John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 2

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 2

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Thumbs and Great Toes

Jdg_1:1-7

One is shocked to learn that when the Israelites had taken captive AdoniBezek the king of Jerusalem, they cut off his thumbs and his great toes. The man who has studied the war usages of ancient times cannot, indeed, feel much surprise at anything of barbarity or savageness of which he can read, although the distress of his feelings may be not less than that of the person of less knowledge to whom such things are new. For the reasons already stated, we have no just grounds for expecting that the Hebrews should carry on their warfare more mildly than their neighbors; yet it must be admitted that this treatment of a captive king is, at the first view, regarded with pain and with something like abhorrence. But wait a little. Let us read a few lines more of the record. How did this king himself regard this treatment? How did it affect his mind? Did he fill the air with outcries at this cruel indignity, and call down upon them all the curses of all his gods? Did he fold his arms in calm dignity upon his breast, and submit his outraged majesty to the insults of a barbarous people? Nothing of the kind! He was humble, he was contrite. He regarded himself as an offender brought to justice, and confessed that he richly deserved the doom inflicted upon him. Hear his words: “Three score and ten kings, having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me.” Do the Hebrews, after this, need any excuse? Why, the man they thus roughly handled is himself their apologist and vindicator. So far from taking pleasure in such barbarities, it was precisely to express their abhorrence of them, as exercised by him, that they had subjected him to the very same treatment, that he might learn there is a God that judgeth in the earth. And he did learn it. Nothing can be more shocking than the scene this wicked king depicts. Seventy kings, not only thus mutilated, but reduced to a condition worse than slavery—their misery paraded at the conqueror’s court—and instead of sitting at his table, constrained to gather their food, like dogs, below it. This helps us to some insight of the state of the country under the native princes, whom the Israelites were commissioned to expel. Conceive what must have been the state of the people among whom such a scene could exist—what wars had been waged, what cruel ravages committed, before these seventy kings—however small their territories—became reduced to this condition, and behold in this a specimen of the fashion in which war was conducted, and of the treatment to which the conquered were exposed. Those are certainly very much in the wrong who picture to themselves the Canaanites as “a happy family,” disturbed in their peaceful homes by the Hebrew barbarians from the wilderness. Behold how happy, behold how peaceful, they were!

It may not be clear to many of our readers what may have been the special object of this form of mutilation. We have read often enough, of various kinds of mutilations inflicted upon prisoners of war, but this kind is new to us. It is still, however, not less significant than blinding and other modes of privation adopted in such cases. The object was, in the first place, to disable the kings from taking part in war, without so impairing any of their faculties or functions as to lessen or deaden the sense of suffering and humiliation. This incapacitation was a great matter, when kings were expected to lead their armies in person, and to take an active part in the conflict. It is clear that no man deprived of his thumbs could handle any weapon, and that one destitute of the great toes could not have that firmness of tread in walking, racing, and climbing, which were essential to a military chief, particularly among a people who went barefoot, or who at least wore only such feet-coverings as permitted the full natural action of the toes, among which the great toes are of the highest importance. We almost think that this privation must have operated as a disqualification for any future restoration to the throne, and was intended so to operate. There can be no doubt that when the Israelites proceeded with their miserable captive to his city of Jerusalem, they restored to their liberty the seventy kings whom they had thus avenged, and with whom they had, in this uncouth manner, expressed their sympathy. Nor can there be any doubt that when the seventy discrowned princes beheld their old oppressor thus brought low, they rose from the dust to greet him, crying, “Art then also become like unto us—thou that didst weaken the nations—thou that madest the land to tremble!” A mutilation which the threescore and ten survived, was not likely to be in itself mortal, and it was therefore more probably from humbled pride than of his wounds that Adoni-Bezek died at Jerusalem.

It is observable that in the Hebrew the great toe is called the thumb of the foot, and hence the phrase here is, “the thumbs of the hand and feet.” This is the case in other Oriental and in some European languages. In the Hindu the thumb is called “sevia viril,” the great finger of the hand, and the large toe is named the great finger of the foot. Mr. Roberts, in his curious “Oriental Illustrations,” states that this punishment was in ancient times very common in India, and was inflicted principally upon those who had committed come flagrant offence with the hands or with the feet. Thus, those convicted of forgery or of numerous thefts, had their thumbs cut off. The practice is now extinct, but the memory of it still exists, as it is now one of the bugbears of the nursery and of domestic life: “If you steal any more I will cut off your thumbs;” “Let me find out the thief, and I will soon have his thumbs,” and the like.