‘And the Philistines laid hold of him.'
He saw the Philistines enter the room, their strongest and their best. He exerted himself anticipating that his battle strength would be there for him. But though he fought bravely they had him down and bound him, for Yahweh was no longer with him, and he had ceased to look to Him. He had become dependent on himself. His ‘battle Spirit' no longer came.
‘And they put out his eyes, and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze, and he did grind in the prison house.'
We can compare Zedekiah in 2 Kings 25:7. The putting out of the eyes was the final punishment from which there was no return. Its purpose was total humiliation and degradation. From then on men to whom this had happened stumbled in darkness. It was also here possibly a safeguard because the Philistines were still a little unsure of Samson. It was a symbol of what had happened to him. He had become blind and enfettered spiritually. Now it had happened literally. The word means ‘bored out'. Compare Numbers 16:14.
“And they brought him down to Gaza.” To Gaza where he had known his greatest feat. To Gaza where his decline had first become apparent (Judges 16:1-3). It was ‘down' because it was on the coastal plain below the hills, but it was also down because that was the direction of his spiritual journey. He had reached rock bottom.
“And bound him with fetters of bronze.” They wanted no risk of his escaping or causing trouble. They were fetters that would never be moved. Every clink of the metal was a reminder of what he had lost. And they were very painful causing chafing, wounds and sores (Psalms 105:18). Note that the fetters were of bronze. They were still in their early stages of using iron.
“And he did grind in the prison house.” It may be that he was called on to push or pull round the great grinding stone in the prison mill, a job usually reserved for oxen, but more probably he ground a hand mill in his cell. Grinding a hand mill was the lowest kind of slave prison labour (see Exodus 11:5 with Exodus 12:29). For a man it was menial and humiliating, for it was woman's work. And possibly he lived in squalor and never left his airless prison.
We must not overemphasise this but it is interesting that in Scripture sexual activity is spoken of in terms of the grinding of grain. ‘If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbour's door, then let my wife grind to another, and let others bow down on her' (Job 31:9-10; possibly also Isaiah 47:2; Jeremiah 25:10). This may thus be seen as a suitable punishment for one who had sinned like Samson had. Does he like ‘grinding' with the Gazite prostitute and with Delilah? Then let him now grind in the prison house.