August 11th, 2026
Judges 21:25 — In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
I don’t know how others feel, but every time I read the book of Judges, I have a knot in my stomach. It’s not just a knot of discomfort but of disgust. But I think that is the point of this verse. In those days there was no king in Israel. But God was supposed to be their king and their guide, yet the people stopped looking to God as their king. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It was not enough to be the people of God; the people wanted to be like the world around them.
Yet Judges follows the book of Joshua, which records the conquests of the people of Israel in Canaan, where atrocities were being committed against women, children, and foreigners, so that God judged the people of the land through the conquests of Israel. Yet now that Israel has come into the land that God has promised them, they begin to act like those whom God had given into their hands. You see, the people of Israel had no king but themself. Each man judged for himself what was right and wrong.
This echoes back to Genesis 3. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Adam was instructed to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, yet Eve, being deceived by the serpent, looked with her eyes and saw that the tree was good for food, and that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes, and she took and ate, and she gave it to her husband who was with her, and he ate. The knowledge of good and evil is that declaration for oneself what is right and wrong, and it begins with the eyes turning away from the King of heaven and earth towards something else.
Judges is a really difficult book to read because it touches on something real within all of us — sin. Every one of us bears the corruption of sin, and when we read of wicked actions in Judges, we sense that this is wrong and that we are capable of committing similar acts.
But the story does not end here. In the Protestant canon of Scripture Judges is followed by Ruth which is a story of redemption, faithfulness, and promise. Coming out of the darkness of Judges and the people who did what was right in their own eyes for they had no king comes this faithful Moabite woman who would become the grandmother of David from whose lineage would come the King of kings and Lord of lords.
When we read Judges, I think we are right to feel disgusted. But we must remember that we feel that way because the world is not how it was meant to be, and that should point us to Jesus Christ who came into the world to redeem and reconcile the world to God, especially those whom God has called to be His own.
Praise God for a Savior we did not deserve!
Rev. Joshua Fried
Pastor
I don’t know how others feel, but every time I read the book of Judges, I have a knot in my stomach. It’s not just a knot of discomfort but of disgust. But I think that is the point of this verse. In those days there was no king in Israel. But God was supposed to be their king and their guide, yet the people stopped looking to God as their king. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It was not enough to be the people of God; the people wanted to be like the world around them.
Yet Judges follows the book of Joshua, which records the conquests of the people of Israel in Canaan, where atrocities were being committed against women, children, and foreigners, so that God judged the people of the land through the conquests of Israel. Yet now that Israel has come into the land that God has promised them, they begin to act like those whom God had given into their hands. You see, the people of Israel had no king but themself. Each man judged for himself what was right and wrong.
This echoes back to Genesis 3. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Adam was instructed to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, yet Eve, being deceived by the serpent, looked with her eyes and saw that the tree was good for food, and that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes, and she took and ate, and she gave it to her husband who was with her, and he ate. The knowledge of good and evil is that declaration for oneself what is right and wrong, and it begins with the eyes turning away from the King of heaven and earth towards something else.
Judges is a really difficult book to read because it touches on something real within all of us — sin. Every one of us bears the corruption of sin, and when we read of wicked actions in Judges, we sense that this is wrong and that we are capable of committing similar acts.
But the story does not end here. In the Protestant canon of Scripture Judges is followed by Ruth which is a story of redemption, faithfulness, and promise. Coming out of the darkness of Judges and the people who did what was right in their own eyes for they had no king comes this faithful Moabite woman who would become the grandmother of David from whose lineage would come the King of kings and Lord of lords.
When we read Judges, I think we are right to feel disgusted. But we must remember that we feel that way because the world is not how it was meant to be, and that should point us to Jesus Christ who came into the world to redeem and reconcile the world to God, especially those whom God has called to be His own.
Praise God for a Savior we did not deserve!
Rev. Joshua Fried
Pastor
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