Judges 17 demonstrates the growing religious corruption taking place as the nation continues its slide away from the Law of Moses. As time passes from the Exodus and the Conquest, the Israelites forget the lessons and laws against idolatry.
This chapter describes the establishment of a "household god", a form of personal religion that was rife in those days. The idea was that a person would have a shrine to their god(s) within their house and carry on worship there. The more prosperous the individual, the more accoutrements that could be afforded - nicer idol(s), more elaborate sacrifices, even a personal priest!
Judges 17 tells the tale of a man named Micah who, after returning some silver he had stolen from his mother, is rewarded with an idol. He builds a shrine and adds other elements of worship to it. He even hires his own son to be the "priest" for his household. All of this, Judges reminds us, is going on because "in those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes" (vs. 6).
Micah eventually hires a wandering Levite to serve him as priest. Micah feels that he has arrived and that the Lord will surely prosper him because he actually has one of God's Levite(!) as his household priest. Although this flies in the face of everything that Moses had taught the people about idolatry and keeping the faith unified and national in character, the decadent customs of Canaan have infected the Israelites.
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