Judges 17:8

8 egressusque de civitate Bethleem peregrinari voluit ubicumque sibi commodum repperisset cumque venisset in monte Ephraim iter faciens et declinasset parumper in domum Micha

Judges 17:8 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 17:8

And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehemjudah,
to sojourn where he could find a place Either being a man that had a rambling head, and of an unsettled mind, and could not easily fix any where; or else there being no supreme magistrate, to take care that the Levites had their due maintenance, for which there was a sufficient provision made by law; and the people being negligent of paying their tithes, there being none to oblige them to it, and they indifferent to the true worship of God, and prone to idolatry; this man was obliged to go abroad, and seek for a livelihood where he could get it, and sojourn in a place the most convenient for him:

and he came to Mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he journeyed:
not with a design to stay there, but called by the way, having heard perhaps that Micah was both a wealthy and an hospitable man, and he also might have heard of the new form of worship he had set up in his house.

Judges 17:8 In-Context

6 in diebus illis non erat rex in Israhel sed unusquisque quod sibi rectum videbatur hoc faciebat

7 fuit quoque alter adulescens de Bethleem Iuda et cognatione eius eratque ipse Levites et habitabat ibi

8 egressusque de civitate Bethleem peregrinari voluit ubicumque sibi commodum repperisset cumque venisset in monte Ephraim iter faciens et declinasset parumper in domum Micha

9 interrogatus est ab eo unde venis qui respondit Levita sum de Bethleem Iuda et vado ut habitem ubi potuero et utile mihi esse perspexero

10 mane inquit apud me et esto mihi parens ac sacerdos daboque tibi per annos singulos decem argenteos ac vestem duplicem et quae ad victum necessaria sunt