Judges 17:3

3 Micah gave the twenty-eight pounds of silver to his mother. Then she said, "I will give this silver to the Lord. I will have my son make an idol and a statue. So I will give the silver back to you."

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 named Micah who lived in the mountains of Ephraim.

2 He said to his mother, "I heard you speak a curse about the twenty-eight pounds of silver that were taken from you. I have the silver with me; I took it." His mother said, "The Lord bless you, my son!"

3 Micah gave the twenty-eight pounds of silver to his mother. Then she said, "I will give this silver to the Lord. I will have my son make an idol and a statue. So I will give the silver back to you."

4 When he gave the silver back to his mother, she took about five pounds and gave it to a silversmith. With it he made an idol and a statue, which stood in Micah's house.

5 Micah had a special holy place, and he made a holy vest and some household idols. Then Micah chose one of his sons to be his priest.