Judges 18:3-4

18:3 As they approached ¹  Micah’s house, they recognized the accent ²  of the young Levite. So they stopped ³  there and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?” ⁴  18:4 He told them what Micah had done for him, saying, ⁵  “He hired me and I became his priest.”

Judges 17:5

17:5 Now this man Micah owned a shrine. ⁶  He made an ephod ⁷  and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest. ⁸ 

[18:3]  ¹ tn Or “When they were near.”

[18:3]  ² tn Heb “voice.” This probably means that “his speech was Judahite [i.e., southern] like their own, not Israelite [i.e., northern]” (R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 263).

[18:3]  ³ tn Heb “turned aside.”

[18:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “What [is there] to you here?”

[18:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “He said to them, ‘Such and such Micah has done for me.’” Though the statement is introduced and presented, at least in part, as a direct quotation (note especially “for me”), the phrase “such and such” appears to be the narrator’s condensed version of what the Levite really said.

[17:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “house of God.”

[17:5]  ⁷ sn Here an ephod probably refers to a priestly garment (cf. Exod 28:4-6).

[17:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he filled the hand of one of his sons and he became his priest.”