Chapter Eighteen

1–2. The Danites seeking a territory for themselves. 3–6. Their meeting with the Levite in Micah’s house and their inquiry of God. 7–12. Their visit to the city of Laish and their report to their kinsmen. 13–26. A band of Danites visits Micah’s house, steals the idolatrous objects, and leads away the Levite. 27–29. The Danites capture Laish and set up the idolatrous objects from Micah’s house. 30–31. The worship of the Danites.

Judges 18:1. In those days there was no king in Israel; and in those days the tribe of Dan was seeking for itself a territory where it might settle, for until then it had not received its full inheritance among the tribes of Israel. Judges 18:2. And the people of Dan sent from their tribe five mighty men, from Zorah and Estaol, to scout the land and explore it; and they said to them: Go, explore the land. They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. The Amorites had driven the tribe of Dan out of its appointed territory (Judg 1:34), and therefore the Danites were forced to seek a territory elsewhere in the promised land. The delegation they sent from Zorah (Sar’a) and Estaol (Ashúa) (cf. Judg 13:25), traveling northward and passing through the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, reached the house of Micah and stopped there for the night.

Judges 18:3. While they were at Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite and turned aside there, and said to him: Who brought you here? What are you doing here, and why are you here? Judges 18:4. He said to them: So-and-so has done this for me: he hired me, and I have become his priest. Judges 18:5. They said to him: Please inquire of God, so that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will prosper. Judges 18:6. The priest said to them: Go in peace; the journey on which you are going is under the Lord’s approval. Recognizing from his accent—which differed from that of the Ephraimites (cf. Judg 12:6)—that the young man in Micah’s house was a Levite, and learning from him that he was serving there as a priest, the Danite envoys asked him to inquire of God about the success of their journey, which he did.

Judges 18:7. Then the five men departed and came to Laish. They saw the people who were there living securely, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting; there was no one in the land who might put them to shame regarding anything, or who had power over them: they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone. Judges 18:8. [The five men] returned to their kinsmen in Zorah and Estaol, and their kinsmen said to them: What is there? Judges 18:9. They said: Come, let us go against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Will you do nothing? Do not be slow to go, to take possession of the land; Judges 18:10. when you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land is broad; God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything on earth. Judges 18:11. And six hundred men of the Danites, equipped with weapons of war, departed from there, from Zorah and Estaol. Judges 18:12. They went up and camped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. Therefore that place is called the camp of Dan to this day; it is west of Kiriath-jearim. After the Levite’s answer, the Danite envoys went north through the promised land, reached the city of Laish, which was called Leshem in the time of Joshua (Josh 19:47), and saw the careless and disorderly way of life of the city’s inhabitants, as well as their distance from Sidon (Phoenicia), under whose protection they were. Laish-Dan, which stood at the site of Tell el-Qadi near Paneas, was separated from Sidon by the deep gorge of the Nahr el-Litani, from Damascus by Hermon, and from Syria by the valley of the Bika’a (Coele-Syria). After returning from Laish, the Danite envoys informed their kinsmen both of the character of the city’s inhabitants and of the land itself; thereupon six hundred armed Danites set out from Zorah and Estaol and traveled north, camping first at Kiriath-yearim (Josh 18:14-15).

Judges 18:13. From there they passed on to the hill country of Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah. Judges 18:14. Then the five men who had gone to scout the land of Laish said to their kinsmen: Do you know that in one of these houses there is an ephod, teraphim, a carved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you will do. Judges 18:15. So they turned aside there and came to the house of the young Levite, at the house of Micah, and greeted him. Judges 18:16. And the six hundred men of the Danites, armed with their weapons of war, stood by the entrance of the gate. Judges 18:17. The five men who had gone to scout the land went in and took the carved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men equipped with weapons of war. Judges 18:18. When they went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them: What are you doing? Judges 18:19. They said to him: Be quiet, keep your hand over your mouth, and come with us and be to us a father and a priest; is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel? Judges 18:20. The priest was pleased; he took the ephod, the teraphim, and the carved image, and went along with the people. Judges 18:21. They turned and departed, putting the little ones, the cattle, and the goods in front of them. Judges 18:22. When they had gone some distance from Micah’s house, [Micah and] the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house were called out, and they overtook the Danites, Judges 18:23. and shouted after the Danites. [The Danites] turned around and said to Micah: What is the matter with you that you cry out? Judges 18:24. [Micah] said: You have taken my gods which I made, and the priest, and gone away; what have I left? How can you say to me, ‘What is the matter with you?’ Judges 18:25. The Danites said to him: Do not let us hear your voice again, or else hot-tempered men will attack you, and you will lose your life and the lives of your household. Judges 18:26. Then the Danites went on their way. When Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home. Following the same path that their envoys had taken before, the Danites reached Micah’s house and, having learned from the envoys of the idolatrous objects and the Levite there, sent men in who entered the house, took the objects of worship, and persuaded the Levite to go with them.

Judges 18:27. [The Danites] took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them down with the edge of the sword, and burned down the city. Judges 18:28. There was no one to rescue it, because it was far from Sidon, and it had no dealings with Aram. [The city] was in the valley near Beth-rehob. They rebuilt the city and lived in it, Judges 18:29. and named the city Dan, after their ancestor Dan son of Israel; but the name of the city was formerly Laish. When the Danites reached Laish, they killed the inhabitants and burned the city, which was located at the entrance to the valley of Beth-rehob (Coele-Syria). The place called Beth-rehob, which gave its name to the valley, is thought to be at Hibbarieh.

Judges 18:30. The Danites set up the carved image for themselves; and Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land; Judges 18:31. they maintained the carved image which Micah had made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh. Having built the city and named it Dan, the Danites set up in it the objects of worship they had taken. The Levite they led away, named Jonathan, was the grandson of Manasseh (or of Moses, cf. Baba Batra, 109, question, and Jer. Berachot 10, 2); Jonathan and his sons were priests to the Danites. Thus the Danites established a separate cult, distinct from the legitimate worship in Shiloh. This cult existed until the time when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines (1 Sam 4:22), throughout the entire period when the tabernacle of Moses was in Shiloh (cf. 1 Sam 1:3 and following) (cf. the introduction, on the origin of the Book of Judges, section b).