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).