Judges 21:25

THE FINAL COMMENT (Judges 21:25)

"In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

All commentators agree that this is an editorial comment by the author of the Book of Judges and that the purpose of it, repeated several times, was to establish the theological proposition that Israel should have a king. What many of the commentators seem to overlook is that there is an implied assertion in every one of the uses of this comment that, IF Israel had a king, all such disasters as those recorded in Judges would have been avoided.

These facts almost amount to a statement that SAMUEL wrote Judges. It is utterly inconceivable to this writer than any person whomsoever, who might have lived at any of the "later periods" assigned to the writing of Judges could possibly have entertained such a foolish and erroneous notion. It was only in the times of Samuel, before the monarchy had been experienced, that these comments would have been written. Furthermore, they could not have come from the earlier part of Samuel's life, because, at first, he was opposed to the establishment of the monarchy. This restricts the probability of the time when Judges was written to the "honeymoon phase" of the reign of Saul. Who can believe that any Israelite living after God's chosen people had witnessed the conduct of any of their reprobate kings could have entertained for a single moment the naive notion in evidence here that, IF Israel had had a king, none of these shameful things would have happened?