Micah made this proposal to the Levite: "Dwell with me, and become my father and priest; I will give thee ten shekels of silver yearly, and fitting out with clothes and maintenance." אב, father, is an honourable title give to a priest as a paternal friend and spiritual adviser, and is also used with reference to prophets in 2 Kings 6:21 and 2 Kings 13:14, and applied to Joseph in Genesis 45:8. ליּמים, for the days, sc., for which a person was engaged, i.e., for the year (cf. 1 Samuel 27:7, and Leviticus 25:29). "And the Levite went," i.e., went to Micah's house. This meaning is evident from the context. The repetition of the subject, "the Levite," precludes our connecting it with the following verb ויּואל. - In Judges 17:11-13 the result is summed up. The Levite resolved (see at Deuteronomy 1:5) to dwell with Micah, who treated him as one of his sons, and entrusted him with the priesthood at his house of God. And Micah rejoiced that he had got a Levite as priest, and said, "Now I know that Jehovah will prosper me." This belief, or, to speak more correctly, superstition, for which Micah was very speedily to atone, proves that at that time the tribe of Levi held the position assigned it in the law of Moses; that is to say, that it was regarded as the tribe elected by God for the performance of divine worship.

Judges 18:6 Parallel Commentaries

go in peace

1 Kings 22:6,12,15 Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them...

Jeremiah 23:21,22,32 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied...

before

Deuteronomy 11:12 A land which the LORD your God cares for: the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it...

Psalm 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on them that fear him, on them that hope in his mercy;

1 Thessalonians 3:11 Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you.

the Lord. As the Levite uses the word Jehovah, and as the Danites succeeded according to the oracle delivered by him, some learned men are of opinion, that the worship established by Micah was not of an idolatrous kind.