Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 21:25

"In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." — Judges 21:25 (ASV)

In those days ... This verse, already occurring in Judges 17:6, Judges 18:1, and Judges 19:1, is here added once more as an explanation for the lawless crimes, terrible disasters, evaded vows, and unhallowed excesses of retribution, which it has been the painful duty of the sacred historian thus faithfully and impartially to narrate. Out of these depths the subsequent Judges, whose deeds have been recorded in the earlier chapters, partially raised their countrymen, until the dread lessons of calamity had been fully learnt, and the nation was ripe for the heroic splendour and more enlightened faithfulness of the earlier monarchy.