MICAH, or MICAIAH (MY*, or as in i. 1-4, ; 31Lxalas ; Mixci ; Michas, Micha. (See , • for different forms of name, under Micah the pro phet.) Micah was a man of Mount Ephraim,' a peculiarly suggestive episode in whose life has been preserved in the 17th and 18th chapters of the book of Judges. Micah had in sonic way ap propriated eleven hundred shekels of silver be longing to his mother, but, as her curses on him that had done the robbery rang in his ear, he con fessed the theft and returned the money. The superstitious mother admitted that she had saved up the silver that she might wholly dedicate it unto Jehovah' in the form of images ; and with a fifth part of it she at once provided a graven and a molten image for her son's idol-chapel. The other por tion was probably reserved for the support of the establishment ; for Micah had already a house of gods—idols of various styles, and teraphim too, while the sacerdotal ephod was worn by his son, who, in flagrant contravention of the law, had be come his priest. This idolatry, so carefully and ex pensively fostered, was evidently regarded and vene rated as in harmony with the worship of Jehovah. Blessed be thou of Jehovah,' said the mother to the son. Now I know that Jehovah will do me good,' said the patron of this organized supersti tion. In course of time a Levite, without any fixed residence, strayed into the settlement, and bar gained, for a trifling recompense, to superintend the image-worship, consenting at the same time to be consecrated by Micah, who was anxious to have his worship under one who belonged at least to the sacred caste. This vagabond Levite was a grand son of Moses (for the true reading in xviii. 30 is not Manasses but Moses), a person, therefore, of some note ; though we know not how one of such illustrious descent came to be a houseless and aim less wanderer. The incident shows how prone the nation was to relapse into idolatry, and how such idol-worship was creeping in and sustaining itself, from its symbolic character, or its supposed imi tation of the cherubim forms in the tabernacle. We cannot tell why two images are so distinctly characterised, a graven' one and a molten' one. Deut. xxvii. 15. Perhaps the pair formed one sym bolic representation, and the representation was pro bably analogous to that which was devised at Sinai and borrowed from the calf-worship of Egypt.
By and by some adventurous Danites, unable to dispossess the Amorites ( Judg. i. 34), and longing for new settlements, sent five spies to reconnoitre the northern part of the country. These spies, happening to lodge in Micah's house, and recog nising the voice of the grandson of Moses, were told his history and present occupation. On receiving his official blessing, they went their adventurous way. A body of Danites, on learning their report, soon followed. Six hundred armed men' traversed the country, and, apparently fired with religious zeal, entered Micah's sanctuary, and took violent pos session of his priest and his images. Micah's re monstrances were vain. The armed band sue ceeded in its sudden invasion of Laish, so, quiet and secure,' changed its name into Dan, and for mally set up, in that remote district, the idol-w3r ship which they had despoiled in the house of Micah. This establishment, a rival to that of
Shiloh, remained long in existence—' until the day of the captivity of the land ;' and perhaps it sug gested to Jeroboam the expedient which ensnared the ten tribes—the calf at Dan and the other at Bethel.
The time of these lawless incidents—betokening a state of declension and anarchy—may be assigned to the period immediately after that of the elders that overlived Joshua.' Dan apparently had pos session of ships and a portion of sea-coast by the time of Deborah, and therefore this conquest seems to have happened before the monarchy of Jabin who reigned in Razor.' At this early period, and in the disjointed tribal state of the kingdom, there was no central controlling power, the judges had but limited territorial sway, and the nation had been accustomed to arms during the conquest under Joshua ; so that we can easily believe that a band of fierce soldiers, like these Danites, might work out their lawless will without opposition, especially as they were going in quest of new lands. One of these encampments, named after them Mahaneh-dan (xviii. 12), is referred to in Judg. xiii. 25. The words have a melancholy emphasis : In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own The date of the composition of this appendix to the book of Judges must be placed after the estab lishment of the monarchy, as the phrase there was no king in Israel' clearly indicates. The allu sion to the time, that the house of God was in Shiloh,' might suggest a date posterior to the earlier part of Saul's reign, when the ark was re moved to Nob. Some, like Le Clerc, argue for a later date, from the phrase, until the day of the captivity of the land' in xviii. 30, as if it necessarily referred to the Assyrian invasion. The reading is doubtful. Studer and Hitzig take the 30th verse as a later interpolation ; Kimchi, Havernick, Heng stenberg, and Bleek refer the phrase to the cap tivity of the ark in the time of Eli, but on no good ground, unless the reading ynNn be changed, as some prefer, into frlt.T. Stahelin and Ewald, regarding the verse as a later addition, place the composition about the period of Asa or Jehosha phat ; Stahelin insisting, too, that the diction does not belong to the purer period of the language. Verse 30, indeed, does not quite agree with 31, which seems to limit the duration of the Danite idolatry to the period of the station of the ark at Shiloh ; and the phrase, 'until the day of the captivity,' as Neil remarks, may refer to some un known invasion on the part of the neighbouring Syrians (Bibliccher Commentar giber dos A. T., 2d part, vol. i. p. 336, Leipzig 1863). Besides, it can scarcely be supposed that this idolatrous cultus, so directly and openly opposed to the spirit and letter of the Mosaic law, would have been allowed to stand in the zealous days of Samuel and David. See Stanley's Lectures on the ,ezoish Church, pp. 296-97.—J. E.