Cut off his thumbs and his great toes. — The cutting off of his thumbs would prevent him from ever again drawing a bow or wielding a sword. Romans who desired to escape conscription cut off their thumbs (Suet. Aug. 24). The cutting off of his great toes would deprive him of that speed which was so essential for an ancient warrior, that “swift-footed” is in Homer the normal epithet of Achilles. Either of these mutilations would be sufficient to rob him of his throne, since ancient races never tolerated a king who had any personal defects. This kind of punishment was not uncommon in ancient days, and it was with the same general object that the Athenians inflicted it on the conquered Æginetans. Mohammed (Koran, Sur. 8:12) ordered the enemies of Islam to be thus punished; and it used to be the ancient German method of punishing poachers (Ælian, Var. Hist. ii. 9). The peculiar appropriateness of the punishment in this instance arose from the Lex talionis, or “law of equivalent punishment,” which Moses had tolerated as the best means to limit the intensity of those blood-feuds (Leviticus 24:19-20; Deuteronomy 19:21; comp. Judges 15:10-11). which, “because of the hardness of their hearts,” he was unable entirely to abolish.
Related Commentaries of Judges 1:6
Judges 1:6
6 But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.