GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 18:8-13
8 When returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their relatives asked them, “What did you find out? ” 9 They answered, “Come on, let’s attack them, for we have seen the land, and it is very good. Are you just going to do nothing? Don’t hesitate to go! Go in and take possession of the land! 10 When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land. God has handed it over to you. It is a land where nothing is lacking.”
Unlike the twelve spies who reported to Moses (Num. 13:27-29, 31-33), the five Danites were in complete agreement: We can do this! God has handed this town over to us!
11 Six hundred men from the tribe of Dan set out from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war. 12 They went up and camped at Kiriath Jearim in Judah. This is why the place west of Kiriath Jearim is still called the Camp of Dan to this day. 13 From there they moved into the hill country of Ephraim and came to Micah’s house.
Six hundred men with six hundred spears moved like a rumor through the hilltops of Judah. Allowed to pass through by their Israelite brothers, they entered into Ephraim and found a town surrounded by hillcrests. It was the home of Micah, grown now into a village with family and friends all around the shrine of Micah’s mother. The ephod, the teraphim, the idol and the calf—all these things tended by the young Levite priest. Too young to sacrifice at the temple of the Lord, too greedy to wait for the proper time, he played church with the idols, fingering the silver, and led his flock far astray on the hilltop.
What would the six hundred spearmen think? What would the six hundred Danites do? Ephraim was no place for them to settle down; their goal was a hundred miles to the north, to the unsuspecting hamlet of Laish where a small Sidonian laity encamped too far from any help. The Danites were bent on conquest. But here in Ephraim, here at the house of Micah their minds would soon turn to plunder and theft. They would hear the priest, see the silver, behold the ephod, and dream of having their very own shrine. What was poison for a family would infect all of Dan. What was poison for a few would now spread through a whole tribe.
O Dan! Beware “those who have forsaken God’s law” (Psalm 119:53). Be warned! “If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable” (Proverbs 28:3). Do not covet what God detests. Do not set your heart on what brings nations down. Do not become like the Canaanites you set out to destroy! What will God think of Dan if the six hundred destroy the Sidonian outpost only to become like the Sidonians themselves?
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota