In those days [there was] no king in Israel, [but] every man did [that which was] right in his own eyes.
Ver. 6. In those days there was no king in Israel,] i.e., No ordinary supreme magistrate: hence this idolatry and the following outrages. Of the two, tyranny or ochlocraty, that rule of rascality, is better than anarchy. It is noted as a just wonder, that "the grasshoppers have no king, yet go they forth in bands": Pro 30:27 for the body of the commonwealth which lacked a chief ruler, is like the body of Polyphemus, without an eye. Ulysses, asking what kind of kingdom the Cyclopes had, was answered by Silenus, Nομαδες, ακουει ουδεις ουδενος, they wander at pleasure, and do what they want without control. The inhabitants of Brazil are said to be sine fide, sine rege, sine lege, without religion, law, or government, and must therefore needs be miserable. Look what a ship is without a steersman, a flock without a shepherd, a house without the father of the family, or a school without a schoolmaster; such is a state without a supreme government. This when none would take upon them, the prophet showeth that confusion followed, Isa 3:6 and men became as fishes, devouring one another.
But every man did that which was right in his own eyes.] So they did in the interregnums at Rome, and do still in Turkey, to the great disturbance of the public welfare. Stobaeus a telleth us, that by the Persian law, there was at the death of their king a five days' lawless liberty proclaimed, to the end that, by the want of good government for such a time, people might be made to know the worth of it, and so might prize it the better ever after.
a Orat., xlii.