Judges 21:25

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; each one 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 descendants of Benjamin did likewise, and they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they seized, and they went and returned to their territory, and they rebuilt the cities and they lived in them.

24 So the {Israelites} dispersed from there at that time according to tribe and family; and they went out from there, each one to their own territory.

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