There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord.” And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”
The story in Judges 17 is a demonstration of the truth that without God's intervening grace; when men are left to themselves, sin, at any level, will take place. Typically the refrain in Judges is what we find after chapter 17 begins with the above story and doesn't appear until verse 6:
Judges 17:6
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
In the above story, Micah (whose name actually means, "who is like Yahweh?", but is nothing like Yahweh) confesses to stealing 1,100 pieces of silver. That would have been a very, very large portion of money in those days. We are not told how he took it or how the mother had accumulated that amount, only that she had it and her son took it. Micah's confession was not necessarily out of a compulsion of guilt. The anonymous mother had called down a curse from Yahweh upon the thief and, upon hearing the curse, Micah was compelled to confess. Her communication to God had somehow affected the consciousness of the heart. This aspect of the story shows the depravity of the men at the time and throughout all ages. Micah was not the first boy to steal from mom, nor would he be the last. But, the mother, now so relieved a mere common criminal hadn't come into her home, dedicates the "found" money to the Lord ... to her son (the thief) to MAKE AN IDOL. How do you dedicate something "to the Lord" only to have that something used to make a worthless idol, a sin agains the Lord? The mother, to cancel out the curse, rather asks Yahweh for a blessing. However, instead of giving Yahweh time to bless the son, she enables the son to make an idol out the money. Here is the irony: Note the following verse in Deuteronomy 27:15 -
Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen
To avoid the curse, the son confesses ... his mother, after calling down a blessing, however, gives the son a home project to make an idol and, based upon Scripture, CALLS DOWN A CURSE on the son. This story is a perfect example of the deterioration of the land when the theme of the land is that everyone did what was right in their own lives. Without God's wisdom and the Spirit of grace, man will steal from a mother and a mother will set up the son for a curse. That is the ugly truth the men of that age and this age fail to see. The corrupt nature of man is that, absent God's hand, he will cause harm to his own flesh and blood.
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