What Does Isaiah 14:17 Mean in the King James?
That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The power that turns the world into wasteland still refuses the one act that would open captivity: releasing the people it holds.
THE MEANING
This verse names a power that makes the inhabited world barren and tears down its cities, yet keeps its prisoners locked inside. Its violence is measured both by what it destroys outside and by the release it withholds from those held within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A ruined world is not the same as a liberated one; destruction alone does not open the way for those held captive.
THE ROOT
פָּתַח
pataḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
Open, make an entrance, or open up.
“opened” in this verse is pataḥ. The root joins opening with the making of a passage. The prisoners’ house remains shut: the verse exposes captivity as a door kept closed, not merely a condition endured.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: An opening, entrance, or doorway.
פֶּתַח
The doorway is the concrete shape of the opening withheld from the prisoners.
pātûaḥ: Open.
פָּתוּחַ
This related form makes the contrast plain: the world has been laid open to devastation, while the prisoners’ house is not opened for their release.
אֲסִירָיו
ʾasîrāw
GROWS FROM
אסר
Bind or tie up.
“prisoners” in this verse is ʾasîrāw. The Hebrew calls them his bound ones: captivity is named as a binding held by someone. Beside pataḥ, the verse sets binding against opening and shows that the locked door preserves the captor’s hold.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: A bound person or prisoner.
אָסִיר
This is the noun behind “his prisoners,” making their captivity part of the verse’s central image.
maʾāsār: Bondage or imprisonment.
מַאֲסָר
This branch names the condition produced by binding, clarifying what remains in place when the house is not opened.
THE PATTERN
Destruction does not become deliverance until the bound are released from the places that hold them.
Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;The Hebrew links Isaiah’s “prisoners” and “opened” with the same roots found here: ʾāsîr, the bound one, and pataḥ, to open. The KJV renders pataḥ as “loose” here and “opened” in Isaiah, revealing that release is the opening of what holds the prisoner.
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