Judges 17:6

6 In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their 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 So when he returned the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into an idol of cast metal; and it was in the house of Micah.

5 This man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and teraphim, and installed one of his sons, who became his priest.

6 In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

7 Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there.

8 This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah, to live wherever he could find a place. He came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim to carry on his work.