Commentaria in Judices
Chapter 17
The mother of Michas gives two hundred pieces of silver to cast an idol; wherefore Michas made an Ephod and Theraphim, and made one of his sons a priest. Soon, verse 7, receiving a travelling Levite into his house, he appoints the same priest of his idol.
1. There was at that time a man of mount Ephraim named Michas, 2. who said to his mother: The eleven hundred pieces of silver which thou hadst laid up for thyself, and about which thou didst swear in my hearing, behold I have, and they are with me. And she answered him: Blessed be my son to the Lord. 3. He restored them to his mother, and she said to him: I have consecrated and vowed this silver to the Lord, that my son may receive it at my hand, and make a graven and a molten idol, and now I deliver it to thee. 4. He restored them therefore to his mother, who took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to the silversmith, to make of them a graven and a molten idol, which was in the house of Michas. 5. And he separated in it also a little chapel for God, and made an ephod and teraphim, that is, a priestly garment and idols; and he filled the hand of one of his sons, and he became his priest. 6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did that which seemed right to himself. 7. There was also another young man of Bethlehem Juda, of his kindred, and he was a Levite and dwelt there. 8. And going out of the city of Bethlehem, he was minded to sojourn wheresoever he should find it convenient. And when he was come to mount Ephraim, making his journey, and turning a little aside into the house of Michas, 9. he was asked by him whence he came. And he answered: I am a Levite of Bethlehem Juda, and I go to dwell where I can, and where I shall find it profitable for me. 10. And Michas said: Stay with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee every year ten pieces of silver, and a double suit of apparel, and thy victuals. 11. He consented, and stayed with the man, and was to him as one of his sons. 12. And Michas filled his hand, and had the young man for his priest with him. 13. Now I know, saying, that God will do me good, having a priest of the Levitical race.
This is the second part of the book, in which, after the deeds of Samson and of the Judges, some other histories, which happened about the same time, are appended; namely, chap. xvii, the wicked idolatry in the tribe of Ephraim; chap. xviii, the expedition of the Danites, the taking of the city Lais, and their fall into idolatry; chap. xix, the outrage of the tribe of Benjamin; chap. xx, its destruction; chap. xxi, its restoration.
1. THERE WAS AT THAT TIME A MAN OF MOUNT EPHRAIM NAMED MICHAS.—“At that time,” namely when the deeds contained in this book of Judges were done, which, because they were chiefly the argument of this book, the Author wished to relate first in order, and to throw the so long narration of the five following chapters to the end of the book. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Salian, the Carthusian and others.
You will ask, when did the things recounted in these following chapters happen? Serarius answers, Question XIV, that they happened a little after the death of Samson, before Heli succeeded him, as they are placed here. But others commonly hold that they happened before the times of the Judges, a little after the death of Josue, while Caleb lived, and the elders his contemporaries, as is gathered from chap. xx, 27, where it is said that this happened while Phinees the Pontiff lived, who was the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, and almost a contemporary of Josue. And chap. xviii, 30, Jonathan the son of Gersam the son of Moses is said to have been consecrated priest: and from the fact that then Jerusalem had not yet been taken by the Hebrews, which however is read to have been taken, Judges i, 8, as is plain chap. xix, 11. So Abulensis, Questions I and XVI; Lyranus, Masius on Josue chap. xix, 47; Ribera on Osee chap. x, and others. But the Rabbis here differ among themselves. For some think that this happened under Josue still living, but languishing with age and not resisting idolaters; others, as Rashi and Seder-Olam, place it under Othoniel; others under Aod the second Judge: but it is truer that it happened a little before Othoniel, namely a little after the death of Caleb and the Elders, who, Josue last chapter, verse 31, are said to have lived long after Josue, namely fifteen, or, as Salian says, seventeen years: for these, had they lived, would not have allowed public idolatry to be brought into Israel. Hence under them Israel is said there to have served God: but they being dead, idolatry crept in, whose origin and entrance is described here; on account of which God at once sent into Israel Chusan king of Mesopotamia, to afflict it. Hence Israel, afflicted, repenting returned from the idols to God, and God sent Othoniel the first Judge, who freed it from the servitude of Chusan, as was said chap. iii, verse 8. To this it is added that the Danites sought new seats in Lais, chap. xviii, because they were straitened by the Amorrhites in the mountains, when the tribe of Juda under Caleb as leader, and the other tribes, had subdued their Chanaanites, as was narrated chap. i, 34. Hence Josephus, book V of the Antiquities chap. ii, after the death of Josue and the wars of Caleb, and the peace made by the other tribes with the Chanaanites, immediately subjoined this expedition of the Danites against Lais. Wherefore the history of the five following chapters, in right order of time, should have been placed before chapter two, namely immediately before verse 36 of chapter one. So Salian and others, who also urge what is said here, that then there was no king, that is Judge and Prince, and therefore everyone did what he pleased.
Abulensis objects: These things happened before Jerusalem was taken by the Hebrews, as is plain chap. xix, verse 11. But Jerusalem was taken while Caleb was still alive, indeed by Caleb himself, as I said chap. i, verse 8; therefore these things happened before the death of Caleb. I answer that Jerusalem was indeed taken by Caleb, but a little after was again recovered by the Jebusites; as other cities also taken by Josue were again occupied by the Chanaanites, as Gaza, Accaron and Ascalon by the Philistines, as is plain chap. xviii. I shall add another answer chap.
Sulpicius in the Chronicle seems to signify this Michas, when after Samson he places a Judge Simsithar, as if he had heard from some Hebrew shemo Michah, that is whose name is Michah. And hither also the successor of Samson in Cedrenus could be drawn, Scamanes, or rather Schamanes, or Schamades. For schamam in Hebrew is to waste and make desolate, schamad to destroy and overthrow. But what greater and more pernicious wasteland, desolater, destroyer and overthrower of Israelites is there than he who draws them from the true faith and leads them to idols? But both err; for Michas was not a Judge, but rather an enemy of the people of God; nor did any other succeed Samson than Heli.
WHO (Michas) SAID TO HIS MOTHER.—This mother was a widow and an old woman, as having a grandson a priest, and with her son Michas superstitious and given to the worship of idols. Some Rabbis assert, or rather feign, that she was Dalila, who contributed the eleven hundred pieces of silver which she had received from the Philistines for the betrayal of Samson to the making of an idol. But these things happened long before Samson and Dalila, as I said.
2. THE ELEVEN HUNDRED PIECES OF SILVER (namely shekels, that is as many Brabant florins) WHICH THOU HADST LAID UP FOR THYSELF, AND ABOUT WHICH THOU DIDST SWEAR IN MY HEARING, BEHOLD I HAVE, AND THEY ARE WITH ME. AND SHE ANSWERED HIM: BLESSED BE MY SON TO THE LORD.—“Which thou hadst laid up for thyself,” that is which thou hadst put aside for future cases, or necessities or conveniences that might occur. The Hebrew is, which were taken from thee; which Vatablus, Pagninus, Arias, Cajetan and others explain, which were stolen from thee. Better our translator renders, which thou hadst taken to lay aside, that is, which thou hadst laid up for thyself.
THOU DIDST SWEAR,—that is, by swearing thou hadst vowed them to the idol. Secondly, “thou didst swear,” that is thou hadst devoted with curses him who had stolen from thee the eleven hundred pieces of silver. Thirdly and more plainly, “thou didst swear,” that is thou hadst adjured me, that if I knew anything of these pieces of silver which thou hadst lost, I should tell thee. The case is this. This woman had laid aside for future uses eleven hundred pieces of silver: her son Michas found and took them; indeed, as many already cited would have it, stole them: the mother, not finding her silver, adjured her son to say whether he knew anything of this silver. The son frankly confessed that he had found, taken and had them. Whence his mother, praising his truthfulness, says:
BLESSED BE MY SON TO THE LORD.—By “the Lord” she means God, not the true God of Israel, but a false and feigned one, for whom she soon prepared an idol, as follows. For this in her sense was Jehovah, as it is in the Hebrew. For the name Jehovah is given not only to the true God, but to a false one also; whom, namely, idolaters have and worship as their God, and therefore call Jehovah, that is the true God, as is plain from many places of Scripture. Unless one say that this woman worshipped at once the true God of Israel and the idol of the Gentiles, as the Cuthites or Samaritans did, 4 Kings xvii. Or in honour of the true God her idol, as a lesser god; namely in fact joining God to a demon, and wishing by the worship of the demon to honour God: which was a gross and blasphemous error, but what I said first is truer. Behold the origin of idolatry in Israel was a woman. So all heresies have either begun from women or been propagated by them, as from St. Jerome
3. I HAVE CONSECRATED AND VOWED THIS SILVER TO THE LORD,—that is, either to my god Baal, or Astaroth, etc., that I may have an image or idol cast or carved from this silver. So the Greeks and Romans worshipped Jove, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and set up many idols to them, in which they adored and consulted them, as I showed on Baruch vi.
AND MAKE A GRAVEN AND A MOLTEN IDOL.—Abulensis thinks that graven is the same as molten. Others better distinguish these, and hold that two idols were made from this silver: one molten by the founder’s art; the other fashioned by carving, and so the former is called molten, the latter graven; for these two are distinguished chap. xviii, verse 18.
AND NOW I DELIVER IT TO THEE.—“I deliver,” that is I will presently deliver, as is plain from the Hebrew. The mother, as though she had taken her son away, entices and constrains him, asserts that she had vowed them to the Lord, yet so that she herself with her own hand should deliver them to her son, who should see to the making of the idol which she had vowed: but the mother, having received all the silver back from her son, spent only two hundred on making the idol, and kept all the rest for herself. Hence her son Michas had an Ephod, that is priestly garments, and other idols made for himself from his own means. So Arias.
5. AND MADE AN EPHOD AND TERAPHIM,—that is, a priestly garment and idols. For by “Ephod,” that is the superhumeral with the Rational, as the chief priestly garment, all the others are signified. But “Teraphim” were idols. Hence Aquila renders, morphomata, that is figures or figurations: in these figures or figurations understand various works fashioned by carving or casting, as the work of the Cherubim in Hebrew is called various and variously painted. So St. Jerome, epist. to Marcella on Ephod and Teraphim, tom. III. Moreover the Septuagint render Teraphim now as eidola, now as glyptoi, now as ta pheromena, now as ta eide, now as apophthengomenous; the Chaldee, Gen. xxxi, renders Silmanaza, here Demain, that is images and likenesses. Teraphim were therefore domestic idols, which they worshipped at home, and consulted as oracles about secret or future matters, which the Romans called the household gods Penates and Lares. Hear what Lampridius writes of Alexander Severus: “If he had the opportunity, that is, if he had not lain with his wife, in the morning hours he performed divine worship in his Lararium (in which he had both the deified Princes, but the best, chosen, and holier souls, among whom Apollonius, and, as the writer of his times says, Christ, Abraham and Orpheus, and gods of this kind, and the images of his ancestors).”
Arias, Cajetan, Oleaster and the Rabbis add that “Teraphim” were images of men made for this, that they might receive the influence of the higher powers or the heavens, and so pronounce future things. Hear R. Eleazar: “Why are they called Hatteraphim?
They brought a firstborn man and slew him, and cut off his head, and seasoned it with salt and spices, and wrote on a plate of gold the name of some unclean spirit. They then put that name under his tongue, and set him in the wall, and lit lamps before him, and adored him; and he himself spoke to them:” muttering.
Elias cites this in the Thisbite, and Lyranus. But these things are uncertain, and incongruous with the places of Scripture. Moreover they are called Theraphim as if Seraphim. For the Chaldees turn the Hebrew letter s into t, or as R. Eleazar says Teraphim are called shameful, putrid images, such as the idolatrous are; because theraph in Chaldee signifies to putrefy and to affect with reproaches. Hence beth hatturpa is the house of shame, and thence the Latin turpe and turpitudo. See what I said at length of Teraphim on Osee iii, 4.
Moreover Philo the Biblical writer asserts that the Teraphim of Michas were not one but many idols, through which oracles were given variously for various persons. Hear him: “He made for himself images of three boys and calves, and a lion, an eagle, a dragon and a dove. And it came to pass that all who were led astray came to him, and if they wished to ask anything about a wife, they asked him through the dove: but if anyone about sons, through the images of the boys. But those who asked about riches, through the form of the eagle. Those who asked about strength consulted him through the image of the lion. But if about boys and girls, they asked through the forms of calves: and if about length of days, they asked through the image of the dragon. And his iniquity was manifold, and his irreligion cunning.” But these things are uncertain; for this Philo, who wrote the Biblical antiquities, is Pseudo-Philo, and contains many uncertain and fabulous things.
AND HE FILLED THE HAND OF ONE OF HIS SONS, AND HE BECAME HIS PRIEST,—as if to say: Michas consecrated one of his sons, e.g. the firstborn (for to him the right of priesthood once belonged), priest of the idol made by himself. For to fill someone’s hands, in Hebrew phrase, signifies to consecrate him priest: for this was done by filling his hands both with gifts and victims, and by anointing with oil, as I said Num. xvi, 3.
7. THERE WAS ALSO ANOTHER YOUNG MAN OF BETHLEHEM JUDA (for there is another Bethlehem in the tribe of Zabulon) OF HIS KINDRED (namely of Juda, as if to say, sprung from Juda), AND HE WAS A LEVITE.—Namely his father was of the tribe of Levi, but his mother of the tribe of Juda: for the Hebrews, especially Levites, could take a wife from another tribe. Moreover this Levite was Jonathan, grandson of Moses by his father Gersam, as we shall hear chap. xviii, verse 30. Both Michas and the Levite sinned gravely, in that he suffered himself to be consecrated priest by the profane Michas (for Levites were only ministers of the Priests, as Deacons are now), and that of an idol: but want led him to this, and the hope of maintenance and honour promised him by Michas. Hence it follows:
10. BE UNTO ME A FATHER AND A PRIEST.—For the priest was called “Father,” for reverence; for he was to laymen as a spiritual father, that is curator, instructor, director and overseer of their sacred things and salvation: in like manner teachers are fathers to disciples, senators to citizens, old men to the young, princes to the Republic, counsellors to princes, superiors to religious, confessors to penitents, preachers to the people. Hence St. Augustine, or rather Gennadius, book On the customs of the Church, chap. xxxi: “These fathers,” he says, “not only most holy in morals but also most excellent in divine doctrine, and lofty in all things, counsel without any pride those whom they call their sons, great is their authority in commanding, great the will of the others in obeying.”
Hence learn how great was the reverence of priests even among idolaters. Hear what Alexander Guagnin writes of the fierce and barbarous Tartars in his Tartary: “Seiid is called the supreme priest, who among the Tartars is held in such authority and reverence that kings go to meet him on his arrival, and standing hold out their hands to him sitting on his horse, and with head bowed kiss his hand, and this is permitted to the kings themselves. Dukes kiss not the hand but the knees. Nobles kiss his feet; but the common people touch only his garments or his horse with their hands.”
A DOUBLE SUIT OF APPAREL.—The Chaldee and Septuagint, a pair of garments; the Hebrew, an order of garments, that is two garments, which he should use in turn, namely one for summer, the other for winter; or one for working days, the other for feasts; or one for home, the other for out of doors. So the Rabbis, Vatablus, Pagninus and others.
12. AND HAD THE YOUNG MAN FOR HIS PRIEST;—namely that Levite of whom verse 7, who was a young man, he appointed priest, and kept with him. It is plain from the Hebrew.
13. NOW I KNOW, SAYING, THAT GOD WILL DO ME GOOD, HAVING A PRIEST OF THE LEVITICAL RACE.—Nay God will curse thee: first, because thou makest an idol; secondly, because thou hast enticed a Levite to idolatry for thy price; thirdly, because thou art the fount and origin of idolatry in Israel, which will last through many ages; fourthly, because thou, being a layman of the tribe of Ephraim, hast dared to consecrate a Levite priest. Behold how many sacrileges here!
Yet hence learn how great was once the esteem and religion of the Levitical and Ecclesiastical state. See St. Chrysostom, homily 48 on the Acts of the Apostles, where he persuades the faithful to maintain a priest at home: for so God will bless them in goods both temporal and spiritual.
Truly Tertullian, book On Prescriptions chap. xli: “The ordinations (of heretics),” he says, “are rash, light, inconstant, etc. Heretics place our apostates, to bind them by glory, because they cannot by truth. Nowhere is progress made more easily than in the camp of rebels, where merely to be there is to deserve.” And St. Jerome, book VI, on chap. xvi of Isaias: “False doctrine does everything for gain.”