From generation to generation, it is customary for supposedly “conservative” varieties of self-proclaimed Christians to take as strictly hardline a view of a dogmatic face-value interpretation of a biblical decree as possible and pass that as representative of what the Word of God proclaims. One such paternalistically enforced example is that of “honor your father and mother,” used to crudely dismiss genuine victims of parental abuse and invert any precept of justice and mercy by telling victims it’s actually their fault for not “honoring” their parents sufficiently, etc. etc.. (I cannot even begin to list how many times that mantra has been obnoxiously “splained” to me)
As it turns out, the mass majority of “Christendom” were wrong all along, because they were apparently too blinded by the voluptuous sensuality of their reprobate minds to humble themselves before the God of the universe and actually seek to understand what His inspired scriptures actually say. This is the text in question as it stands in the original Semitic Biblical Hebrew: כַּבֵּד אֶת־אָבִיךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּךָ (KaBëd et-äviykhä w’et-iMekhä)
Here is the interlinear:
כַּבֵּד (KaBëd: 3513, z8761): shall heavify [verb: Piel, imperative]
[the] {implied definite article}
[of] {implied preposition}
ךָ (khä): yours [pronominal suffix: second-person singular]
[the] {implied definite article}
[of] {implied preposition}
ךָ (khä): yours [pronominal suffix: second-person singular]
The word in question to grasp here is כַּבֵּד (KaBëd), the Piel-stemmed and imperative-mooded variant of the root word כָּבַד (kāḇaḏ). As clarified by Strong’s Concordance:
כָּבַד kâbad, kaw-bad'; or כָּבֵד kâbêd; a primitive root; to be heavy, i.e. in a bad sense (burdensome, severe, dull) or in a good sense (numerous, rich, honorable); causatively, to make weighty (in the same two senses):—abounding with, more grievously afflict, boast, be chargeable, × be dim, glorify, be (make) glorious (things), glory, (very) great, be grievous, harden, be (make) heavy, be heavier, lay heavily, (bring to, come to, do, get, be had in) honour (self), (be) honourable (man), lade, × more be laid, make self many, nobles, prevail, promote (to honour), be rich, be (go) sore, stop.
Protestant Hebraist scholar Wilhelm Gesenius said essentially the same thing: the primary definition of the verb כַּבֵּד (KaBëd) literally means “to be heavy,” or otherwise plausibly contracted to a single word (by myself, E.G.) as “heavify.” The usage of this verb throughout the Old Testament is two-edged in contextual application: notably, it encapsulates the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus, both when the Egyptian monarch hardened his heart of his own accord, and also when Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ hardened it further. Anyone who insists on translating the verb כַּבֵּד (KaBëd) Fifth Commandment as “honor” ought to therefore maintain etymological consistently and treat the verb down to its root as straightforwardly carrying the primary connotation of honoring in all instances. Let’s see how this works out whenever the term is used in locally contextual negative implications!
Genesis 18:20: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה זַעֲקַת סְדֹם וַעֲמֹרָה כִּי־רָבָּה וְחַטָּאתָם כִּי כָבְדָה מְאֹד (waYomer y'hwäh zaáqat š'dom waámoräh Kiy-räBäh w'chaŢätäm Kiy khäv'däh m'od): “and said He Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ, ‘[The] outcry [of] Sodom and Gomorrah, indeed [is] manyful, and [the] sin [of] theirs, indeed [is] honored exceedingly…”
“honored”?—what an absurd reading!
Exodus 8:15: וַיַּרְא פַּרְעֹה כִּי הָיְתָה הָרְוָחָה וְהַכְבֵּד אֶת־לִבּוֹ (waYar' Par'oh Kiy häy'täh här'wächäh w'hakh'Bëd et-liBô): “and ensaw he Pharaoh, indeed came to exist! the respite, and honored he selfsame [the] heart [of] his…”
“honored”?—absurd
Exodus 8:32: וַיַּכְבֵּד פַּרְעֹה אֶת־לִבּוֹ (waYakh'Bëd Par'oh et-liBô): “and honored he Pharaoh selfsame [the] heart [of] his…”
“honored”?—absurd
Exodus 10:1: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה בֹּא אֶל־פַּרְעֹה כִּי־אֲנִי הִכְבַּדְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ (waYomer y'hwäh el-mosheh Bo el-Par'oh Kiy-ániy hikh'Bad'Tiy et-liBô): “and said He Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ unto Moses, ‘Shall enter unto Pharaoh, indeed I honored selfsame [the] heart [of] his…”
“honored”?—absurd
I Samuel 5:6: וַתִּכְבַּד יַד־יְהוָה אֶל־הָאַשְׁדּוֹדִים וַיְשִׁמֵּם וַיַּךְ אֹתָם (waTikh'Bad yad-y'hwäh el-häash'Dôdiym way'shiMëm waYakh' otäm): “and was honored [the] hand [of] Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ unto the Ashdodites, and stupefied He them, and smited He selfsame them…”
“honored”?—absurd
Psalm 38:4: כִּי עֲוֹנֹתַי עָבְרוּ רֹאשִׁי כְּמַשָּׂא כָבֵד יִכְבְּדוּ מִמֶּנִּי (Kiy áwonotay äv'rû roshiy K'maSä khävëd yikh'B'dû miMeNiy): “indeed [the] iniquities [of] mine overpassed [the] head [of] mine to-according [a] burden honored from me”
“honored”?—absurd
Obviously, the reading of “honored” only appears at face value to suffice so long as whatever variant of כָּבַד (kāḇaḏ) that is used in a passage carries a “positive” contextual connotation in the implied local application. However, it can likewise carry a “negative” contextual implication, because the word itself inherently does not universally carry one singular implication—in such instances, translating it as “honored” reduces entire passages into pathetic jokes. The reason why this verb in question cannot at its Semitic-Hebraic root be simplistically reduced to pure positive (or pure negative) connotations is because Biblical Hebrew is NOT Hellenistically dualistic—the providentially decreed words of Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ are a two-edged sword that cuts in both directions.1 כָּבַד (kāḇaḏ) literally means “to make heavy” a.k.a. “heavify,” whether heavifying something/someone who is already on the path of righteousness to accelerate and catalyze them toward a perfected vindication, or to heavify something/someone on the path of wickedness to judicially harden them toward an accelerated and catalyzed highway speedrun to doom and perdition.
In every single instance of the Hebrew Bible where a variant of כָּבַד (kāḇaḏ) is used, applying the root translated word “heavify” will render the reading universally sensible no matter the local contextual application: whether the subject in question is good or evil, the act of heavifying them means to magnify their trajectory of decisive actions and accelerate/catalyze them on the path they were already in.
So what does it mean then that the Fifth Commandment actually means to heavify one’s selfsame father and selfsame mother? Obviously, the implications are two-edged, contingent on whether one’s earthly parents—to begin with—seek after Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ out of a pure heart in pious humility, or whether they behave wickedly. Whether one’s parents choose toward a walk unto heavenly righteousness or not, the command is universally plain and simple: each person must heavify their parents, a.k.a. accelerate and catalyze them on the path they already chose for themselves. This means that if selfsame any particular kenotically pious Christian is burdened in having to deal with toxic/abusive parents, their obligation is NOT to simplistically “honor” or “love” them in some one-dimensional sense of blank-check universal obeying and affection, but rather to strategically (in enwisened discernment as that of a serpent while concurrently and without contradiction retaining the innocence of a dove2) “help” them pursue their own ungodly individual passions so long as it does not directly violate the precepts of God (i.e. so long as it doesn’t directly harm anyone else in the process), for instance doing material household chores and conducting errands as they request if they’re lazy, and refusing to obey them if they demand their child do something that patently and brazenly is in violation of Jᴇʜᴏᴠᴀʜ’s law. In doing so, a wicked earthly parent is heavified toward rigidly fixed complacency in their depravities, judicially hardened by coals of fire heaped on their head3 stored for the day of judgment when they will one day pay for their crimes.4
Of course, don’t expect the mass majority of so-called “Christians”—not to mention really just the entire world in its en masse majority collectives—to ultimately internalize this comprehension with sincere acceptation, since all they have been doing to this day is refusing to repent of their idolatrous abominations, fulfilling the prophetic declaration given almost two millennia ago:5
And the rest of the men—who were not killed by these plagues—not even repented of the works of their hands, that not should they enhomage to the demons, and [the] idols [of] the golden, and silver, and brazen, and stone, and wooden, which neither [are] to see, nor to hear, nor to walk; and they repented not of the murders of theirs, nor of the sorceries [of] theirs, nor of the fornications of theirs, nor of [the] thefts of theirs.
Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17.
Matt. 10:16.
Prov. 25:21-22; Rom. 12:20.
Rom. 2:5.
Rev. 9:20-21.
Being completely ignorant of Hebrew I am extremely grateful for your incisive exegesis here. This is a passage I’ve thought about often since my conversion. (There’s a similar problem with the Eucharistic “epiousion” of the Lord’s Prayer being translated in English as “daily” bread. “Daily” obliquely touches the meaning, but seems to miss the heart of the matter entirely. Interestingly in that case, the word epiousion is a hapax legomenon in the NT, so the kind of comparative analysis you ran here is not possible and it can only be parsed etymologically.)
I’m still at a bit of a loss here, though. You make an extremely strong case for why “honor” is a platitudinous import of dualistic moralism. But I don’t quite understand the *imperative* of “to make heavy,” as “accelerate” in the context of the commandment. You explain it along the lines of obedience within reason while adhering to God’s law within one’s own conscience: “accelerating/catalyzing” the good and the bad yet with an awareness of the freedom and responsibility of each individual soul before God.
I can appreciate the distinction you’re making, trying to carve out a clear meaning juxtaposed to morally incestuous “honor” of the hypothetically (and all too often) despicable moral evil of parents toward their offspring. (Believe me do I understand *this* problem.)
I guess I’m not sure what it means still, however. It is astonishing to me that the imperative we are given by God is of a verb (at least according to your list) generally if not exclusively operative in the uniquely divine act of “spiritual catalysis”/“hardening the heart of”.
It seems that alternatives to “honor”—which, if read rightly isn’t of necessity utterly egregious, as one *can* “honor” someone without mindlessly obeying and conforming to their sick desires—can tend towards inappropriate apotheosis of the recipient of the command. “Accelerate thy father[‘s] and mother[‘s sin],” for example seems to imply that we ourselves could sort of “harden the hearts” of our parents just as God did Pharaoh.
“‘Make heavy’ thy father and mother [in your own heart],” would seem to imply—beyond mere obedience or an imperative to “harden their heart”—that one must intensify as much as possible one’s moral relation to one’s parents, which in the case of wicked parents would be the sort of serpent/dove alternating resistance/acquiescence path of correction, as you describe—and in the case of good parents would be “making abundant as possible.” Maybe this is what you’re saying.
But simply “accelerating” their evil just rings as sourly as “honoring” their sinfulness.
It seems to me upon reading your article that the spiritual law here is about lovingly seeing someone who is inherently flawed (“for behold in sins did my mother bear me”) nevertheless as richly important through the eye of faith in God’s mercy and justice. If one loves someone who is unrepentantly sinful, I don’t think “to make them heavy” means simply to do amplify their wickedness, but rather to have the “heavy” feeling of love guide one’s actions in relation to them, rather than simply enacting mere custom or habit or some other mindless or Godlessly-fearful mode of interaction.
I don’t know if my distinction is all that clear as a reply to your post. But I like this “corrective” style of analysis even more than your formal chiastic exegesis, because it is more accessible for those of us who are slightly less literate but still love the word of God and the philological dimension of our religion.
I wonder what other important passages/terms you could elucidate with a close reading of the Hebrew.