O Lord God... O God. — Three names of God — Adonai, Jehovah, Elohim.
That I may be at once avenged of the Philistines. — Again we see that Samson stood at a comparatively low level of spiritual enlightenment as well as of moral purity. One cannot help feeling that Milton has read into the hero’s character an austere grandeur which it did not possess. His Samson of the Samson Agonistes is rather Milton himself than the Jewish hero. That stern classic poem is the “thundering reverberation of a mighty spirit, struck by the plectrum of disappointment.”
For my two eyes. — The words rendered “at once” in the previous clause may be rendered “that I may avenge myself the revenge of one of my two eyes.” If so, there seems to be in the words a grim jest, as though no vengeance would suffice for the fearful loss of both his eyes (LXX., “one revenge for my two eyes”), “one last tremendous deed, one last fearful jest.” There is a curious parallel to this achievement of Samson in the story of Cleo-medes of Astypalæa, who in revenge for a fine pulls down a pillar, and crushes the boys in a school (Pausan. Perieg. Vi. 2, 3). Cassel tells us that on July 21st, 1864, many people were killed by the breaking of a granite pillar in the Church of the Transfiguration at St. Petersburg.