Judges 21:24-25

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

²⁴And the Israelites left there then, every man to his tribe and family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance.

²⁵In those days ^[a]there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25 This statement is made three times in these latter chapters. All was well while Joshua and those who assisted him lived; then gradually came disorder. “What is the meaning of this?... There was no king [or counselor] in Israel because in Israel there was no God. The Lord is King. You cannot have a [true] king if you have not a God. There was no nominal renunciation of God, no public and blatant atheism, no boastful impiety; there was a deadlier heresy—namely, keeping God as a sign but paying no tribute to Him as a King, worshiping Him possibly in outward form but knowing nothing of the subduing and directing power of godliness. That is more to be dreaded than any intellectual difficulty of a theological kind... Dead consciences, prayerless prayers, mechanical formalities—these are the impediments which overturn... the chariots of progress. This was the case in Israel. Where God is, the king is not [merely] a man with a crown on, but a king in the sense of kingliness, sovereignty, authority, rule—the spirit of obligation and responsibility... You find the right monarch where you find the right God” (Joseph Parker, cited by James C. Gray and George M. Adams, Bible Commentary).