Judges 21:25

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 21:25

In those days there was no king in Israel
No supreme magistrate, Joshua being dead, and as yet no judge in Israel had risen up; for all related in the five last chapters of this book were done between the death of Joshua and the time of the judges:

every man did that which was right in his own eyes;
there being none to restrain him from it, or punish him for it; and this accounts for the many evil things related, as the idolatry of Micah and the Danites, the base usage of the Levite's concubine, the extreme rigour and severity with which the Israelites treated their brethren the Benjaminites, the slaughter of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead, and the rape of the daughters of Shiloh.

Judges 21:25 In-Context

23 The Benjamites did as instructed and carried away the number of women they needed from the dancers they caught. They went back to their own inheritance, rebuilt their cities, and settled in them.

24 And at that time, each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and clan, each to his own inheritance.

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.