Judges Chapter 17 verse 3 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - I had wholly dedicated. It is not clear whether the words are to be rendered as in the A.V., had dedicated, expressing the dedication of them before they were stolen, or whether they merely express her present purpose so to dedicate them. But the A.V. makes very good sense. Her former purpose had been that the money should be given for her son's benefit to make his house an house of gods. Now that he had confessed, she resumed her purpose. Now therefore I restore it unto thee - that is, in the shape of the graven and molten images, as it follows in the next verse. The narrative gives a curious example of the semi-idolatry of the times. A graven image and a molten image. There is a good deal of difficulty in assigning the exact meaning of the two words here used, and their relation to one another in the worship to which they belong. The molten image (massechah), however, seems to be pretty certainly the metal, here the silver, image of a calf, the form which the corrupt worship of Jehovah took from the time when Aaron made the molten calf (Exodus 32:4, called there 'egel massechah, a molten calf) to the time when Jeroboam set up the golden calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12:28, 29). And that massechah means something molten is certain both from its etymology (nasach, to pour) and from what Aaron said in Exodus 32:24: "I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf." Here too Micah's mother gives the silver to the founder, i.e. to the fuser of metals. The pesel, or graven image, on the other hand, is something hewn or graven, whether in wood or stone, and sometimes overlaid with gold and silver (Deuteronomy 7:25). One might have thought, from the language of ver. 4, and from the mention of the pesel alone in Judges 18:30, 31, that only one image is here intended, which was graven with the chisel after it was cast, as Aaron's calf seems to have been. But in Judges 18:17, 18 they are mentioned separately, with the ephod and teraphim named between them, so that they must be distinct. From the above passages the pesel or graven image would seem to have been the most important object, and the difficulty is to assign the true relation of the massechah or molten image to it. Hengstenberg thinks the massechah was a pedestal on which the pesel stood, and that the ephod was the robe with which the pesel was clothed, and that the teraphim were certain tokens or emblems attached to the ephod which gave oracular answers. But this is not much more than guess-work. Berthean considers the ephod, here as elsewhere, to be the priest's garment, put on when performing the most solemn services, and specially when seeking an answer from God. And he thinks that the massechah formed a part of the ornament of the ephod, because in Judges 18:18 the Hebrew has "the pesel of the ephod." The teraphin he thinks are idols, a kind of Dii minores associated with the worship of Jehovah in this impure worship. But there does not seem to be any means at present of arriving at any certainty. The massechah might be a rich gold or silver overlaying of the wooden image, possibly movable, or it might be the separate image of a calf supposed to belong, as it were, to the pesel, and to symbolise the attributes of the Godhead.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) I had wholly dedicated the silver.--Literally, Consecrating, I consecrated--either, "I have now consecrated it" as a thanksgiving for its restoration, or "I had done so before it was stolen."For my son--i.e., for your benefit.To make a graven image and a molten image.--Whether in the universal decadence of religion, the people, untaught by a careless priesthood, had become ignorant of the second commandment, or whether she justified her conduct by the same considerations which have been used even in the Christian Church in favour of image-worship, we cannot tell. The word used for a graven image is pesel, and for a molten image is massecah. They are the very words used in the curse against idolaters in Deuteronomy 27:15. Some suppose the two words to be used by Hendiadys (like "cups and gold" for "golden cups" ) to describe one silver image adorned with sculptured ornament. All that is clear is that the pesel is the more prominent, but the details are left quite vague. It is therefore impossible to determine whether the graven and molten image consisted of one or of two silver "calves," like that of the wilderness, and those afterwards set up by Jeroboam at Dan and Bethel. This, however, was a form which the violation of the second commandment was constantly liable to take, and it probably involved much less blame than other violations of it--not, as is often stated, because the Israelites had become familiar with the worship of Apis and Mnevis in Egypt, but because the calf was a recognised cherubic emblem, and had consequently been deliberately sanctioned in the symbolism of the Temple. (See Exodus 20:4; Exodus 20:23; Exodus 32:4-5; 1Kings 7:25, &c.) Some suppose that the massecah was the pedestal of the pesel, and that it was too heavy for the Danites to carry away, since it is not mentioned among the things which they seized. . . .