What Does Jeremiah 39:7 Mean?
Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him in bronze, to lead 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
Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.THE KEY
The Hebrew root for “bound” also names a prisoner, showing captivity as an act done to the body: sight is taken, movement restrained, and destination seized.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks plainly of bodily violence: sight is taken, the body is bound, and its destination is decided by another. Its sequence shows captivity reaching perception, movement, and place.
THE ROOT
וַיַּאַסְרֵהוּ
wayyaʾasrēhû
GROWS FROM
אסר
Bind, tie, restrain.
The Hebrew verb וַיַּאַסְרֵהוּ (wayyaʾasrēhû, “and he bound him”) comes from אסר (ʾāsar, bind or restrain). The same consonants appear in אָסִיר (ʾāsîr, prisoner), a person named by the condition of being bound; the verse’s chain is not incidental to captivity but its bodily enactment.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: Prisoner, captive.
אָסִיר
The captive is named through the same root as the act of binding, linking restraint with the condition of captivity.
ʾasurim: Bound ones, captives.
אֲסוּרִים
This related form carries the root’s binding into a condition borne by people, echoing the bodily restraint in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Power makes captivity bodily by constraining movement and controlling a person’s place.
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.Those who sit in darkness and in the valley of deepest darkness, bound and bowed low in iron.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
And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and blinded Zedekiah, and bound him with bronze chains, and carried him to Babylon.The parallel uses the same Hebrew root אסר (ʾāsar, bind) for Zedekiah’s restraint and repeats the loss of sight and forced transport to Babylon. It reveals blinding, binding, and removal as one sequence of violence.
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