What Does Judges 17:4 Mean?

(4) **Yet.**—Rather, *And.* **Two hundred shekels of silver.**—Bertheau supposes that these two hundred shekels were not *apart of the eleven hundred, *but the trespass-money of one-fifth, which by the law Micah had to pay for his theft (Lev. 5:24). But apart from the sum not being exact, no such impression is given by the narrative. It is left to be understood that the remaining nine hundred shekels were spent in other parts of the idolatrous worship. (It may be mentioned, by way of passing illustration, that when Sir John Hawle was murdered in Westminster Abbey, the £200 paid in penance by his murderers seem to have been expended upon the purchase of a costly image, which was placed in the Chapel of St. Erasmus.) **Gave them to the founder.**—An illustration of the folly which Isaiah pursues with such a storm of irony and contempt (Isaiah 46:6-13). These *pesîlîm *were originally of all sorts of materials (*e.g., *wood, brass, stone, and clay, Daniel 2:33; Daniel 5:23; Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3, &c.), but usually of metal (Isaiah 40:19; Isaiah 44:10, &c.), adorned with plates and chains of precious metal, and embroidered robes (Jeremiah 10:9; Ezekiel 16:18, &c.). (See *Excursus I.: Calf-Worship. *) **EXCURSUS ON NOTES TO JUDGES. EXCURSUS I**.—ON Judges 17:4. (CALF-WORSHIP.) IT may be regarded as certain, from the testimony of Scripture itself, that the calf of Aaron and those by which the rebel king “Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox,” were not idols in the ordinary sense of the word, but were intended as symbols of the one God. The calf-worship was a violation not of the first, but of the second commandment. The main element of the fourfold cherub was certainly an ox, as is clear from the comparison of Ezekiel 10:14 with Judges 1:7-8; and the knowledge of this cherubic emblem was not confined to the Jews, but was spread at least through all Semitic races. That the calf was intended to be an emblem of God seems to be the opinion of Josephus, who in such a matter would represent creditable Jewish traditions (*Antt. viii.* 8, § 4). Aaron in proclaiming the feast at the inauguration of his golden calf distinctly calls it a feast to Jehovah (Exodus 32:5). It was the well-understood purpose of Jeroboam not to introduce a new worship, but to provide a convenient modification of the old; and it appears from 1Kings 22:16 that the prophets of the calf-worship still regarded themselves, and were regarded, as the prophets of Jehovah; but the fate of Amos is sufficient to show that they must have sanctioned, or at least tolerated, the use of these unauthorised symbols, against which, so far as we are informed, not even Elijah or Elisha ever raised their voices, though the former was so implacable a foe to all idolatry, and the latter lived on terms of close friendship with at least one of the northern kings. (See the article “Calf,” by the present writer, in Smith’s *Dictionary of the Bible*.)