1In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an estate for itself in which to dwell, for till that day no estate had fallen to it in the midst of the tribes of Israel. 2And the Danites sent out from their clans, from the pick of them, five men who were valiant warriors from Zorah and from Eshtaol to spy out the land and to search it, and they said to them, “Go, search the land.” And they came to the high country of Ephraim to Micah’s house, and they spent the night there. 3They were at Micah’s house, and they recognized the voice of the Levite lad and turned aside there and said to him, “Who brought you here, and what are you doing in this place, and what do you have here?” 4And he said to them, “Thus and so has Micah done for me, and he has hired me, and I have become a priest for him.” 5And they said to him, “Inquire, pray, of God, that we may know whether our way on which we go will prosper.” 6And the priest said to them, “Go in peace—before the LORD is your way on which you go.” 7And the five men went and came to Laish, and they saw the people within it dwelling secure in the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure, and no one in the land troubled them, and there was no heir to the throne, and they were far off from the Sidonians, nor did they have any dealings with other people. 8And they came back to their kinsmen in Zorah and Eshtaol, and their kinsmen said to them, “How is it with you?” 9And they said, “Arise, and let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and, look, it is very good, and you remain silent! Do not be idle about going to come and take hold of the land. 10When you come, you will come to a people that dwells secure, and the land is spacious—why, God has given it into your hand!—a place in which nothing on earth is lacking.” 11And the six hundred men from the tribe of the Danites, from Zorah and Eshtaol, girded in battle gear, journeyed from there. 12And they went up and camped at Kiriath-Jearim in Judah. Therefore have they called that place the Camp of Dan to this day—there it is, west of Kiriath-Jearim. 13And they passed on from there to the high country of Ephraim and came to Micah’s house. 14And the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish spoke up and said to their kinsmen, “Did you know that in these houses there are an ephod and teraphim and a statue and molten image? And now, know what you should do.” 15And they turned aside there and came to the house of the Levite lad, at Micah’s house, and asked him how he fared. 16And the six hundred men girded in their battle gear, who were from the Danites, stationed themselves at the entrance of the gate. 17And the five men who had gone to spy out the land came in there, took the statue and the ephod and the teraphim and the molten image, and the priest was stationed at the entrance to the gate, and the six hundred men girded in battle gear. 18And the former group had come into Micah’s house and taken the statue and the ephod and the teraphim and the molten image. And the priest said to them, “What are you doing?” 19And they said to him, “Be quiet! Put your hand over your mouth and go with us and be father and priest for us. Is it better for you to be priest for the house of one man or to be priest for a tribe and clan in Israel?” 20And the priest was pleased, and he took the ephod and the teraphim and the statue, and joined the troops. 21And they turned and went, and they put before them the little ones and the cattle and the heavy goods. 22They had gone a distance from Micah’s house when the people in the houses that were by Micah’s house were mustered, and they overtook the Danites. 23And they called out to the Danites, and they turned round and said to Micah, “What’s the matter with you that you have mustered?” 24And he said, “My god that I made you have taken and the priest, and you have gone off. And what else do I have, and how is this you say to me, ‘What’s the matter with you’?” 25And the Danites said to him, “Don’t raise your voice to us, lest embittered men assault you and you lose your life and the lives of your household.” 26And the Danites went on their way, and Micah saw that they were stronger than he, and he turned and went back to his house. 27And they had taken what Micah made and the priest that he had. And they came against Laish, against a quiet and secure people, and they struck them down with the sword, and the town they burned in fire. 28And there was none to save it, for it was far off from Sidon, nor did they have any dealings with other people. And it was in the Valley of Beth-Rehob. And they rebuilt the town and dwelled in it. 29And they called the town Dan, like the name of Dan their forefather who was born to Israel, but Laish was the name of the town at first. 30And the Danites set up the statue for themselves, and Jonathan son of Gershom son of Moses, he and his sons were priests for the tribe of the Danites till the day the land went into exile. 31And they set out for themselves Micah’s statue that he had made all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh.
CHAPTER 18 NOTES
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1. till that day no estate had fallen to it in the midst of the tribes of Israel. This formulation gives the impression that no tribal territory was assigned to the Danites. The actual case was that they were not able to hold their own against their Philistine neighbors and the local Canaanites and so were driven to migrate. The Philistine pressure on Dan is evident in the Samson narrative, which immediately precedes this story.
3. they recognized the voice of the Levite lad. Given his itinerancy, they may have actually run across him somewhere else in the south. Others conjecture that they detect a Judahite accent.
4. Thus and so has Micah done for me. This summarizing formula, which one would not find in novelistic dialogue, is occasionally introduced into biblical dialogue. “Thus and so” obviously refers to the Levite’s appointment as priest with the annual stipend.
5. Inquire, pray, of God. This idiom indicates inquiry of an oracle; the probable instrument would have been the ephod.
6. before the LORD is your way on which you go. Though the burden of this clause is that God will favor their endeavor, the formulation is a bit vague and even ambiguous: like oracles everywhere, the Levite is hedging his bets.
7. dwelling secure in the manner of the Sidonians. The inhabitants of the Phoenician city of Sidon, to the north on the Mediterranean coast, were evidently thought to live relatively free of fear from foreign attacks.
they were far off from the Sidonians, nor did they have any dealings with other people. Although the gist of these two clauses is that Laish was isolated and had no allies on which to rely, the wording—especially of the second clause—is somewhat obscure.
10. a people that dwells secure. As the use of this phrase in verse 7 makes clear, the gist is that this people lives in a sense of security, not suspecting that they will be attacked.
11. six hundred men. As the recurrence of this number in military contexts in the Book of Samuel suggests, this is the fixed size of a combat unit, something like a battalion.
14. these houses. From the plural, one infers that Micah’s house was part of a small compound.
And now, know what you should do. Anticipating the conquest of Laish, they want to acquire the paraphernalia to set up a cult there after they take the town.
16. the six hundred men . . . stationed themselves at the entrance of the gate. The five spies, whom the Levite already knows, are sent in to parlay with him, while the armed enforcers wait at the gate.
17. took the statue and the ephod and the teraphim and the molten image. They immediately seize the cultic objects, not asking the Levite, who is in no position to resist.
18. And the former group. The Hebrew says merely “and these,” but it has to refer to the five spies in contradistinction to the six hundred men.
19. Put your hand over your mouth and go with us and be father and priest for us. They follow an implied threat—shut up, if you know what is good for you—with the inducement of an offered position.
20. And the priest was pleased. Nobody in this story, beginning with Micah and his mother, has noble motives. The Levite immediately recognizes that this new position, priest for a tribe, is a considerable advancement, no doubt with a larger salary, and so he happily colludes in the theft of the cultic articles.
21. they put before them the little ones and the cattle and the heavy goods. Only now do we learn that the six hundred warriors are not just a raiding party but the first wave of a tribal migration, having brought with them their children (and presumably their wives) and their possessions. They put all these in front of them because the attack they anticipate would come from the rear, from a pursuing party of Micah and his men.
24. My god that I made. His language here, in keeping with “statue” and “molten image,” is frankly pagan. No one in this story appears to be a serious monotheist. Even though the narrative was composed late (see the comment on verse 30), the whole bizarre story appears to be an authentic reflection of an early moment in premonotheistic Israelite history when the exclusive worship of YHWH was not generally established.
25. embittered men. This is their condition because they have been displaced from their tribal territory and are for the moment homeless.
26. Micah saw that they were stronger than he. The story plays out through force. Micah can scarcely contend with six hundred heavily armed ruthless men who have just threatened to kill him and his whole household, and so he has to let them keep the precious objects they have stolen from him, which he had fashioned with silver he originally stole from his mother.
27. they struck them down with the sword. No moral considerations are involved. These people have attractive land; Dan needs land; the Danites slaughter the inhabitants of Laish and build their own town there.
29. like the name. The Masoretic Text reads “in the name,” but many Hebrew manuscripts show the standard idiom “like the name.”
who was born to Israel. The reference is to Jacob, not to the nation.
30. Jonathan son of Gershom son of Moses. At the very end, we are given the name and genealogy of the Levite. The Masoretic Text inserts a superscript nun in Moshe, Moses, turning it into Menashe, Manasseh, but this can’t be right because Gershom was the son of Moses and Manasseh is not a priestly tribe. Rashi aptly explains the orthographic oddity: “Out of respect for Moses, a nun is inscribed in order to change the name.” The genealogy marks a steep decline: Moses’s own grandson is a base sacerdotal mercenary, officiating in a cult that is at the very least semipagan. Placing the Levite just two generations after Moses would mean that the whole story is supposed to take place very early, at the beginning of the twelfth century B.C.E., a temporal location that has the inconvenient consequence of putting the Danite migration before the time of Samson, a Danite living in the south near the Philistines.
till the day the land went into exile. The reference is to the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.E., which means that the story, at least in its final formulation, had to be composed after that date, unless this final notation is a later editorial addition.
31. all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh. The anomalous introduction of this reference to the Shiloh sanctuary at the very end of the story is in all likelihood, as Yair Zakovitch has argued, an editorial move to link the material here with the beginning of the Book of Samuel, where Shiloh plays a central role.