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

Judges 21:25 In those days [there was] no king in Israel: every man did [that which was] right in his own eyes.Ver. 25. In those days, &c.] See Judges 17:6. Every man did that which was right.] Quod sibi placebat, id solebat facere. Had the Israelites been, as some say the Thracians were, αυτονομοι, every man a law to himself, it might have been better with them. But although they lived in God’ s good land, yet because not by God’ s good laws, nor had at this time any supreme magistrate, therefore all was out of order, and their anarchy begat a general ataxy. Vatab.

(25) In those days . . . This verse, already occurring in Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1; Judges 19:1, is here added once more by way of apology for the lawless crimes, terrible disasters, evaded vows, and unhallowed excesses of retribution, which it has been the painful duty of the sacred historian thus faithfully and impartially to narrate. Out of these depths the subsequent Judges, whose deeds have been recorded in the earlier chapters, partially raised their countrymen, until the dread lessons of calamity had been fully learnt, and the nation was ripe for the heroic splendour and more enlightened faithfulness of the earlier monarchy.

Verse 25. In those days there was no king in Israel] Let no one suppose that the sacred writer, by relating the atrocities in this and the preceding chapters, justifies the actions themselves; by no means. Indeed, they cannot be justified; and the writer by relating them gives the strongest proof of the authenticity of the whole, by such an impartial relation of facts that were highly to be discredit of his country. I HAVE already referred to the rape of the Sabine virgins. The story is told by Livy, Hist. lib. i., cap. 9, the substance of which is as follows: Romulus having opened an asylum at his new-built city of Rome for all kinds of persons, the number of men who flocked to his standard was soon very considerable; but as they had few women, or, as Livy says, penuria mulierum, a dearth of women, he sent to all the neighbouring states to invite them to make inter-marriages with his people. Not one of the tribes around him received the proposal; and some of them insulted his ambassador, and said, Ecquod feminis quoque asylum aperuissent? Id enim demum compar connubium fore? "Why have you not also opened an asylum for WOMEN, which would have afforded you suitable matches?" This exasperated Romulus, but he concealed his resentment, and, having published that he intended a great feast to Neptune Equester, invited all the neighbouring tribes to come to it: they did so, and were received by the Romans with the greatest cordiality and friendship. The Sabines, with their wives and children, came in great numbers, and each Roman citizen entertained a stranger. When the games began, and each was intent on the spectacle before them, at a signal given, the young Romans rushed in among the Sabine women, and each carried off one, whom however they used in the kindest manner, marrying them according to their own rites with due solemnity, and admitting them to all the rights and privileges of the new commonwealth. The number carried off on this occasion amounted to near seven hundred; but this act of violence produced disastrous wars between the Romans and the Sabines, which were at last happily terminated by the mediation of the very women whose rape had been the cause of their commencement. The story may be seen at large in Livy, Plutarch, and others. Thus ends the book of Judges; a work which, while it introduces the history of Samuel and that of the kings of Judah and Israel, forms in some sort a supplement to the book of Joshua, and furnishes the only account we have of those times of anarchy and confusion, which extended nearly from the times of the elders who survived Joshua, to the establishment of the Jewish monarchy under Saul, David, and their successors. For other uses of this book, see the preface. MASORETIC NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JUDGES The number of verses in this book is six hundred and eighteen. Its Masoretic chapters are fourteen.

25. there was no king in Israel] Cf. Judges 17:6 n. A suitable transition to the history of Samuel which relates the beginning of the monarchy.

The repetition of this characteristic phrase (compare Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1; Judges 19:1) is probably intended to impress upon us the idea that these disorders arose from the want of a sufficient authority to suppress them.

25. In those days there was no king in Israel — With this familiar text, in part or in whole so frequently repeated in this book, the historian of the Dark Ages of Israel appropriately closes his narrative.