Matthew Henry on Judges 17:7–end
We have here an account of Micah's furnishing himself with a Levite for his chaplain, either thinking his son, because the heir of his estate, too good to officiate, or rather, because not of God's tribe, not good enough. Observe,
I. What brought this Levite to Micah. By his mother's side he was of the family of Judah, and lived at Bethlehem among his mother's relations (for that was not a Levites' city), or, upon some other account, as a stranger or inmate, sojourned there, Jdg 17:7. Thence he went to sojourn where he could find a place, and in his travels came to the house of Micah in Mount Ephraim, Jdg 17:8. Now, 1. Some think it was his unhappiness that he was under a necessity of removi…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 17:7
Beth-lehem-judah--so called in contradistinction to a town of the same name in Zebulun (Jos 19:15).
of the family--that is, tribe.
of Judah--Men of the tribe of Levi might connect themselves, as Aaron did (Exo 6:23), by marriage with another tribe; and this young Levite belonged to the tribe of Judah, by his mother's side, which accounts for his being in Beth-lehem, not one of the Levitical cities.
John Gill on Judges 17:7
And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah,.... As there were two Bethlehems, one in the tribe of Zebulun, Joshua 19:15 and another in the tribe of Judah, the place here designed, Judah is added to it, to distinguish it from the other:
of the family of Judah: which refers either to the young man, who was by his father's side a Levite, and by his mother's side, as Jarchi thinks, of the tribe of Judah, which seems very probable, though the genealogies of families were not reckoned from the mother; wherefore he might be so called because he had lived chiefly in the tribe of Judah, and particularly at Bethlehem; but Kimchi, and several other Jewish commentators, refer this to the city of B…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Judges 17:1-9
