Bible Commentaries
Judges 18

Verses 1-31

Judges 18:3

'It, is a vain thought,' says Dinah Morris in Adam Bede, 'to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing to our own souls, as if we could choose for ourselves where we shall find the fullness of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found, in loving obedience.'

Judges 18:7

A man's own safety is a god that sometimes makes very grim demands.

George Eliot.

Security, as commonly understood, is the state in which one fears no danger, where one is cheerful and hopes the best. We all begin our life in security.... We are all born optimists.

Martensen.

There are a multitude of persons who go through life in a safe, uninteresting mediocrity. They have never been exposed to temptation; they are not troubled with violent passions; they have nothing to try them; they have never attempted great things for the glory of God; they have never been thrown upon the world; they live at home in the bosom of their families, or in quiet situations... and when their life is closed, people cannot help speaking well of them, as harmless, decent, correct persons, whom it is impossible to blame, impossible not to regret. Yet, after all, how different their lives are from that described as a Christian's life in St. Paul's Epistles!

Newman.

References. XVIII. 7, 27, 28. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlii. No. 2490. XVIII. 9,10. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 330.

Judges 18:19

So, in almost the same words, was the like bribe offered by one of the great religious houses of England to the monk who guarded the shrine of one of the most sacred relics in the adjacent cathedral of Canterbury 'Give us the portion of St. Thomas's skull which is in thy custody, and thou shalt cease to be a simple monk; thou shalt be Abbot of St. Augustine's.' As Roger accepted the bait in the twelfth century after the Christian era, so did the Levite of Micah's house in the fifteenth century before it. Stanley.

Judges 18:20

He that was won with ten shekels may be lost with eleven.... There is nothing more inconstant than a Levite that seeks nothing but himself.

Bishop Hall.

Reference. XVIII. 24. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 109.

Judges 18:27

When a Warré-like State growes Softe and Effeminate, they may be sure of a Warre. For commonly such States are growne rich, in the time of their degenerating: and so the Prey inviteth, and their Decay in Valour encourageth a Warre.

Bacon.