Chapters 17 to the end of the book are a supplement or appendix which tells us of dreadful events which had taken place hundreds of years before the earlier chapters. One reason, suggested by an earlier writer, is that if these dismal events had been inserted earlier, they would have interrupted the main instruction of the book of the Judges. But don’t think of this section as being something that was put in by some human being. All the Bible is divine. God used many writers, but breathed into each what that person was to say.
V.1-6 No matter how bad a person may be, inside him he wants to be religious! By this, we don’t mean that people want to know God, but every heart craves for an object. And Satan gives them a false god.
V.7-13 This priest is glad of a better living, and a wider place to practice his religion. This was really going into idol worship. What a shameful thing that the Lord would be given up, and they would set up a rival to God, but in God’s Name!