Judges 17:6

6 In those days there was no king in Yisra'el: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 17:6 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 17:6

In those days there was no king in Israel
That is, no supreme magistrate, judge, or ruler, Joshua being dead and Caleb also, and the elders contemporary with them; for what the Samaritan Chronicle says ^F12 is without foundation, that Joshua a little before his death cast a lot in the presence of the congregation, to know who should govern after him, and the lot came to one Abel, of the tribe of Judah:

[but] every man did that which was right in his own eyes;
which accounts for the idolatry of Micah, there being no supreme magistrate to take cognizance of his sin, and restrain him from it, or punish him for it according to the law of God.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Apud Hottinger. Smegma Orient. p. 522.

Judges 17:6 In-Context

4 When he restored the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred [pieces] of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made of it an engraved image and a molten image: and it was in the house of Mikhah.

5 The man Mikhah had a house of gods, and he made an efod, and terafim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his Kohen.

6 In those days there was no king in Yisra'el: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

7 There was a young man out of Beit-Lechem-Yehudah, of the family of Yehudah, who was a Levite; and he sojourned there.

8 The man departed out of the city, out of Beit-Lechem-Yehudah, to sojourn where he could find [a place], and he came to the hill-country of Efrayim to the house of Mikhah, as he journeyed.