God should have been the king in Israel and His Word the law that governed society, but the people preferred to “do their own thing.” If the people had forsaken their idols, and if the elders of Israel had consulted God’s law and obeyed it for God’s glory, Israel could have been governed successfully. Instead, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (21:25), and the result was a society filled with competition and confusion.
Consider the sins of the tribe of Dan as they sought to better their situation in the nation of Israel.
Covetousness (vv. 1–2). The tribe of Dan descended from Jacob’s fifth son, born of Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah (Gen. 30:1–6). Though not a large tribe (Num. 1:39), it was given choice territory when the tribal boundaries were assigned (Josh. 19:40–48). The Danites, however, weren’t able to defeat and dispossess the enemy (Judg. 1:34), thus they decided to go north and relocate. Most of the other tribes were able to conquer the enemy, dispossessed them, and claim their land, but the Danites coveted somebody else’s land instead and took it in a violent manner.
The Lord had assigned the tribal allotments under the direction of Joshua, with the help of Eleazar the high priest and the elders from the tribes (Josh. 19:51). As He did with the nations (Acts 17:26), so He did with the tribes: God put each tribe just where He wanted it. For the tribe of Dan to reject God’s assigned territory and covet another place was to oppose His divine will.
But isn’t that what causes most of the trouble in our society today? Instead of submitting to God’s will, people want what somebody else has, and they’ll do almost anything to get it (James 4:1–3). The corruption that’s in this world is fed by “evil desires” (2 Peter 1: niv). Whether it’s producing pornography, selling dope, or promoting gambling, money hungry people cater to human desires and end up making money and destroying lives. Thanks to the power of modern media, especially television, the advertising industry creates in people appetites for all sorts of exciting products, services, and experiences. Therefore, people go out and spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need to impress people who don’t really care, but this is the cycle that keeps business going.
The elders of Israel should have put a stop to the men of Dan as they abandoned God’s assigned place and headed north to kill innocent people and steal their land. But covetousness is strong, and once people get an appetite for “something more,” it’s difficult to control them.
Ungodly counsel (vv. 3–6). It was Jonathan’s dialect that attracted the attention of the five spies, because he didn’t speak quite like a man from Ephraim. When they asked what a Levitical priest was doing in a private home in Ephraim—a very good question, by the way (1 Kings 19:9, 13)—he told them the truth: He was hired to do the job! Since somebody else was paying the bill, the spies thought it was permissible to get “spiritual counsel” from Jonathan, and he told them what they wanted to hear.
If the tribe of Dan had really wanted God’s counsel, they could have consulted with the high priest. But they were actually rejecting God’s counsel by refusing to remain in the land He had assigned to them. Therefore, it wasn’t likely God would have revealed anything to them (John 7:17).
Breaking and entering, robbery and intimidation (vv. 14–26). On their way to capture Laish, the people of Dan paused at Micah’s house in Ephraim. The spies told the men that Micah had a wonderful collection of gods, hinting, of course, that the collection would be valuable to them as they traveled, warred, and established their new home. While the armed men stood at the gate of the city, the five spies, who knew Jonathan, invaded the shrine and stole the gods.
When the five men, with their religious loot, arrived back at the city gate, the priest was shocked to see what they had done. But the Danites silenced him by hiring him, and since he was a hireling, Jonathan was ready for a better offer. The Danites not only broke into Micah’s shrine and stole his gods, but they also stole his chaplain. Not a bad day’s work!
The Danites put the women and children in the front since that was the safest place, because any attacks would come from the rear. By the time the Danites had traveled some distance away, Micah discovered that his shrine was out of business, having neither gods nor priest; so he called his neighbors together, and they pursued the invaders. After all, a man must protect his gods!
It was useless. Since the Danites outnumbered him and were too strong for him, Micah and his neighbors had to turn around and go home defeated. Micah’s sad question “What else do I have?” (v. 24 niv) reveals the folly and the tragedy of religion without the true and living God. Idolaters worship gods they can carry, but Christians worship a God who carries them (Isa. 46:1–7).
Violence and murder (vv. 7–13, 27–29). The five spies had traveled 100 miles north from their encampment at Zorah to Laish (“Leshem,” Josh. 19:47), a town inhabited by the Sidonians, about thirty miles east of the Mediterranean Sea. These were a peaceful people who minded their own business and had no treaties with anybody. They were “unsuspecting and secure” and “prosperous” (v. 7 niv), an isolated people, who were a perfect target for the warlike tribe of Dan.
With 600 armed men, plus their women and children (Judg. 18:21), they marched north and captured Laish, killing all the inhabitants and burning the city. Then they rebuilt it and proudly called it Dan, after the name of the founder of their tribe. Unfortunately, what Jacob prophesied about the tribe of Dan came true (Gen. 49:17).
Someone has said that there are only three philosophies of life in today’s world: (1) “What’s mine is mine, I’ll keep it”; (2) “What’s yours is mine, I’ll take it”; and (3) “What’s mine is yours, I’ll share it.” The Danites followed the second philosophy, and so do too many other grasping people. One of the current booming industries in the United States is the installing of security systems in private homes. The number of shooting sprees in shopping malls and fast-food restaurants has frightened many people into doing their shopping by telephone. The cover story of Time magazine for August 23, 1993, called the United States “America the Violent.”
We don’t know how many people lived in Laish, but the wanton murders of even a few hundred innocent people is a crime of gross proportions. I fear that we’ve been exposed to so much crime and violence in the media that this kind of news doesn’t disturb us anymore. “We’re seeing a new sort of violence,” wrote Arthur Beisser in Sports Illustrated (March 1, 1976). “It’s being used not as a means to an end, but for recreational purposes, for pleasure.” We might add that violence is also a means for making money, as both the moviemakers and the television industry have proved.
Idolatry (vv. 30–31). The tribe of Dan was the first tribe in Israel to officially adopt an idolatrous system of religion. Even though there was a house of God in Shiloh, they preferred their images and idols. Years later, when the kingdom divided, Jeroboam I of Israel would set up golden calves in Dan and Beersheba and encourage the whole nation to turn away from the true and living God (1 Kings 12:25–33).
The account of Micah, Jonathan, and the Danites is more than a story from ancient history. It’s a revelation of the wickedness of the human heart and the hopelessness of human society without God. Our modern world has substituted idols for the true and living God and has devised its own humanistic religion, complete with “priests”—the experts who tell us that the Bible is wrong but their way is right. But neither their idols nor their priests have any power against the violence of the human heart.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States, he called a “White House Conference on Children and Youth,” hoping to find solutions to the juvenile delinquency problem that was then plaguing the nation. I was supposed to attend that conference but couldn’t go because of family obligations.
However, a friend of mine from Youth for Christ International attended and gave this report (I paraphrase): “I sat in the room for hours, listening to psychologists and educators and criminologists talk about teenagers and how to help them, and I got sick of it. Finally, I asked for the floor and told them of our experiences in Youth for Christ, how delinquents had been changed by the power of the gospel. The room became very quiet, and then people got embarrassed and began to clear their throats and shuffle papers. The chairman thanked me for my words and immediately moved to the next item on the agenda. Then it hit me: they didn’t want to hear!”
William Butler Yeats was right: “The center cannot hold.” The home, the ministry, and society are disintegrating before our eyes, and people don’t want to hear the truth! But whether they want it or not, the world must be told that Jesus Christ died for lost sinners, and that the power of Christ can transform hearts, homes, churches, and society if people will only trust Him.
“Christ beats His drum, but He does not press men,” said English preacher and poet John Donne (d. 1631); “Christ is served with voluntaries.”
Are you available?