What Does Jeremiah 52:31 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon in the first year of his reign lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison,
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 captive’s head is lifted before he is brought out: release restores standing as well as freedom.
THE MEANING
Being held does not erase a person’s dignity. The verse joins a lifted head to an opened prison: release includes being seen with honor, not only a change of place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that confinement defines the person inside it.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂא אֶת־רֹאשׁ
nasa et-rosh
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasaʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted up the head” in this verse is nasa et-rosh. The verb נשא holds lifting and carrying together, so the raised head carries more than a physical gesture: it signals restored standing. The same root can describe bearing a burden, linking elevation with what is carried.
ALSO GROWS
nasiʾ: Leader or prince; a title associated with one raised up.
נָשִׂיא
The shared root connects lifting Jehoiachin’s head with restoring his status.
nasaʾ avon: To bear crookedness; in some contexts, to forgive it.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same verb that lifts can also bear what weighs on someone, widening the image beyond a change in position.
וַיֹּצֵא אֹתוֹ
wayyotse oto
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsaʾ
To go out or come forth; in this causative form, to bring someone out.
“brought him forth” in this verse is wayyotse oto. The wording makes Jehoiachin the one brought out, rather than someone who escapes by his own strength. The verse places another person’s action between confinement and the open door.
ALSO GROWS
yatsaʾ: To go out or come forth.
יָצָא
The base verb names the movement that the verse’s causative form makes possible for another person.
yetziʾah: Going out or departure.
יְצִיאָה
This branch keeps the focus on an actual passage out of confinement.
THE PATTERN
Release restores a person’s standing as it brings them out of confinement.
But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.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
But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.The Hebrew phrase for “lifter up of mine head” echoes Jeremiah’s “lifted up the head”: both use נשא (nasaʾ), to lift or carry. In Jeremiah, that raising comes from a king while the captive is still behind bars; in the psalm, the same image names the one who raises the speaker’s head.
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