What Does Jeremiah 37:15 Mean?
And the princes were angry with Jeremiah and struck him, and set him in the house of restraint, in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had made that house into a house of restraint.
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
Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.THE KEY
The prison is called a house of the bound: confinement becomes a condition deliberately imposed, not merely a place.
THE MEANING
The verse shows officials’ anger becoming bodily force: Jeremiah is struck and confined in a house they have made a prison. The room is not incidental; it is deliberately used to hold him. The text leaves the violence visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That the prison is only a neutral location: the verse says it was made for confinement by the people who strike and hold Jeremiah.
THE ROOT
הָאֵסוּר
hāʾāsūr
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
ʾ-s-r
to bind or tie fast
“house of restraint” in this verse is hāʾāsūr. The phrase בֵּית הָאֵסוּר (bēt hāʾāsūr) evokes a “house of the bound.” The same root names both the act of binding and the person held by it, joining the prison’s purpose to Jeremiah’s imposed condition.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsar: to bind, tie
אָסַר
This verb names the act that the prison phrase carries into the verse.
ʾāsîr: a prisoner, captive
אָסִיר
The captive is named through the same root as the act of binding.
ʾasūrîm: bound ones, prisoners
אֲסוּרִים
This plural form echoes the verse’s “house of the bound” and connects it to the language of release elsewhere.
THE PATTERN
Human authorities can answer a person with blows and confinement.
Then Asa was angry with the one who sees, and put him in the house of the stocks, for he raged against him over this. And Asa crushed some of the people at that time.And when they had laid many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, charging the keeper of the bonds to keep them securely.THE THREAD
Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.The word translated “prisoners” is אֲסוּרִים (ʾasūrîm), “bound ones,” from אָסַר (ʾāsar), the same root behind Jeremiah’s “house of the bound.” The shared root places human confinement beside the LORD as the one who loosens those bound.
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