It is only as the spies get to the gate (after taking the items) that the priest notices them and what they are carrying. Startled, but helpless as he is surrounded by six hundred armed men, he asks a question that amounts to a protest: What are you doing?
18 And when these went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”