What Does 2 Chronicles 36:6 Mean?
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon went up against him, and bound him in bronze chains, to carry him to Babylon.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.THE KEY
The king’s capture reaches beyond his body: even his going is placed under another’s command.
THE MEANING
Here captivity seizes both body and direction: the king is bound, and another power decides where he goes. The destination, Babylon (בָּבֶל, Bāvel), echoes בָּלַל (bālal, to mix or confuse) in Genesis 11:9, giving the forced journey a scriptural sound of disorientation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that a title makes someone untouchable; even a king can be bound and carried away.
THE ROOT
וַיַּאַסְרֵהוּ
wayyaʾasrēhû
GROWS FROM
אסר
ʾ-s-r
To bind, tie, or restrain.
The root appears in words for both a bound person and a captive: binding is not only an action but a state someone can be made to inhabit. Here the king’s body is restrained before his journey is taken over.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsūr: Bound or restrained.
אָסוּר
It names the condition created by the binding in this verse.
ʾāsîr: A captive or prisoner.
אָסִיר
It shows how the act of binding can become a person’s condition.
לְהוֹלִיכוֹ
leholikho
GROWS FROM
הלך
h-l-k
To go or walk; in the causative form here, to cause someone to go or to lead.
“carry” in this verse is leholikho. The verb is built from the root for going or walking, in a form that means to make him go. The same root gathers ordinary movement and compelled movement, so the verse shows captivity reaching into the king’s direction as well as his body.
ALSO GROWS
hālak: To go or walk.
הָלַךְ
This is the basic movement contained in the verb translated “carry.”
hôlîkh: To lead or cause someone to go.
הוֹלִיךְ
This causative form makes clear that the king’s movement is directed by another.
THE PATTERN
Captivity begins when another power can bind the body and direct its movement.
Those who sit in darkness and in the valley of deepest darkness, bound and bowed low in iron.They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pontius Pilate the governor.And when Herod was about to lead him forth, that same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and the guards before the door were watching over the prison.THE THREAD
Those who sit in darkness and in the valley of deepest darkness, bound and bowed low in iron.The psalm’s אֲסִירֵי (ʾasîrê, captives or bound ones) comes from the same root אסר (ʾ-s-r, bind) as the verb translated “bound” here. It opens this royal scene into the wider experience of a person held in a place they did not choose.
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