Verse 13:[1] Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.
[Now I know that God will bless me, etc.] Now I know that I am going to be blessed before the Lord (Vatablus). Now God, says he, will increase my substance: indeed, many were going to come to these sacred rites, and he was going to be a sharer in all the oblations; and thus this wretch thinks profit to be piety (Martyr). God will bless, etc. O most false hope! O most brutish confidence! Certainly the contrary is rather to be dreaded. For the sins here were most grievous: 1. idolatry; 2. the invitation of this young man to this; 3. the threefold violation of the priesthood. For, 1. a Levite that was not of the stock of Aaron was not competent for the priesthood. 2. An Ephraimite was not able to consecrate a priest. 3. The transfer of the priesthood to the worship of idols. So that it might seem strange that Moncæius in Concerning the Golden Calf 1:19 wrote that the Ephod and the Teraphim were the cause of Micah’s more prosperous fortune and profit. Nay indeed, what, except Divine vengeance and the most grievous punishments, was able to be owed to Micah? But the clear beginning of this we have in the following chapter (Serarius). Micah expects prosperity, not from the true God, but from the very idol that he had set up for worship, and for which he had initiated this priesthood (Bonfrerius).
Now know I, etc.: I am assured God will bless me. So blind and grossly partial he was in his judgment, to think that one right circumstance would answer for all his substantial errors, in making and worshipping images against God’s express command, in worshipping God in a forbidden place, and in that he, being an Ephraimite, presumed to make a priest, etc.
[1] Hebrew: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מִיכָ֔ה עַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֔עְתִּי כִּֽי־יֵיטִ֥יב יְהוָ֖ה לִ֑י כִּ֧י הָיָה־לִ֛י הַלֵּוִ֖י לְכֹהֵֽן׃