1st Samuel Chapter 4 verse 15 Holy Bible
Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were set, so that he could not see.
read chapter 4 in ASV
Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were fixed so that he was not able to see.
read chapter 4 in BBE
Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; and his eyes were set, that he could not see.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.
read chapter 4 in KJV
Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.
read chapter 4 in WBT
Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; and his eyes were set, so that he could not see.
read chapter 4 in WEB
And Eli is a son of ninety and eight years, and his eyes have stood, and he hath not been able to see.
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 15. - Eli was ninety and eight years old. Until the invention by the Arabs of the present system of numerals, all ancient nations had a most cumbrous system of expressing numbers. The Hebrew method was to attach a value to each of the letters of the alphabet, and then add them together, and thus the eighth and nineteenth letters would between them make up ninety-eight. Such a system led to constant mistakes in copying, and thus the numerals in the earlier parts of the Old Testament are beset with uncertainty. Here the Septuagint has ninety, and the Syriac seventy-eight. But as Eli was described already as "very old" in 1 Samuel 2:22, the Hebrew text is the most probable. Instead of dim the Hebrew has set, i.e. Eli was now absolutely blind, as the word expresses the motionless state of the eye when obscured by cataract. In 1 Samuel 3:2 a different word is used, rightly there translated "dim," as the disease is one which comes on gradually. In 1 Kings 14:4 we read that Ahijah was blind from the same cause, and the word is there correctly rendered "set."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) Ninety and eight years old.--The LXX. here reads "ninety" years, the Syriac Version "seventy eight." In the sacred text, where numbers are concerned we usually find these varieties of translation and interpretation. The present system of numerals was invented by the Arabs. The Hebrews use the letters of the alphabet to express numbers. Such a system was naturally fruitful in errors of transcription, and thus numbers, and dates especially, in the earlier books of the Old Testament are frequently confused and uncertain. Many of the difficulties which have given so much trouble to commentators have arisen out of the confusion of copyists substituting, through inadvertence, in Hebrew one letter for another. Instead of "his eyes were dim," the more accurate rendering would be his eyes were set--were stiff, so that he could no longer see. This, as Keil observes, is a description of the so-called black cataract (amaurosis), which not unfrequently occurs at a very great age from paralysis of the optic nerves.
