Bible Thread

[Anonymous No.11515176]

I don't understand the story of Micah in Judges 17-18.

It's placed right after the vengeful, masculine Samson crushing the Philistines 17-18, and doesn't seem to have any heroes, or really action related to Micah.

He starts out confessing to his mother that he has stolen from her, for which he is blessed by her (which has obvious symbolism). I expected this naively to be a story about the forgiveness and blessing of the Lord (something akin to the prodigal son returning home), but his mother uses his confession to build idols for him.

He then runs a house of idolatry, which to me seems completely counter to the forgiveness narrative it opens with.

Next he adopts a drifting Levite priest as a father figure. Again, here I expected Micah to be blessed and redeemed, but nothing changes, and he continues to run his house of idolatry with God placed on the same level as other gods.

Now, I expect that maybe this will be a story of God's reckoning with Micah's immorality, and that he shall be punished. And, indeed, Danites do pass through Micah's house on their way to seeking their inheritance, and steal his priest and his idol, and refuse to return them when he gives chase, but spare his life. The Danites then are granted victory, and build their own house of idols with their own priest.

This last section is most confusing to me, because it mirrors the story of Rachel stealing her fathe'rs idols, fleeing with Jacob and Leah, and then Jacob and Laban agreeing to part without bloodshed. But this parallel seems hollow to me, since Jacob would later wrestle with God and submit and overcome his immorality when he crosses the river, whereas the Danites here continue their immorality, yet also cross a river into their inheritance just as Jacob did, but build a house of idols in their inheritance.

What am I supposed to make of all this? What is the moral of this story? Or perhaps, what's the point? Why are there parallels to other parts of the Bible but seemingly missing the moral of those stories? Why is it placed between the story of Samson and the story of the Benjamites? Why is it included at all?

>TL;DR: What's the point of the story of Micah in Judges 17-18
Also general Bible thread

[Anonymous No.11515308]

>>11515176
A NABRE footnotes

* [18:30] Micah’s shrine is now reinstalled at Laish-Dan. In the time of the kings of Israel and Judah, Dan was the site of one of the two national sanctuaries of the Northern Kingdom, both of which are strongly condemned by the editors of the Books of Kings, who regarded Jerusalem as the only acceptable place for a temple (1 Kgs 12:26–30). This verse draws a direct connection between Micah’s temple and the later royal sanctuary at Dan. Seen in this light the account of the establishment of Micah’s shrine, with its idol cast from stolen silver, becomes a highly polemical foundation story for the temple at Dan.

[Anonymous No.11515328]

> I expected this naively to be a story about the forgiveness and blessing of the Lord
Nigga please, this is Old Testament.

The key to understanding the final chapters of Judges is the refrain
>In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
The implication is that Israel is in an unacceptable state of anarchy. Everyone is doing horrible things and there's nothing to stop them. The whole cycle of sin, punishment, repentance, and deliverance can't go on forever, there needs to be a more permanent solution, namely a monarch.

[Anonymous No.11515330]

>>11515308
I see. While I like the historical perspective, I'm now left with an incomplete historical perspective, since I don't know which story came first, Micah in Judges or Jacob in Genesis. If Jacob came first, why did they borrow so many elements from Jacob when writing about Micah, when they seem to have no symbolic meaning? Did oral traditions simply lose track of the source material for the theft of the idols story?

[Anonymous No.11515341]

>>11515328
Yes, that seems to be the obvious big picture message. My confusion is specifically about how the story of Micah fits in. Sure, it's a story about immorality, but it seems to be much pettier and smaller than the story of the Benjamites

My frustration is that the story of the Benjamites parallels Sodom and Gomorrah, but it shares an outcome and a moral of Sodom and Gomorrah - Wicked men demand to do with strangers in their town as they please and are punished for it.

Micah, on the other hand, has clear parallels in Genesis, but doesn't seem to have any similarities to the story it parallels in Genesis, morally or otherwise.

>>11515328
sounds really credible from a historical perspective, but it doesn't quite answer why there are so many parallels to the story of Jacob and Rachel.

[Anonymous No.11515423]

>>11515330
Jacob in Genesis came first? They didn't borrow elements, they just wrote down what happened. Any connections you make are just your brain seeing patterns that aren't there.

[Anonymous No.11515475]

>>11515423
Frankly, I just disagree.
Who wrote down the story of Jacob? Who saw him wrestling with God? He never told anybody about the episode, so who knew about it? If Jacob wrote it down, why isn't it written from his perspective?
And the language is almost exactly the same in the story of the Benjamites and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
While the language is different, the elements (a man works for another man for some amount of time, the man then leaves stealing his boss' idols, after giving chase there is a confrontation and the two men agree to not like eachother but also not to shed eachother's blood, the men then part with the stolen idols unreturned) are beat for beat the same.
I just don't think "the bible is literal and infallible history" reading really holds up. Much of what is written down is too banal to include in history, and the amount of repetition suggests either symbolic value or borrowing from one another

[Anonymous No.11515479]

>>11515475
*While the language is different between the story of Micah and the story of Jacob

[Anonymous No.11515596]

>>11515475
repetition is a common feature in oral story telling. The story was probably passed on orally before it was written down.