Honor
September 13, 2022
A very interesting and thought-provoking article from Orthodox priest Father Stephen Freeman has led us to consider the various words Hebrew has for “to honor”. There are principally three words which get translated into English as “honor”.
One Hebrew verb rendered as honor is HADAR (הָדַר), which means variously “to honor or adorn”. Famously, this verb is at the heart of a passage in Leviticus 19, where we also find Jesus’ Second Great Commandment (Leviticus 19:18). Verse 15 reads, “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or SHOW FAVOURITISM to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly.”
But the word which we suspect sits at the center of Father Stephen’s article is likely to be KABAD (כָּבַד). Not only is it the most frequently occurring of the words which give us “to honor”, it is also the more flexible in its meanings.
Fundamentally, it means “to be weighty or heavy” and gives us both nouns and adjectives that tell us this. For instance, Eli the Priest in Samuel’s day was described as HEAVY, so heavy in fact that his weight caused his neck to break in a fall (1 Samueal 4:18). Like many Hebrew words, though, its sense is seldom simply plain and literal. For instance, the same word is rendered in Genesis 12:10 as “severe” in describing the famine in Canaan. In Genesis 50:9, the word is used to describe the company that went with Joseph to bury Jacob; in English, we read it as a “GREAT” (ASV, ESV, KJV, NASB) or “LARGE” (NIV) or “IMPRESSIVE” (HCSB) company. In Genesis 13, the word is used to describe Abram’s wealth in livestock and silver and gold.
KABAD is also at the heart of the Fifth Commandment: “HONOUR your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” English has quite a few more words than does Hebrew in general, and this becomes quite striking in the consideration of a particular word such as KABAD. Our English thesaurus offers about 40 words which mean roughly “to honor”, while Hebrew has two or perhaps three. Father Stephen and his Orthodox tradition use “venerate”, and that word fits well with the Fifth Commandment. VENERATE your mother and father… It resonates well.
Read the article. It might provoke some thoughts.
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