What Does Jeremiah 27:2 Mean in the King James?
Thus saith the LORD to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck,
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 yoke turns domination from an abstraction into weight carried on the neck.
THE MEANING
The command makes restraint visible: bonds and a yoke are placed where their pressure can be seen and felt. The reader encounters imposed rule as something borne by a body, not just named in words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that domination is only an abstract arrangement: its mark is a weight laid across the neck.
THE ROOT
מֹסְרוֹת
mōserōt
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
ʾ-s-r
To bind, tie, or imprison.
This root names both the restraint and the person held by it. English separates the bonds from the captive, while the Hebrew word family holds them together as parts of the same condition.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: Captive, prisoner.
אָסִיר
The same root names the person who is bound, joining the object in this verse to the state it imposes.
ʾāsūr: Bound, restricted, or forbidden.
אָסוּר
The root also describes a condition of restriction, showing how a physical bond can mark a wider limit on movement.
מֹטוֹת
mōṭōt
GROWS FROM
מוּט
m-w-ṭ
To totter, slip, or be shaken.
“yokes” in this verse is mōṭōt. The word for the yoke-bar belongs to a root associated with tottering and being shaken. Its sound-family lets the object carry an added sense of destabilizing weight, beyond the wood or bar placed across the neck.
ALSO GROWS
mōṭāh: Yoke-bar.
מוֹטָה
This singular form names the bar placed across the neck; the verse’s plural makes the burden concrete.
yimmōṭ: He will totter or be shaken.
יִמּוֹט
The related verb brings out the instability associated with the yoke’s root.
THE PATTERN
A prophetic warning becomes visible when it is enacted through a body or a tangible object.
In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.THE THREAD
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.The Hebrew word translated “bands” here shares the root אָסַר (ʾ-s-r), meaning “to bind,” with Jeremiah’s “bonds.” Psalm 2:3 speaks of throwing off restraint; Jeremiah’s sign places that same restraint on the neck for all to see.
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