What Does 1 Chronicles 16:29 Mean?
Give to the LORD the weight due his nature; bring a gift and come before his face; bow down to the LORD in set-apart splendor.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.THE KEY
The LORD’s name is his nature, and its weight becomes visible in a gift, an arrival, and a body bending low.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s name is his nature, and that nature carries weight in your life now. The gift, your coming before him, and your bowing belong to one movement: reverence takes shape in what you bring and in the posture of your body. The beauty here is the distinctness of what is set apart for this encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Reverence is only an inward feeling or a spoken title; here it takes material and bodily form in an offering, an approach, and a bow.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹד
kevod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy; to carry weight.
“weight due his nature” in this verse is kevod. The form kevod in this verse comes from כבד, whose basic sense is heaviness. The root holds glory and honoring together as weight: the LORD’s nature is not merely praised but recognized as carrying substance.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
The physical sense of weight is the seed behind kevod, so glory carries substance rather than mere praise.
kibbed: To honor; to treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
This verb turns weight into regard: to honor is to assign importance or weight.
הִשְׁתַּחֲווּ
hishtachavu
GROWS FROM
שחה
sh-ch-h
To bow down; to prostrate oneself.
“bow down” in this verse is hishtachavu. The Hebrew verb behind “worship” carries the bodily posture of bowing down. Reverence takes shape in the body: recognition of the LORD’s weight becomes visible as a person lowers themself.
ALSO GROWS
shachah: To bow down; to prostrate oneself.
שָׁחָה
This is the root verb beneath the verse’s form, making the physical posture central to its language of worship.
mishtachaveh: One who bows down; one who prostrates oneself.
מִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
This related form describes a person taking the bowed posture named by the verse.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To be set apart; to mark as distinct.
“set-apart splendor” in this verse is qodesh. The phrase “beauty of holiness” includes qodesh, the set-apart. Splendor belongs here to a reality marked off for the LORD; the bowing takes place within that distinctness.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective names the quality of distinction carried by qodesh.
qiddesh: To set apart; to consecrate.
קִדֵּשׁ
This verb shows the same root as an act of marking something as distinct.
THE PATTERN
Recognition of the LORD’s worth becomes visible in bodily reverence and in what is brought before him.
And Moses hurried, and bent his head to the earth, and bowed down.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.The twenty-four older ones fall down before the one who sits upon the throne, and bow down to the one who lives into the ages of the ages, and throw their crowns before the throne, saying,THE THREAD
Therefore the LORD God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me for the ages. But now the LORD says, Far be it from me. For those who give me weight, I will give weight; those who make light of me shall be made light.The Hebrew word for “honour” here comes from כבד, the same root as “glory” in this verse. English gives glory and honor different words, while the root links both to weight: giving glory to the LORD’s name recognizes its weight, and honoring him treats that weight as real.
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