What Does Jeremiah 37:15 Mean in the King James?

Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.

Jeremiah 37:15 · 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

The prison is called a house of the bound: confinement becomes a condition deliberately imposed, not merely a place.

THE MEANING

The verse shows officials’ anger becoming bodily force: Jeremiah is struck and confined in a house they have made a prison. The room is not incidental; it is deliberately used to hold him. The text leaves the violence visible.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

That the prison is only a neutral location: the verse says it was made for confinement by the people who strike and hold Jeremiah.

THE ROOT

הָאֵסוּר

hāʾāsūr

GROWS FROM

אָסַר

ʾ-s-r

to bind or tie fast

The phrase ⁨בֵּית הָאֵסוּר⁩ (bēt hāʾāsūr) evokes a “house of the bound.” The same root names both the act of binding and the person held by it, joining the prison’s purpose to Jeremiah’s imposed condition.

ALSO GROWS

ʾāsar: to bind, tie

אָסַר

This verb names the act that the prison phrase carries into the verse.

ʾāsîr: a prisoner, captive

אָסִיר

The captive is named through the same root as the act of binding.

ʾasūrîm: bound ones, prisoners

אֲסוּרִים

This plural form echoes the verse’s “house of the bound” and connects it to the language of release elsewhere.

THE PATTERN

Human authorities can answer a person with blows and confinement.

Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.

2 Chronicles 16:10 · KJVAs in Jeremiah’s case, a ruler’s anger at a seer becomes imprisonment and oppression.

And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely:

Acts 16:23 · KJVThe verse shows bodily punishment followed by confinement imposed by those with authority.

THE THREAD

Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:

Psalm 146:7 · KJV

The word translated “prisoners” is ⁨אֲסוּרִים⁩ (ʾasūrîm), “bound ones,” from ⁨אָסַר⁩ (ʾāsar), the same root behind Jeremiah’s “house of the bound.” The shared root places human confinement beside the LORD as the one who loosens those bound.

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