What Does Exodus 20:12 Mean in the King James?
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
To honor your parents is to give them weight, and the verse joins that weight to the length of your life.
THE MEANING
Your relationship with your father and mother carries weight in the shape of your life. The verse joins honoring them to lengthened days on the ground the LORD gives you, holding time, family, and gift together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that your life begins with you, detached from the people through whom it comes.
THE ROOT
כַּבֵּד
kabbed
GROWS FROM
כבד
Be heavy; carry weight.
“Honour” in this verse is kabbed. The verb asks you to treat your parents as weighty, as people whose place in your life matters. The same root names weight and honor, so the verse holds both meanings together beneath the single English word.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight; honor; glory.
כָּבוֹד
The shared root reveals that honor is the recognition of weight.
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
What is heavy has weight; the verse’s command carries that sense into how your parents are regarded.
יַאֲרִיכֻן
ya'arikhun
GROWS FROM
ארך
Be long; lengthen.
“Long” in this verse is ya'arikhun. The verse describes days being lengthened, not simply counted. The same root appears in a phrase rendered “slow to flare,” where length names anger held back; here, length is joined to a life extended on the ground God gives.
ALSO GROWS
orekh: Length.
אֹרֶךְ
This noun makes visible the same idea carried by the verb: days acquire length.
erekh appayim: Slow to flare.
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
The root’s sense of length also describes anger delayed, showing how the same seed can name duration in different forms.
THE PATTERN
Honoring parents is repeatedly joined to the continuance and length of life.
Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many.Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.THE THREAD
Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.The word translated “honour” here shares the same Hebrew root as the command to honor your father and mother: both carry the sense of giving weight. The verse then sharpens the image with its opposite: those who despise the LORD are rendered light.
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