1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Micah (thief)

MICAH, in the Bible, a man of the hill-country of Ephraim whose history enters into that of the foundation of the Israelite sanctuary at Dan (Judges xvii. seq.). He had stolen from his mother eleven hundred pieces of silver (for the number cf. judges xvi. 5), and when she uttered a curse upon the unknown thief he restored the money and she consecrated it to Yahweh. A carved image was made and set up in his private temple together with an ephod-idol and teraphim (objects used in divination, cf. Gen. xxxi. 19, 30; Hos. iii. 4). He employed one of his sons to serve as priest, but when a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah came along he gladly installed him as “father and priest.” When the tribe of Dan subsequently sought new territory and sent men to search for a suitable district they passed by Micah’s house, recognized the Levite and requested an oracle from him. When, later, they migrated, they despoiled the sacred place and carried off the gods and priest to their newly won home at Laish.