We have finished with the Judges, in the order of time, and now are turned back to see the sad state of the people of Israel from near the beginning of the period with which this book is concerned.
Idolatry was there, even a "house of gods" (verse 5), where the name of the true God was professed (verses 2, 3 and 13). Micah had stolen eleven hundred silver pieces from his mother, but confessed it and restored the silver to her; with two hundred an image was made, as it appears, partly moulded, partly "graven". It is referred to in chapter 18 as Micah's graven image. Probably the pedestal was moulded, and the image proper completed by hand work. Idolatry had been forbidden in the second of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:44Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (Exodus 20:4) and Deut. 5:88Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: (Deuteronomy 5:8)), and in at least eight other passages in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
The ephod (verse 5) was a garment worn by the priests of the Lord, but we have already noticed that Gideon (chapter 8:27) made one out of the gold, the ornaments, and the purple garments taken from the Midianites, and that this became a snare to him and to his family and to the people of Israel. Micah's case seems worse, considerably. The teraphim were probably home idols—images used in idol worship. One of Micah's sons, quite in disregard of God's order regarding the sons of Aaron, was made his priest until a young Levite came from Bethlehem-Judah. This young man Micah invited to live with him) and be his priest for a yearly wage.
Everything seems to have been undertaken without the authority of God's Word, yet God's name was attached to it all as though He approved it, and the Levite, who should have known the mind of God perhaps better than Micah, went with him and seems to have been the ground of Micah's confidence (verse 13) that the Lord will do him good. Can we expect good from God if we pay no attention to His Word?
How opposite Micah's course was to the character expressed in the first Psalm concerning one whose "delight is in the law of the Lord and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water . . . . and whatever he doeth shall prosper."
The only right course for anyone at any time is to be found in the Bible, written there for the guidance of those who have believed in the Lord Jesus to the salvation of their souls.