Micah's Idol - Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis

The text has many doublets; Laish is described as peaceful, unmilitarised, and impractically allied to just the Sidonians in both and 18:7 and 18:27-28; it is stated that Israel had no king in both 17:6 and 18:1; the Levite begins to live with Micah in 17:11 and in 17:12 . The text seemingly has contradictions. In 17:7 the Levite is a young man who lived in the neighborhood of Micah, while in the following verse he is a wandering Levite; in 18:2 the scouts spend the night in Micah's house, in 18:3 they are passing nearby; in 18:19 the priest voluntarily goes with them, in 18:27 he is taken; in 18:30 the idols are used until the captivity of the land but in 18:31 it is until the house of God ceased to be in Shiloh. Textual scholars thus believe that the text probably was formed from two earlier spliced together narratives; the majority view being that the one of these spliced together narratives was Judges 17:1, 17:5, 17:8-11a, 17:12a, 17:13, 18:1, parts of 18:2, 18:3b, 18:4b-6, 18:8-10, parts of 18:11, 18:12, parts of 18:13, 18:14, 18:16, 18:18a, 18:19-29, and 19:31, and that the remaining verses are the other narrative.

Unsplicing these narratives, one finds that in the first narrative,

• Micah is from Ephraim, and has a shrine containing an ephod and teraphim
• Micah initially installs his son as priest
• the Levite is passing by and installed by Micah in exchange for wages, clothes, and food
• the five scouts are sent by the Tribe of Dan from Zorah and Eshatol, spend the night at Micah's house, and are blessed by the Levite
• the Levite is persuaded to join the warriors because he could then be a priest for a whole tribe
• Micah and his neighbours pursue the Danites but are dissuaded from fighting
• the Danites reach Laish, a fertile region, and weakly protected city, attack the population, and burn the city
• Laish is rebuilt and renamed Dan, and Micah's idols are used there until the house of God ceases to be in Shiloh.

In the second narrative,

• Micah stole money from his mother, and she consecrated them to Yahweh, and had a fraction of them turned into a carved image and silver idol
• The Levite lives nearby as a resident alien (the Hebrew word is however sometimes translated as sojourner, making this more similar to the first narrative)
• The Levite was like a son to Micah
• The five scouts, representative of their clans, pass Micah's house and recognise the voice of the Levite
• The scouts report back that Laish is surrounded by a fertile region, and is a weakly protected city, so the Danites decide to attack it
• The scouts take the idols from Micah while the Levite, who protests, is with the 600 warriors stood at the gate
• Once at Laish, the Tribe of Dan set up the idols, install Jonathan son of Gershom, and descendants, as priests, and this state of affairs continues until the captivity of the land

In addition, the first four verses (17:1-4) use a different form of the name Micah than the remainder of the text. Scholars think these verses have been subject to scribal corruption and are misplaced from their original order. The original order is probably that the mother first consecrated the silver to Yahweh, and only then did the son own up to the theft - the consecration of the silver likely being a ploy by the mother to get the son to own up to the theft (particularly as she only puts a fraction to the purpose it was consecrated for)

There is some debate between textual scholars as to the provenance of each narrative; among those who subscribe to Hexateuch-like theories there is even uncertainty as to whether the first narrative should be considered Elohist (or Elohist-like) or Jahwist (or Jahwist-like), and the origin of the second narrative is even more debated. Textual scholars believe that the whole narrative is ultimately designed as a slur on the sanctuary at Dan, which became a significant sanctuary in the Kingdom of Israel, by a writer or writers who were opposed to the presence of idols there. It is notable that everyone except the people of Laish is portrayed negatively - Micah is a thief (at least in the second narrative), his mother consecrates 1100 shekels but only gives 200 of them for the purpose to which they were consecrated (again in the second narrative), the mother has molten and graven idols created (second narrative) - which violates the Mitzvot against this-, the Tribe of Dan steal the idols, the Levite is disloyal (in the first narrative), and Dan brutally conquer and destroy the peaceful and unmilitarised city of Laish (in the first narrative).