Judges 18:19
And they said unto him, Hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?
Judges 17-21 records events that occurred in the early part of the judges period though placed after chapter 16 where the main story of the book ends. Those closing chapters portray Israel's low spiritual condition before the time of Samuel the prophet. In the verse the Danites persuade Micah's priest, a hired Levite serving one man and household, to leave that service and become priest to a tribe and family in Israel, presenting the larger position as more advantageous and higher in standing.
The offer leads him to go with the Danites, who take him and Micah's idols as they travel to Laish. After destroying Laish and naming the new city Dan, they establish image-centered idolatrous worship there with him as priest, an irregular appointment connected with idolatry, which continued until the captivity of the ten tribes. The appeal to tribal advantage over service to one household reflects the clannishness that displaced justice. The episode belongs to a time when people did what seemed right to themselves, when conscience and human reason apart from God's revelation were distorted by selfishness so that wrong appeared right.
The episode is Dan's first apostasy, suggested as the reason the tribe was nearly lost and was omitted from the tribes named in the sealing. The idolatrous worship thus established at Dan made it easier afterward for Jeroboam to set up his golden calf at Dan and turn the people to it. The backsliding shown in the verse gives no excuse for sin and must not be taken to mean that one can backslide with impunity.