Unintentionally Humorous Texts: Micah’s Misfortunes, Part 1

Introduction: The days of Israel’s judges, before Samuel and the kingdom, were known as ‘seesaw days”: Israel alternated between being true to the God of Israel, then abandoning Him to worship the idols of other nations. Israel would be oppressed, and then cry out to their God for help, but then would slide right back into the idol worship that got them in trouble at the first.

There was a man named Micah, whose misfortunes are recorded in Judges 17-18. Some of these events are, to me, so strange that I’ve thought at times the narrative was satire! But in reality, these are genuine events. The humor aspects are a bit abstract, but we’ll find them.

Text: Judges 17:1-6, KJV: 1And there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son. 3 And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee. 4 Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah. 5 And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. 6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

The history

We’re not told exactly when, during the years of the Judges, these events took place, only in the time before there was a king in Israel. One thing that’s sobering is the comment, “every man did what was right in his own eyes” when Israel was commanded to do what was right in God’s eyes! To say the least, either most of Israel was either paying “lip service” to the Law or else had abandoned it altogether.

Some have observed that Micah may have lived about the time of Samson, based on the mention of the “eleven hundred of silver”—the word “shekels” is in italics, meaning the word was never part of the original text. Even so, this was a good bit of money, and Micah had broken at least two of the Ten Commandments here: he had coveted the silver (why else would he take it?) and he had stolen it from his own mother!

Micah’s mother has always impressed me as either being very forgiving, or very evil, as she then took 200 pieces of the silver (stolen, then returned, and now melted down???), and gave them to the “founder”, likely a silversmith who in turn made a graven image and a molten image. Micah then added these to his collection.

Now it’s time for the humor!

The humor

The first thing that I find humorous is that Micah’s mother forgave him after she had uttered some curses, and that, in his own hearing! How long Micah kept the silver before he gave it back is not known, yet strikes me as odd that he would covet something that was cursed.

Another is the notion or concept that the mother would use the very silver Micah gave back to be dedicated to the LORD (so far so good) but to—get this—make idols from it! Now there are two more commandments broken, number 1 and number 2, about no other “gods” before the LORD, and neither making idols in any form, nor worshiping these images.

And these weren’t the only idols in Micah’s collection! The writer says Micah had a “house of gods”, plus and “ephod” or sacred garment and “teraphim” which some believe are small copies or miniatures of larger items. The same word is used of Laban’s “gods” which Rachel had stolen, then put them in a saddle bag and sat down on them so that nobody would find them (Gen. 31).

Finally, and this is one of the strangest things of all—not the least humorous—is that all Micah needed to get his own “me and the idols got our own thing going”, to paraphrase a song by country music artist Tom T. Hall, was a priest. Well, now, problem solved: Micah consecrated one of his own sons to be that priest.

Would any of us place any of our own children in a place of authority over us?

I didn’t think so.

So, Micah had stolen a lot of money, but when he gave it back, his own mother re-purposed 20 per cent of it to make idols. Micah took these idols and added them to his own little temple or whatever you want to call it. Again, I’ve wondered if this wasn’t satire, but it’s true.

But it wasn’t going to last. This was only the first of Micah’s misfortunes. He was about to experience something very different before too long!

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)