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John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Judges 17 This chapter relates the first rise of idolatry in Israel after the death of Joshua, which began in Mount Ephraim, occasioned by a sum of money stolen by a man from his mother, which being restored, part was converted to an idolatrous use; two images were made of it, Judges 17:1 and there being no king in Israel to take cognizance of it, the idolatry took place and...
John Gill
And there was a man of Mount Ephraim,.... This and the four following chapters contain an history of facts, which were done not after the death of Samson, as some have thought, and as they may seem at first sight, by the order in which they are laid; but long before his time, and indeed before any of the judges in Israel, when there was no king, judge, or supreme governor among them, as appears...
Matthew Henry
All agree that what is related in this and the rest of the chapters to the end of this book was not done, as the narrative occurs, after Samson, but long before, even soon after the death of Joshua, in the days of Phinehas the son of Eleazar, ch. xx. 28. But it is cast here into the latter part of the book that it might not interrupt the history of the Judges. That it might appear how happy the...