Commentary - Judges 21:25

Bird's-eye view

Judges 21:25 is the capstone and thematic summary of the entire book of Judges. It serves as the final, grim diagnosis of Israel's spiritual and political condition during this era. The verse is composed of two clauses that are inextricably linked: a statement of political reality ("there was no king in Israel") and a statement of the moral and social consequence ("everyone did what was right in his own eyes"). This is not merely a historical footnote; it is a profound theological statement about the nature of man and the necessity of righteous authority. The book of Judges is a relentless, downward spiral, a catalogue of apostasy, idolatry, violence, and sexual degeneracy. This final verse explains why it all happened. When the ultimate standard of God's kingship is rejected, the only standard left is the autonomous self, and the result is not liberation but catastrophic chaos. The verse is therefore a powerful argument for the necessity of the Davidic monarchy to come, and ultimately, for the absolute necessity of the reign of King Jesus.

The reader is meant to recoil in horror from the scenes depicted in the preceding chapters, particularly the grotesque account of the Levite's concubine and the subsequent civil war. The narrator then provides this verse as the explanation for that horror. This was not a time of freedom, but a time of anarchic bondage to sin. The problem was not the absence of a man with a crown, but the absence of the fear of God in the hearts of the people. They had rejected Yahweh as their king, and the social fabric unraveled completely as a result.

Outline

Context In Judges

This verse is the final sentence of the book, but the sentiment is expressed earlier as well. After the story of Micah and his idolatrous shrine, the narrator comments, "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6). The repetition of this phrase at the very end of the book, after the even more horrific account of the atrocity at Gibeah and the near-annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin, gives it a conclusive and emphatic weight. It is the book's final word, the interpretive key to everything that has gone before. The entire narrative, from the failure to drive out the Canaanites in chapter 1 to the bizarre and violent solution to find wives for the Benjamites in chapter 21, is an extended illustration of this principle. The book of Judges shows us what happens to a covenant people when they forsake their covenant Lord. It is a dark and bloody backdrop against which the grace of God in later providing a king, and ultimately the King, shines all the more brightly.

Key Issues

The Anatomy of Anarchy

We must be careful how we read this verse. It is not a simple argument for monarchy over, say, a republic. The problem was not fundamentally political, but theological. Israel already had a king; His name was Yahweh. The entire covenant established at Sinai was the constitution of their kingdom, and God was their sovereign. Samuel would later rebuke the people for wanting a human king "like all the nations," telling them that in doing so they were rejecting God as their king (1 Sam 8:7).

So when the text says "there was no king in Israel," it is operating on two levels. On the surface, it notes the absence of a centralized human monarch who could enforce the law of God. But at a deeper level, it signifies that the people were living as though they had no king at all, not even God. They had functionally deposed Yahweh from the throne of their hearts and from the throne of their nation. The lack of a human king was a symptom and a result of this deeper, spiritual rebellion. The chaos of the period of the Judges was God giving them over to the logical consequences of their desire to be kingless, to be without Him.

Verse by Verse Commentary

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

The verse is a single sentence in English, but it contains a universe of theological truth. Let us take it clause by clause.

In those days there was no king in Israel... This sets the historical and, more importantly, the covenantal scene. The "days" are the period after the death of Joshua and the elders who served with him, and before the rise of the monarchy under Saul. It was a time of confederation, where the tribes were meant to be united by their common allegiance to Yahweh and His law. The judges were charismatic, temporary military leaders raised up by God to deliver the people from foreign oppression, but they were not kings. There was no central, unifying, law-enforcing authority. But as we have noted, this political vacuum was a reflection of a spiritual one. The people did not have a human king because they had rejected their divine King. The throne was vacant, and as we are about to see, chaos abhors a vacuum.

...everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This is the direct and unavoidable result of the first clause. When a people reject the one true God as their ultimate authority, they do not become free. They simply create millions of competing, petty tyrants. Every man becomes his own god, his own lawgiver, his own king. The standard for "right" is no longer the objective, revealed law of God, but the subjective, fluctuating, and self-serving whim of the individual. This is the very definition of sin that was offered in the Garden: "you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5). It is the declaration of moral autonomy. And the book of Judges is Exhibit A for what this autonomy looks like when it is played out on a national scale. It looks like Micah's syncretistic idolatry. It looks like the brutal gang rape and murder of a woman in Gibeah. It looks like a bloody civil war that almost wipes out an entire tribe. This is not freedom; it is the deepest and most chaotic form of slavery, a slavery to the sinfulness of one's own heart.

Application

This verse is one of the most relevant in all of Scripture for our modern, secular age. We live in a society that has enthroned the principle that "everyone should do what is right in his own eyes." We call it expressive individualism, or authenticity, or freedom. We are told that the highest good is to define our own truth, our own morality, our own identity. We are told that any external standard, especially the standard of God's Word, is oppressive and bigoted. Our world is running the same experiment that Israel ran in the time of the Judges, and with the same predictable results: societal fragmentation, moral confusion, sexual chaos, and violence.

The answer to the chaos of Judges was not a better system of government. The answer was a king. The book points forward to David, the man after God's own heart, who would bring a measure of order and justice. But David was a flawed man, a placeholder for the true King to come. The ultimate answer to the problem of Judges 21:25 is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the perfect King who not only provides the objective standard of righteousness in His law, but who also provides the grace and power to live by it. He does not just give us rules; He gives us new hearts. He rescues us from the tyranny of doing what is right in our own eyes by seating Himself on the throne of our lives.

Therefore, the application for us is twofold. First, we must see that the only alternative to the kingship of Christ is the anarchy of self. There is no neutral ground. Either He is Lord, or we are, and if we are, the end is destruction. Second, as the church, we are to be a colony of the kingdom of heaven, a people who live under the rule of our true King. In a world where everyone does what is right in their own eyes, we are called to be a people who joyfully and submissively do what is right in His eyes. This is our witness to a world that is tearing itself apart in its quest for a freedom that can only be found in submission to the King of kings.