And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son. (Judges 17:2)
People of ancient times believed that a curse could not be withdrawn. Micah’s mother may have sought to avoid its effects by neutralizing it with a blessing.
I took it.
Micah’s confession may have been made in the hope of allaying his conscience and avoiding the anticipated effect of the curse.
In mine ears.
Micah heard the terrible imprecation against the thief and perhaps immediately became troubled. In those times the power of a curse was believed to be very great and real.
Cursedst.
When the mother, who apparently was a wealthy widow living with her son, discovered that the silver had been stolen, she placed a fearful curse upon the money and the one who had taken it, perhaps never dreaming that her own son Micah was the thief. In placing the curse upon the money, she may have mentioned, as in v. 3, that she had set it aside for making an idol, thus prohibiting its use for other functions. The thief could not use it then, according to superstition, without suffering retaliation from the deity thus invoked.