What Does Judges 16:21 Mean?
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.
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
But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.THE KEY
The same root names both Samson’s bronze bonds and the prisoners’ house: captivity binds the body and defines the place that holds it.
THE MEANING
This verse names captivity as a whole-body reality: sight is taken, movement is controlled, and the body is made to labor under another’s command. The prison is more than a place; its reach extends into perception, movement, and work.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that confinement only limits where a person can go; here, it reaches into sight and takes control of the body’s labor.
THE ROOT
אָסַר
ʾāsar
GROWS FROM
א־ס־ר
ʾ-s-r
To bind, tie up, or imprison.
The verse uses this root for the act of binding Samson and again in the phrase translated as the prison house: literally, the house of the bound ones. The root joins the restraint on his body to the condition of the people held inside.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: A prisoner; one who is bound.
אָסִיר
It names a person by the condition imposed on them, echoing how Samson’s bonds shape his whole life in this verse.
maʾasār: Imprisonment or confinement.
מַאֲסָר
This branch makes explicit the confinement carried by the root that appears both in Samson’s binding and in the prison house.
THE PATTERN
Captivity takes control of the body and its labor; release is described as loosening bonds and opening the prison.
And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in clay and in brick, and in all the labor of the field; every service they made them serve was with crushing.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.And suddenly there came a great shaking, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the doors were opened, and every one's bonds were untied.THE THREAD
The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.The phrase them that are bound is אֲסוּרִים (ʾasurim), from אָסַר (ʾāsar), the same root used for Samson’s bonds and the prisoners’ house. Isaiah turns that shared word toward liberty: the bound are the ones for whom the prison opens.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us