The dissolution of good order and political confusion.
Oppression and pride everywhere prevail. (R. Macculloch.)
State chaos
There is a natural relation of classes. Whilst all that is purely mechanical and arbitrary is to be viewed with suspicion, yet there is a natural sequence in things; there is, indeed, what is called a fitness or harmony of things; and when society is rightly inspired the base man knows that he is base, and his baseness is his weakness, and his weakness defines his position; and the child knows himself to be but a child, and therefore he behaves himself with discretion, and is limited by circumstances which he cannot control. Once let the moral centre be lost, and then you have lost all arithmetical counting, all geometrical relationship, all figure and form and mechanism and security, and the foursquare is thrown out of its parallel, and that which was right is numbered with that which is forbidden, (J. Parker, D. D.)
An evil spirit in the nation
It is here threatened that God would send an evil spirit among them (Jdg_9:23), which would make them--
1. Injurious and unneighbourly one towards another. “The people shall be oppressed everyone by his neighbour,” and their princes, being children, take no care to restrain the oppressors, or relieve the oppressed. Nor is it to any purpose to appeal to them.
2. Insolent and disorderly towards their superiors. It is as ill an omen to a people as can be, when the rising generation among them is generally untractable, rude, and ungovernable, when “the child behaves himself proudly against the ancient”; whereas he should “rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man” (Lev_19:32). When young people are conceited and pert, and carry it scornfully towards their superiors, it is not only a reproach to themselves, but of ill consequence to the public; it slackens the reins of government, and weakens the hands that hold them. It is likewise ill with a people when persons of honour cannot support their authority, but are affronted by the base and beggarly; when judges are insulted by the mob, and their power set at defiance. (M. Henry.)
A lamentable state of society
Homo homini lupus--man becomes a wolf to man;
jusque datum sceleri--wickedness receives the stamp of law;
nec hospes ab hospite tutus--the guest and the host are in danger from each other. (M. Henry.)
