Judges 17:3

3 He returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, "I personally consecrate the silver to the Lord for my son's benefit to make a carved image overlaid with silver."^[a]

Judges 17:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 17:3

And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver
to his mother
The whole sum, having embezzled none of it:

his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord from
my hand, for my son to make a graven image and a molten image;
this she had done either before it was stolen, and it troubled her the more, and caused her the rather to curse the man that had taken it; or after it was stolen, that if it should be recovered again she would appropriate it to such an use; so Abarbinel; and by the Lord, or Jehovah, she doubtless meant the true God; for she had no intention to forsake him, but to worship him in and by these images, and which she designed for the use of her son and his family, that they might not go so far as Shiloh to worship at the tabernacle there:

therefore I will restore it unto thee;
for that use, and so gave him the money again, to be laid out in images, or to make images of it.

Judges 17:3 In-Context

1 There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Micah.

2 He said to his mother, "The 1,100 pieces of silver taken from you, and that I heard you utter a curse about-here, I have the silver with me. I took it. So now I return it to you." Then his mother said, "My son, you are blessed by the Lord!"

3 He returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, "I personally consecrate the silver to the Lord for my son's benefit to make a carved image overlaid with silver."

4 So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took five pounds of silver and gave it to a silversmith. He made it into a carved image overlaid with silver, and it was in Micah's house.

5 This man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household idols, and installed one of his sons to be his priest.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or image and a cast image