Judges 17:4
Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah. Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah.
Of the silver restored to her, Micah's mother took two hundred shekels and gave them to the founder or metalworker, who made a graven image and a molten image that were placed and kept in Micah's house of gods as idolatrous worship. The making of the two images from the returned silver for Micah's house belongs to the closing chapters of Judges, chapters 17-21, whose real story ends with chapter 16 but whose events occurred in the early part of the history of the judges. It is part of one composite record in Judges 3 to 17 of backsliding, consequent suffering, oppression, captivity and servitude, then returning to God, forgiveness and deliverance.
The making of the images shows Israel's backsliding, perversity, unbelief, sad transgression and constant lapsing into idolatry. The closing chapters portray deeply unsatisfactory conditions and how low Israel had fallen before the call of Samuel the prophet, followed by disgrace and punishment. It took place amid awful moral surroundings and under the demoralizing influences of the tribes Israel permitted to remain in the land of promise, and was met by long-suffering and goodness on God's part and His effort to restore His people from idolatry. The record is not delightful to dwell upon, and it does not show that one can backslide with impunity.
The transaction exposes an ignorant and depraved mixture of heathen practice with fear of Jehovah, for Micah's mother dedicated eleven hundred shekels of silver to the Lord and then used part of it for the images. She wickedly and absurdly supposed Jehovah would accept such a dedication as a gift, and imagined from a wicked heart that she was doing a very religious act, as if sincerity made disobedience no offense and God would not notice so small a thing. Likewise Micah obtained a true Levite as priest for his images with the idea that even idolatry would be acceptable to God if attended with the ordinances of religion. This is the evasive spirit of the sinner attempting to justify a sin of commission already committed instead of acknowledging its guilt.
The two images were apparently standing images used with the ephod and teraphim for divination or interpreting dreams, and those worship objects were later abolished by King Josiah. The making of the image kept in Micah's house is part of the account of Dan's early departure from God into idolatry and the first apostasy associated with the tribe of Dan. The Danites later took Micah's idols and his hired Levite priest to Laish, where they established the worship in the city they renamed Dan, and this existing idolatry made it easier for Jeroboam to establish calf worship at Dan. This early apostasy is offered as a possible reason Dan was omitted from the tribes listed among the 144,000 in Revelation 7:1-8.
The case is the same as fearing the Lord while serving graven images. It is the same as fearing the Lord while breaking the Sabbath under the supposition that the denunciations of the moral law are silenced and one or more of the ten commands are a dead letter.