Albert Barnes Commentary Judges 18:30-31

Albert Barnes Commentary

Judges 18:30-31

1798–1870
Presbyterian
Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes Commentary

Judges 18:30-31

1798–1870
Presbyterian
SCRIPTURE

"And the children of Dan set up for themselves the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set them up Micah`s graven image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh." — Judges 18:30-31 (ASV)

In the Hebrew text, the name here rendered Manasseh is written MN)- SH. Without the "N" (nun) suspended over the line, the word may be read as Moses, whose son was Gershom (Exodus 2:22), and whose son or descendant Jonathan clearly was. The Masoretes, probably grieved that a descendant of Moses should have been implicated in idolatrous worship, adopted this expedient for disguising the fact without absolutely falsifying the text. The Vulgate has "Moses," the Septuagint "Manasses."

These verses seem to tell us that Jonathan’s descendants were priests to the tribe of Dan until the captivity (2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 17:6), and that the graven image was in their custody until David’s time, by whose order, perhaps, it was destroyed, though the idolatrous worship continued, or was revived, at Dan.