Wednesday, 03 August, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.

Judges 17:1-6

¹ There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. ² And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the LORD.” ³ And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” ⁴ So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah. ⁵ And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest. ⁶ In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The statement from verse 6 (In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.) is repeated a few times in the book of Judges. It is a summary statement for the theme of the book, describing all that goes on. The people rebel against God, are punished by foreign oppressors, and then repent and call out to God. God sends a judge to rescue them from the oppression, and when the judge dies, the people again rebel, starting the cycle all over again.

In today’s passage, we have the very curious statement the woman from Ephraim makes in verse 3: “I dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image.” She dedicates the silver to God and has it made into an image to set up with her other household gods. She is dedicating to God something that is in direct violation of God’s command (the second command in Exodus 20:4-6 prohibiting making any image of God or any image to be used in worship).

What do we learn from this?

It is possible to intend to do something for God, but in fact do exactly the opposite. We can say we are seeking to please God with our actions, but do something that is an abomination to Him.

How do we know if what we will do is going to please Him or if it is just something that seems right in our own eyes, but is displeasing to Him?

We must go to the scriptures to know what God wants us to do. In the case of this Ephramite woman, the second command tells us that it is wrong to make an image to be dedicated to God. This will be displeasing to Him. How do we know if any other action will be displeasing to Him? Search the scriptures to see what God has commanded about the issue.

Not everything is clearly commanded in scripture, and so we might need to deal in general principles, and get wise counsel from godly people whom we respect. And if there is no specific or general commands from scripture we are free to chose what we want based upon the information we have available.

But we need to beware of the tendency within ourselves to “baptize” our own desires, saying we are doing something for God when it is clearly displeasing to Him based upon His scriptures. We should not be like the man who says that God is leading him to divorce his wife in order to better serve God. Rather, we should be following the scriptures, and seeking to make our decisions in their light.

Where is Christ in this passage?

The problem throughout the book of Judges was: In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The author of Judges describes the need for the people to be united under a king who will give them the standards they are to follow, and will enforce these for his people. The kings who followed were Saul and then David and his sons. But there is the promise in scripture of the great King, the perfect King who was to come. Jesus Christ is the Son of David who is the Lord and King, not only of His church, but of all of creation.

As we consider all the problems that occurred in Judges, we are reminded that we are to be in submission to Jesus Christ and to His word as our rule of faith and practice. He is our King, and we are to submit to Him and not do whatever seems right in our own eyes.