Micah of Mount Ephraim מיכה מהר אפרים
the man who set up an idol and his own priest at home
The story begins with money: Micah returned to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver he had taken from her, and part of that silver went to a founder. Then it says plainly: "And the man Micah had a house of God, and he made an ephod and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, and he became his priest."
Later a Levite from Bethlehem passes by, and Micah takes him in for ten pieces of silver a year, clothing and keep: "be to me a father and a priest." And when six hundred Danites go looking for an inheritance, they carry off both the furnishings and the Levite himself, and set the idol up among themselves.
The book ends the account with a measure of time rather than a verdict: "and they set up for themselves Micah's idol which he had made, all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh."
The window comes from Seder Olam Rabbah 12, which places the affair of Micah's idol in the days of Cushan-Rishathaim. The book of Judges gives no dates: it tells this not in order of years but at the end, as a separate scroll.
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Tanakh
- Shoftim 17:1–13 — the silver, the idol and a hired Levite in Micah's house
- Shoftim 18:14–31 — the Danites carry the idol away and set it up
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Seder Olam Rabbah 12 — Micah's idol was in the days of Cushan-Rishathaim
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.