Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.

Now Heli was ninety and eight years old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see.

And Eli is a son of ninety and eight years, and his eyes have stood, and he hath not been able to see.

Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were fixed so that he was not able to see.

Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes had dimmed, so that he was not able to see.

Dim - Rather, "set." The word is quite different from that so rendered in 1-Samuel 3:2. The phrase seems to express the "fixed" state of the blind eye, which is not affected by the light. Eli's blindness, while it made him alive to sounds, prevented his seeing the ripped garments and dust-besprinkled head of the messenger of bad news.

Now Eli was ninety eight years old,.... Which is very properly observed, he being now come to the end of his days, and which also accounts for his blindness after mentioned:
and his eyes were dim, that he could not see; could not see the messenger, and read in his countenance, and perceive by his clothes rent, and earth on his head, that he was a bringer of bad tidings; or his eyes each of them "stood" (h); were fixed and immovable, as the eyes of blind men be. In 1-Samuel 3:2 it is said, "his eyes began to wax dim"; but here that they "were" become dim; and there might be some years between that time and this, for Samuel then was very young, but now more grown up: though Procopius Gazaeus thinks that Eli was then ninety eight years of age, and that the affair there related was just before his death; but it rather appears to be some time before.
(h) "stetit", Montanus; "stabant", Tigurine version.

Eli was ninety-eight years old, and "his eyes stood," i.e., were stiff, so that he could no more see (vid., 1-Kings 14:4). This is a description of the so-called black cataract (amaurosis), which generally occurs at a very great age from paralysis of the optic nerves.