Captive

A captive is a person taken or held by force—a prisoner of war, an exile, a penal prisoner, or a subjected people—and Scripture presents captivity as a concrete condition of loss, humiliation, and another’s power. The text says Jehoiachin was released “out of prison” in the year Evilmerodach began to reign (2 Kings 25:27), while Zedekiah was bound in fetters “to carry him to Babylon” (Jeremiah 39:7). Isaiah 20:4 says the king of Assyria will “lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot,” and Zechariah 14:2 says “Half of the city will go out into captivity.” Psalms 106:46 says God made them “to be pitied by all those who carried them captive.”

Captivity also appears as subjection and tribute: 2 Samuel 8:2 says the Moabites “became servants to David, and brought tribute,” and Judges 1:7 records Adoni-Bezek’s confession that seventy kings with thumbs and big toes cut off scavenged under his table, adding, “As I have done, so God has done to me.” The language of war captivity includes atrocities: 2 Kings 8:12 says Hazael will dash little ones in pieces and rip up pregnant women, and Amos 1:13 says Ammon ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead “that they may enlarge their border.”

Historically, ancient Near Eastern empires used deportation, forced labor, and tributary subjection as instruments of control, and the biblical writers describe captivity in those terms (Jeremiah 39:7; Isaiah 20:4; 2 Samuel 8:2). Linguistically, the English word “captive” covers more than one condition in the text: it is paired with “prison” (2 Kings 25:27), with being “led away” as “exiles” (Isaiah 20:4), and with forced service and tribute (2 Samuel 8:2).

Christian traditions differ in emphasis. Some treat the exiles and prisoners as literal historical events and draw from them themes of divine judgment, mercy, and restoration (2 Kings 25:27; Psalms 106:46); others read captivity as a figure for spiritual bondage and release as a picture of salvation; liberationist readings apply the imagery to social and political oppression. These are interpretive and confessional differences, and they do not change the textual point that Scripture speaks of real people taken, held, and sometimes released.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.