He restored the eleven hundred [pieces] of silver to his mother; and his mother said, I most assuredly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make an engraved image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it to you.
Micah was a thief who stole a fortune from his own mother. The amount of silver he stole could have sustained one person for a lifetime in Israel (cf. Judges 17:10). Apparently he confessed his theft because he feared his mother’s curse (Judges 17:2). Instead of cursing him she blessed him, a very unusual reaction in view of the amount of money involved. Perhaps she believed that her blessing would undo her previous curse. [Note: Wolf, p. 481.] Micah’s mother then claimed to dedicate all 1,100 pieces of the recovered silver to Yahweh. However she gave only 200 pieces to a silversmith to make an image. The Lydians first produced coined money in the sixth century B.C. Therefore these were not 1,100 silver coins but 1,100 measures of silver. The writer did not identify how much silver was in each measure, but this was a fortune by any estimate. [Note: See The New Bible Dictionary, 1962 ed., s.v. "Money," by A. F. Walls.] She stole from God as her son had stolen from her. Micah had evidently learned dishonesty at home.