Exploring the Meaning of Judges 18
Napsal(a) New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth
The Tribe of Dan Adopts Micah’s Idolatry
This chapter shows the way in which one person’s distortion of truth, turning it into a falsity, can have severe consequences on a larger scale.
The tribe of Dan – one of the twelve tribes of Israel – was given land to the west, by the coast, but they found it hard to hold on to. The name of the tribe of Dan means ‘to judge’, but if judgment isn't based on the Word there will be chaos. (Arcana Caelestia 842)
Faced with competition for their homeland, the tribal leaders of Dan went looking for a place for themselves elsewhere. They sent five men of valour to spy out the land. These men came to Micah’s house, and they recognised the voice of the young Levite there. They questioned him about his situation, and he told them that Micah had hired him to be a priest to his household. The men of Dan asked the Levite to ask the Lord if their search would be prosperous, and he told them that it would be.
The spiritual meaning of this part of the chapter is to do with an intensifying wrongness. At the textual level, there is reference to the Lord, and an apparent normality in what takes place. But underlying it, there's a wrongness, which will become apparent later in the chapter. The pointers to it here are the five men from Dan, them coming straight to Micah’s house, and the hiring of a priest.
The number ‘five’ has a good meaning in many parts of the Word, but it can also have a bad meaning, as it does here. In this context, it stands for only a little, for disunion and the destruction of the Word (Apocalypse Revealed 738).
Coming directly to Micah’s house and recognising the Levite brings together two evil intentions: Micah’s idol and the men of Dan’s search to take a home for themselves. An example for us could be where two people plot to seek the harm of a third person. (Arcana Caelestia 4724)
The hiring of a priest is something disallowed, for priests are there to serve the Lord and they are provided for by the people, not to be hired. Hiring, spiritually, stands for seeking reward for what you do, whereas the true reward is heaven for those who serve without expecting a reward. (Arcana Caelestia 8002)
The five men leave Micah's house, and go on to Laish in the far north, where there are people who dwell securely in peace and without rulers, far from others and with no ties. Laish means ‘fearless and kneaded together’. It is a picture of perfection, of heaven. (Divine Love and Wisdom 200)
The five men then return to their tribe of Dan and report about Laish. They say that it is ideal for the taking because it has plenty of land and its people are secure. They say that “God has given it into your hands”.
Six hundred men of the tribe of Dan set out and they too, come to the house of Micah. The five spies tell them about the idols and they meet and greet the young Levite. Then the five spies go in and take all the idols in the house. The Levite joins up with the men from Dan and they go on together.
One spiritual meaning in the story is that evil (Dan, gone bad) loves to destroy peace and innocence (Laish).
The complete loss to Micah of all his idols and his hired priest, shows, too, that in fully turning to evil, there is the final loss of everything that might bring a person back. (Arcana Caelestia 9039)
People living near Micah go and accost the men of Dan about what they have taken -- but Micah is told to stop complaining or his household will be killed.
The Danites leave, and go and capture Laish, killing and burning, and re-naming the city Dan. There they set up the images and appoint priests. These images remain in Dan all the time that the house of God is in Shiloh.
The spiritual meaning of one evil or falsity becoming greater or more numerous is in the way that we might hold a negative emotion or a distorted view in our mind where it then spreads to other emotions and views we have and brings them into greater evil and falsity. This is the intention of evil and also of hell’s influence, to extend it to be as widespread as possible.
This is the outcome of everything that has developed through this and the previous chapter. It describes the spread of evil to become a terrible force for destruction and spiritually, for an individual person, for self-destruction. In the context of the decline of Israel to where ‘everyone did what was right in their own eyes’ this progression presents the pathway and process of that spiritual loss. (Divine Providence 19)
Exodus 21
1
"Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.
2
"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
3
If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
5
But if the servant shall plainly say, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;'
6
then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.
7
"If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.
8
If she doesn't please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.
9
If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter.
10
If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights.
11
If he doesn't do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.
12
"One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,
13
but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen: then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
14
If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15
"Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
16
"Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
17
"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
18
"If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but is confined to bed;
19
if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be cleared: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed.
20
"If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.
21
Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.
22
"If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman's husband demands and the judges allow.
23
But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,
24
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25
burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.
26
"If a man strikes his servant's eye, or his maid's eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
27
If he strikes out his male servant's tooth, or his female servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
28
"If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
29
But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.
30
If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him.
31
Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment it shall be done to him.
32
If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.
33
"If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,
34
the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.
35
"If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal.
36
Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and the dead animal shall be his own.
