What Samuel Said about Solomon "In those days," we are told in
Judges 17:6, "there was no king in Israel, but every man did
that which was right in his own eyes." To be able to do that
which is right in one's own eyes is to be free, and freedom was
the way of life among the Israelites before the coming of the
kings. Yet, they were not without government; they were not
lacking in those social controls that are the essence of
government. The economy of the tribesmen demanded of the
individual that he adjust himself to cooperative and regularized
procedures; a man who indulged his caprice when the tribe was on
the march in search of grazing land would be courting disaster;
it was a case of hold together or die. Tradition supplemented
necessity in the orderly arrangement of life, for the tradition
grew out of experience by the trial-and-error method and had
proved itself beneficial. The laws of custom were sanctified
because violation of them carried its own penalties, not only to
the individual, but also to the