And they struck the men at the entrance, young and old, with blindness, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the door.
Now it appeared, beyond contradiction, that the cry of Sodom was no louder than there was cause for. This night's work was enough to fill the measure. For we find here, I. That they were all wicked, Gen 19:4. Wickedness had become universal, and they were unanimous in any vile design.
Commenting on Genesis 19:4-11
And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great,.... with "blindnesses" (n); with extreme blindness, with blindness both of eye and heart, as Aben Ezra interprets it; and indeed had they not been given up to a judicial blindness and hardness of heart, such a stroke upon them might have convinced them that their ways...
And they smote the men - with blindness - This has been understood two ways: 1. The angels, by the power which God had given them, deprived these wicked men of a proper and regular use of their sight, so as either totally to deprive them of it, or render it so confused that they could no longer distinguish objects; or, 2.