1. Judges 18:15 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is suggested by the reference to “the house of the young Levite”?

Judges 18:15 (ESV)

15 And they turned aside there and came to the house of the young Levite, at the home of Micah, and asked him about his welfare.

Strikingly, after noting that the Danites left the main road and turned to the location of the shrine, the narrator first speaks of the house of the young Levite, and only afterward, by way of explanation, of the home of Micah. This suggests that by this time, the Levite has basically replaced Micah as head of the compound, or at least in the eyes of the Danites. In this whole scene only the young Levite is present; Micah, and all others in the compound, are absent. This is the beginning of Micah’s fading into obscurity, into nothingness.1