He said to his mother, The eleven hundred [pieces] of silver that were taken from you, about which you did utter a curse, and did also speak it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. His mother said, Blessed be my son of Yahweh.
The "graven image" (Heb. pesel) was apparently the idol, and the "molten image" (massekah) was its base. Both of these words occur at the head of the list of curses (Deuteronomy 27:15) to describe what the law forbade making for idolatrous purposes. The Hebrew word that describes the graven image occurs almost exclusively in relation to the golden calves that Aaron made (Exodus 32:4) and King Jeroboam made (1 Kings 12:28-30). Micah’s mother evidently intended this image to represent either Yahweh or the animal on which pagan people visualized gods standing. [Note: See Amihai Mazar, "Bronze Bull Found in Israelite ’High Place’ From the Time of the Judges," Biblical Archaeology Review 9:5 (September-October 1983):34-40; Hershel Shanks, "Two Early Israelite Cult Sites Now Questioned," Biblical Archaeology Review 14:1 (January-February 1988):48-52; and Amihai Mazar, "On Cult Places and Early Israelites: A Response to Michael Coogan," Biblical Archaeology Review 15:4 (July-August 1988):45.] 