Judges 18:31

The tribe of Dan, having established itself in a new territory, persisted in an idolatrous practice as recorded in the concluding sentence of Judges 18. We read: *“So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.”* (v.31) This means that, rather than fully embracing the true worship of the LORD, they chose to revere a carved idol fashioned by Micah, a man living in the hill country of Ephraim around the late second millennium BC. By doing so, they intermingled the reverence due to God with a counterfeit object of worship, which demonstrates a significant departure from what the LORD had commanded (Exodus 20:4–5 NASB-95). The presence of the idol—despite the tabernacle being established at Shiloh—reveals the extent to which the Israelites were struggling to remain faithful to their covenant with God during the time of the judges.

Shiloh itself was an important city in the territory of Ephraim. Located in the central hills of the region, it served as the primary setting for the tabernacle after the Israelite conquest of the Promised Land (Joshua 18:1 NASB-95). Because *“…the house of God was at Shiloh”* (v.31), God’s presence was meant to be acknowledged and worshiped there alone through the sacrificial system He instituted. This city was meant to be a unifying center for the worship of the LORD, yet the Danites’ separate idol shrine conflicted with this core purpose. Their departure from worshiping in the legitimate house of God at Shiloh underscores the spiritual drift occurring in Israel at the time.

Micah, the original maker of the idol, demonstrates through his actions the broader turmoil and lack of strong leadership that typified this era, which scholars often date to around 1380–1050 BC—an interlude between Joshua’s leadership and the establishment of Israel’s monarchy. Like many of the people in this period, Micah appears to have mixed elements of true worship with practices drawn from local Canaanite cultures. This blending of faith also foreshadows the ongoing challenges Israel would face until, ultimately, God’s redemptive plan was fully manifested in Christ, who taught that true worship is found “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24 NASB-95). It highlights the ever-present biblical theme of trusting God alone and the danger of substituting Him with any form of false worship.

They set up the carved image in place of the genuine worship God intended.