Hebrew word · H4835
מְרוּצָה
hamerutzah
oppression
BDB and HALOT both take this as a separate noun from the root רצץ, 'to crush, oppress' (cf. Deut 28:33, 'oppressed and crushed'; 1 Sam 12:3–4; Amos 4:1, women 'who crush the needy'). Meaning: crushing, oppression, extortion.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
crushing, oppression
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Jeremiah 22:17
- Range of meaning
BDB and HALOT both take this as a separate noun from the root רצץ, 'to crush, oppress' (cf. Deut 28:33, 'oppressed and crushed'; 1 Sam 12:3–4; Amos 4:1, women 'who crush the needy'). Meaning: crushing, oppression, extortion. It is spelled the same as another meruṣah, 'running, course', from רוץ 'to run' (Jer 8:6; 23:10).
- Against the English
KJV, WEB and YLT 'violence' suggests physical assault in general. BSB and NASB 'extortion' and others' 'oppression' are closer to the root's picture of grinding people down.
- How it drifted
'Violence' in modern English means bodily force broadly and loses the image of crushing the vulnerable under economic and political pressure.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In this sense it occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The verb rāṣaṣ appears in exactly this pairing with ʿashaq in Deut 28:33, 1 Sam 12:3–4, Amos 4:1 and Hos 5:11, which strongly supports the 'crushing' sense here.
Where it appears
Jeremiah · 1
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Jeremiah 22:17 הַמְּרוּצָ֖ה <the> extortion
“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”
Here: 'The crushing.' It comes from a root meaning to crush or break, so the picture is people ground down under pressure. It occurs only here in this sense. Paired with ʿosheq, the two words form a strong double expression for exploitation.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.