18:30 set up the carved image for themselves. This is an example of what it meant for everyone to do what was right in his own eyes in the absence of a king (v. 14; 17:6).

Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses. (See text note). This was the Levite Micah had hired (17:10, 13).

until the day. Since v. 31 specifies that Micah’s idol was set up as long as “the house of God was at Shiloh,” the captivity mentioned here would be the time of oppression that began with the Philistine victory near Shiloh, when the ark was removed from there (1 Sam. 4:4, 11). The captivity in Babylon occurred much later.