What Does Exodus 34:6 Mean in the King James?
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 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
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.
“longsuffering” 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 thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto 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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