Genesis 19:11 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Blindness. — This word occurs elsewhere only in 2 Kings 6:18, and in both cases it is plain that actual blindness is not meant. Had the men here been struck with blindness they would not have wearied themselves with trying to find the door, but would either have gone away in terror at the visitation, or, if too hardened for that, would have groped about till they found it. So, if the Syrian army had been made actually blind, they would have surrendered themselves; nor would it have been practicable to guide an army of blind men on so long a march as that from Dothan to Samaria. In both cases the men were unaware that anything had happened to them. The people of Sodom thought they saw the door; the Syrians supposed that the locality was one well known to them, and only when the confusion was removed did they become conscious that they were at Samaria. The word really means a disturbance of vision caused by the eye not being in its proper connection with the brain. And so the men of Sodom ever seemed just upon the point of reaching the door, and pressed on, and strove and quarrelled, but always failed, they knew not how, but as they always supposed by one another’s fault. It is a strange picture of men given over to unbelief and sin, and who “seeing see not,” because they reject the true light.