Verse 21
(21) Put out his eyes.—the margin, “bored out,” is more correct. The Arabic version has the curious gloss that they burnt out his eyes with the red-hot style with which stibium (see Job 42:14) is applied to the eyes. To blind a man was the most effectual humiliation (2 Kings 25:7). The story of Evenius, a priest of the sun-god, who is blinded by the people of Apollonia, who thereby incur the anger of the gods, seems to move in a similar circle of ideas to this.
Fetters of brass.—Literally, two brasses—i.e., pairs of brazen fetters (nechushtarim).
He did grind in the prison house.—This was the degrading work of slaves and females (Exodus 11:5; Isaiah 47:2). Grotius in a curious note says that slaves thus employed were blinded by the Scythians to save them from giddiness (see Herod. iv. 2). The end of Samson was mournful; “his whole powerful life was only like a light, blazing up brightly at moments, and shining afar, but often dimmed, and utterly extinguished before its time” (Ewald).
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