What Does 2 Kings 25:7 Mean in the King James?

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.

2 Kings 25:7 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

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.

“put out” 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 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.

Judges 16:21 · KJVSamson is blinded, bound in brass, and taken to another place, as bodily captivity becomes the sign of his defeat.

Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.

Jeremiah 39:7 · KJVThe same pattern appears directly: blinding and binding precede Zedekiah’s forced removal.

And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.

Acts 12:6 · KJVPeter’s chains and guarded prison likewise make captivity visible through restraints on the body and its movement.

THE THREAD

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.

Isaiah 57:1 · KJV

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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