In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. From the lack of a settled government, there was no one to call him to account. No punishment followed any crime. But in this case of Micah, there was no rejection of Yahweh as his God (Judges 17:3); the images were designed to aid their worship, and the priest, the ephod, and the teraphim indicated a wish on his part to assimilate his remote sanctuary to that of the tabernacle at Shiloh, as far as his views would admit. But the teraphim were idolatrous (cf. Hosea 3:4; Zechariah 10:2 with 2 Kings 23:24; Genesis 31:30; Genesis 31:34 with Genesis 35:4).