And Nahash the Ammonite answered them
In a very haughty and scornful manner:
on this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I
may thrust
out all your right eyes;
some Jewish writers go into a mystical and allegorical sense of
these words, as that Nahash ordered the book of the law to be
brought, which was their right eye, that he might erase out of it
these words,
an Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the
congregation of the
Lord;
others understand it of the sanhedrim, which were the eyes of
Israel; and others, which come a little nearer to the sense, of
the slingers and archers, the desire of the eyes of Israel; and
who, by having their right eyes thrust out, would be in a great
measure spoiled for taking aim; for the words are to be
understood literally; the intention of Nahash was to disable them
for war, and that they might become quite unfit for it, as
Josephus observes F18; the left eye being under the
shield, as it usually was in war, and the right eye plucked out,
they would be as blind men: he did not choose to have both their
eyes thrust out, for then they could have been of no use and
service to him as slaves or tributaries:
and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel;
that they did not come up to the relief of their brethren, and
defend them, and signifying that they must all expect the same
treatment from him.