What Does Exodus 34:6 Mean?
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,
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
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,THE KEY
The repeated name “The LORD” is immediately unfolded as a nature: compassion, favor, slow-to-flare patience, faithful love, and truth.
THE MEANING
The name meets you now through compassion, favor, patience, faithful love, and truth. The LORD’s anger is slow to flare, while care is abundant and steady. Tenderness and reliability belong together in the nature you encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine anger is sudden and defining: this verse gives the name through compassion, favor, patience, faithful love, and truth.
THE ROOT
רַחוּם
rachum
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ם
r-ḥ-m
To have compassion; the root also forms the word for womb.
The word translated “merciful” is רַחוּם (rachum, compassionate), from the same root as רֶחֶם (rechem, womb) and רַחֲמִים (rachamim, compassion). The shared root gives this mercy the texture of intimate, embodied tenderness.
ALSO GROWS
rechem: Womb
רֶחֶם
The shared root gives compassion an image of sheltering, life-bearing tenderness.
rachamim: Compassion
רַחֲמִים
This plural form names the compassion carried by the same root as “merciful.”
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
א־מ־ן
ʾ-m-n
To be firm, steady, or reliable.
The Hebrew pair חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love) and אֱמֶת (emet, truth) bind loyal care to what is steady and dependable. The LORD’s abundance includes both faithful relationship and reliable ground.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust; steadfastness
אֱמוּנָה
Trust and steadfastness grow from the same root of firmness that underlies emet.
Amen: Amen; an affirmation that what is said is firm
אָמֵן
Amen echoes the root’s sense of affirming what is sure.
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
erekh appayim
GROWS FROM
א־ר־ך
ʾ-r-k
To be long or lengthen.
“slow to flare” in this verse is erekh appayim. The verse’s phrase אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם (erekh appayim, long of nostrils) gives anger a bodily image of heat at the nose. The root ארך (ʾ-r-k, be long) stretches the interval before that heat flares.
ALSO GROWS
orekh: Length
אֹרֶךְ
This noun from the root carries the sense of something extended in length.
he’erikh: Lengthened; prolonged
הֶאֱרִיךְ
This form shows the root’s action of extending or prolonging.
THE PATTERN
The divine nature is disclosed through compassion and favor joined with restrained anger, faithful love, and reliable truth.
But you, O Lord, are a compassionate God, and of favor, slow to flare, and abounding in faithful love and truth.The LORD is compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, and abounding in faithful love.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
Guarding faithful love for thousands, carrying crookedness, rebellion, and falling short, and who by no means leaves the guilty clean, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation.The next verse repeats חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love) as something the LORD keeps, then names forgiveness and the refusal to clear the guilty. That continuation shows the declared nature operating through both release and accountability.
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