Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 1:6

"But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes." — Judges 1:6 (ASV)

Cut off his thumbs and his great toes.—The cutting off of his thumbs would prevent him from ever again drawing a bow or wielding a sword. Romans who desired to escape conscription cut off their thumbs (Suetonius, Augustus 24).

The cutting off of his great toes would deprive him of that speed which was so essential for an ancient warrior, that “swift-footed” is in Homer the normal epithet of Achilles. Either of these mutilations would be sufficient to rob him of his throne, since ancient races never tolerated a king who had any personal defects. This kind of punishment was not uncommon in ancient days, and the Athenians inflicted it on the conquered Æginetans with the same general object. Mohammed (Koran, Surah 8:12) ordered the enemies of Islam to be punished this way, and it used to be the ancient German method of punishing poachers (Ælian, Varia Historia 2.9).

The peculiar appropriateness of the punishment in this instance arose from the Lex talionis, or “law of equivalent punishment.”

Moses had tolerated this principle as the best means to limit the intensity of blood feuds (Leviticus 24:19–20; Deuteronomy 19:21). However, because of the hardness of their hearts, he was unable to abolish these feuds entirely.