Hebrew word · H612

אֵסוּר

'asurim

bond

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

1) band, bond

2) house of bonds, prison (figurative)

Aramaic equivalent: e.sur (אֱסוּר "bond" H0613)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Where it appears

Judges · 1
  1. Judges 15:14 אֱסוּרָ֖יו bonds his

    When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.

    Here: 'His bonds'. It comes from 'asar, 'to bind', the verb repeated over and over in vv. 10–13 ('we have come to bind Samson'). The whole binding effort comes to nothing.

Ecclesiastes · 1
  1. Ecclesiastes 7:26 אֲסוּרִ֣ים [are] fetters

    And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.

    Here: Restraints that hold a captive or prisoner (Judg 15:14, Samson's bonds; Jer 37:15, 'house of bonds' = prison). Her hands, the gesture of embrace, act as shackles.

Jeremiah · 1
  1. Jeremiah 37:15 הָאֵס֗וּר <the> fetter[s]

    The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.

    Here: From the root 'to bind'. A 'house of the fetter' is a place where prisoners are kept bound. The word is rare (compare Judges 15:14; Ecclesiastes 7:26).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.