What Does Lamentations 3:34 Mean?
To crush under his feet all the bound ones of the earth,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,THE KEY
The word “prisoners” means “the bound,” so the verse shows crushing added to people already held captive.
THE MEANING
The image stays severe: people already bound are crushed beneath someone’s feet. This speaks wherever captivity is met with domination that presses the captive further down. In the continuing sentence, this violence stands among the acts the Lord does not approve (Lamentations 3:34–36).
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being captive does not make a person fit ground for someone else’s power; the surrounding sentence names this crushing among what the Lord does not approve (3:34–36).
THE ROOT
אֲסִירֵי
asirei
GROWS FROM
אסר
ʾ-s-r
To bind or tie up.
“bound ones” in this verse is asirei. The root names captivity as a condition of being bound, not as the captive’s nature. Paired with “crush,” it shows force being laid on people who are already restrained.
ALSO GROWS
asar: To bind or tie up.
אָסַר
This is the action beneath “prisoners”: someone is held by a binding.
asurim: Bound ones, prisoners.
אֲסוּרִים
Psalm 146:7 uses this form for the prisoners whom the LORD loosens, showing that captivity is a condition that can change.
לְדַכֵּא
ledakke
GROWS FROM
דכא
d-k-ʾ
To crush, press down, or abase.
“crush” in this verse is ledakke. This root carries both physical pressure and abasement. Joined to the word for “bound,” it reveals the violence of pressing down on people already held fast.
ALSO GROWS
dakka: Crushed, contrite (Isaiah 57:15).
דַּכָּא
The root can describe a person brought low inwardly as well as one under physical force.
medukka: Bruised, crushed (Isaiah 53:5).
מְדֻכָּא
The same root keeps the force of crushing visible as injury and suffering.
THE PATTERN
Power is exposed by whether it crushes people who are bound or releases them.
Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.Lamentations’ אֲסִירֵי (asirei, “prisoners”) and the Psalm’s אֲסוּרִים (asurim, “bound ones”) come from אָסַר (asar, “to bind”). The shared root sharpens the contrast: here the bound are crushed underfoot; there, the LORD loosens those who are bound.
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