What Does 2 Kings 25:7 Mean?
And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and blinded Zedekiah, and bound him with bronze chains, and carried 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
And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.THE KEY
Sight becomes part of the violence: Zedekiah watches his sons die, then is blinded, bound, and carried away.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the sequence impossible to blur: Zedekiah witnesses his sons being killed, then loses his sight, is fettered with bronze, and is taken to Babylon. The reader encounters conquest as violence against the body and the forced removal of a person from his home.
THE ROOT
עִוֵּר
ʿivver
GROWS FROM
עור
To be blind, or to blind.
“blinded” in this verse is ʿivver. The Hebrew uses the verb for blinding after placing his sons’ deaths before his eyes. Sight first makes him a witness; then his eyes become the site of injury.
ALSO GROWS
ʿivver: Blind; to blind.
עִוֵּר
This is the verb used for what is done to Zedekiah’s eyes.
ʿivaron: Blindness.
עִוָּרוֹן
The related noun gives a name to the condition imposed on him.
וַיַּאַסְרֻהוּ
wayyaʾasruhu
GROWS FROM
אסר
To bind, tie, or imprison.
“bound” in this verse is wayyaʾasruhu. The bronze fetters make captivity physical: Zedekiah is restrained before he is carried to Babylon. The same root also names the prisoner and the confinement itself.
ALSO GROWS
ʾasir: A prisoner or captive.
אָסִיר
The bound person becomes, in this root’s language, a prisoner.
maʾasar: Imprisonment or confinement.
מַאֲסָר
This branch names the state created by the binding.
צִדְקִיָּהוּ
Tzidkiyahu
GROWS FROM
צדק
Rightness, justice, alignment.
Zedekiah’s name carries the meaning “YHWH is righteousness.” Its root also names rightness and alignment, a meaning that remains beside the verse’s blunt account of mutilation and exile without explaining the violence away.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness or justice.
צֶדֶק
This is the root’s core noun and part of the meaning carried in Zedekiah’s name.
tsedaqah: Righteousness or alignment.
צְדָקָה
This related word keeps the root’s language of rightness audible within the name.
THE PATTERN
Power makes captivity visible by binding bodies and controlling where they can go.
But the Philistines gripped him, and dug out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze chains. And he was grinding in the prison house.Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him in bronze, to lead him to Babylon.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
The aligned one perishes, and no man lays it upon the heart. Men of faithful love are gathered, and none discerns, for from the face of harm the aligned one is gathered.The word translated “righteous” shares the root צדק with Zedekiah’s name, which carries the sense “YHWH is righteousness.” Isaiah’s line places that root beside a person being taken away, allowing the name in this verse to resonate without resolving the violence.
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