Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
There was no king in Israel - All sorts of disorders are attributed to the want of civil government; justice, right, truth, and humanity, had fallen in the streets.
Took to him a concubine - We have already seen that the concubine was a sort of secondary wife; and that such connections were not disreputable, being according to the general custom of those times. The word pilegesh , concubine, is supposed by Mr. Parkhurst to be compounded of palag , "to divide, or share;" and nagash , "to approach;" because the husband shared or divided his attention and affections between her and the real wife; from whom she differed in nothing material, except in her posterity not inheriting.
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