being fed a lie from this false religion.

It would have been appropriate for the Danites to have condemned Micah and the Levite if they had set things right. If they had destroyed the idols and instituted worship to God alone, they could have destroyed Micah’s house. Instead, they overlooked his sin and ended up falling in the same trap. I think many times we fear that if we acknowledge someone’s sin and bring it to their attention, they will accuse of being judgmental and turn away from us. We fear losing friends or relationships. However, we are called to help a brother and sister when we see them falling. No, we should not be judgmental, realizing that we sin as well and that they could come to us if they saw us sinning, but we are commanded to help those we see in sin. If we do not confront the problems, we will find that they will only escalate. The sin might spread from a household to a city, like it did for the Danites. Sin is a major issue, and we cannot sit by while it ravages our communities and our churches. It may be hard to confront others in sin, but if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, then we need to be willing to do so (as well as being willing to accept it if someone comes to us).

Matt