At the consecration ceremony for
the temple priests in Jerusalem, the thumbs and great toes of priests were
daubed with sacrificial blood (Exod. 29:20; Lev. 8:23). In all likelihood the
thumb represented the hands, which would perform sacrifices (Lev. 7:30; 8:14,
26–27) and invoke divine blessing on the people (Lev. 9:22). The great toe
likewise represented the feet of the one who would stand in the holy place (Num.
16:9; 1 Chron. 23:30; Ps. 24:3). We know from royal legends of the Canaanites
discovered at Ras Shamra that Canaanite kings were also priests, like
Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18; Gray, 236). Their holy tasks included offering
sacrifices, blessing the people, and standing in the holy places. Thus the
thumbs and great toes of the Canaanite kings in Judg. 1:7 would have sacral
significance.
When Adoni-bezek cut off the
thumbs and great toes of the “seventy” (code word for “all”) kings of southern
Canaan, he made it impossible for them to be “sacred kings” any more. And when
the tribe of Judah cut off Adoni-bezek’s own thumbs and great toes, that was
the end of the Canaanite order of sacred kings. What had begun as a blessing
(Gen. 14:18–19) had become an obstacle to God’s good order. A corrupted
Canaanite social order with false claims to divine sanction came to an end with
the dethroning of this last Canaanite king in the south . . . (E. John Hamlin, At Risk in the Promised Land: A Commentary on the Book of Judges [International
Theological Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990], 27)
