Judges 17:3

17:3 When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ¹  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ² 

Judges 18:14

18:14 The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish ³  said to their kinsmen, ⁴  “Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do.”

Judges 18:17

18:17 The five men who had gone to spy out the land broke in and stole ⁵  the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, while the priest was standing at the entrance to the gate with the six hundred fully armed men. ⁶ 

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¹ tn Heb “dedicating, I dedicate.” In this case the emphatic infinitive absolute lends a mood of solemnity to the statement.

² tn Heb “to the LORD from my hand for my son to make a carved image and cast metal image.” She cannot mean that she is now taking the money from her hand and giving it back to her son so he can make an image. Verses 4-6 indicate she took back the money and used a portion of it to hire a silversmith to make an idol for her son to use. The phrase “a carved image and cast metal image” is best taken as referring to two idols (see 18:17-18), even though the verb at the end of v. 4, וַיְהִי (vayÿhi, “and it was [in the house of Micah]”), is singular.

³ tc Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the LXX lacks the phrase “of Laish.”

⁴ tn Heb “brothers.”

⁵ tn Heb “went up, went in there, took.”

⁶ tn Heb “six hundred men, equipped with the weapons of war.”