Monday - Judges 18 - No Deliverer; No Direction

The sad commentary on the condition of Israel continues to intensify. Dr. McGee aptly described the depravity of Israel as a time of "compromise, corruption and confusion." As we have already noticed in the previous chapter, they were leaderless. They were so far from God. They had gone astray and were declining, moving even further from Him.

Now, even though this incident appears to be small and obscure relative to the whole nation, it did affect a lot of people from several different tribes, and I think, more importantly, represents for us the kinds of things that were going on all over the land of Israel at that time. Notice the names of the tribes that were directly involved in this incident. Dan, Ephraim, Levi and Judah were all affected to some extent. Not only that, there are 2 references to the longevity of the effects of this incident (Judges 18:30-31).  The impact was a lasting one.  And, it all started with Micah's mom wanting an idol.

Finally, notice some of the contradictions of the Jews against themselves that are revealed to us perfectly in this text. Dan went to expand his territory but he took it from other tribes rather than from the Canaanites. The hireling preacher was willing to bless strangers in God's name even though he had no actual access to the God of heaven (Judges 18:6). He was a priest in an idolatrous man's house. The lifestyle of the people of Laish was a contradiction in and of itself: careless, quiet, secure, isolated, leaderless, "liberated" and none of those descriptions were meant to be complementary.