Eyes

After seeing the divine messenger who announces Samson’s birth, Manoah, his father, fears death. Captured by the Philistines and blinded, Samson seeks death. The parallel is deliberate: where Manoah sees the divine yet fails to understand, Samson loses his sight and only then recognizes YHWH. The reversal is sharpened by the role of prayer in the narrative: Samson’s parents never pray for a child, but Samson himself prays in his final moments, crying out for strength, vengeance, and death.

The belief in the power of an angry or jealous person’s eye to damage others was pervasive in the ancient Near East, in Jewish antiquity, and medieval times. But what does the Bible say?

חכלילי עינים מיין (Genesis 49:12) is an obscure phrase. In contrast to the standard interpretation, Nachmanides offered an original interpretation, which finds support in modern linguistic analysis and an archaeological find.