Matthew Henry on Judges 17:1-6
Here we have, I. Micah and his mother quarrelling. 1. The son robs the mother. The old woman had hoarded, with long scraping and saving, a great sum of money, 1100 pieces of silver. It is likely she intended, when she died, to leave it to her son: in the mean time it did her good to look upon it, and to count it over. The young man had a family of children grown up, for he had one of age to be a priest, Jdg 17:5. He knows where to find his mother's cash, thinks he has more need of it than she has, cannot stay till she dies, and so takes it away privately for his own use. Though it is a fault in parents to withhold from their children that which is meet, and lead them into temptation to wish…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 17:5
the man Micah had an house of gods--Hebrew, "a house of God"--a domestic chapel, a private religious establishment of his own.
an ephod--(see on Exo 28:6).
teraphim--tutelary gods of the household (see Gen 31:19 and see on Gen 31:26).
consecrated one of his sons who became his priest--The assumption of the priestly office by any one out of the family of Aaron was a direct violation of the divine law (Num 3:10; Num 16:17; Deu 21:5; Heb 5:4).
John Gill on Judges 17:5
And the man Micah had an house of gods,.... Having two images in it, besides teraphim, which were a sort of idols; and the Targum is, an house of images, or idols; though it may be rendered "an house of God"; a temple, a place for religious worship:
and made an ephod; a priestly garment, a linen one very probably, not so rich an one with a breastplate to it as the high priest had, which was very costly. Ben Melech interprets it a girdle, and there was a curious girdle of the ephod, with which it was girt; this may be here put for the rest of the priestly garments which Micah provided:
and teraphim; which were a sort of household gods, like the Lares and Penates of the Romans, and by which…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch
