Worship: A Look At Exodus (Part 2)

This study is a continuation of Worship: What Does the Word Mean? (Part 1).  Part 1 looked at the word worship in contemporary religious use and then started to look at how the word worship is used in the Bible.

Of the 118 instances of worship (or related words) in the KJV, 99 instances translate the Hebrew word shachah (שחה).  The primary meaning of shachah is to "bow down".  In Genesis, most instances of the word shachah are about an ordinary demonstration of respect from one person to another using some form of bow.  Four instances  in Genesis are about an act of reverence toward God.

Judaic and Biblical Studies scholar Everett Fox has created a challenging English translation of the Pentateuch that seeks to "echo the style" of the Hebrew source text.  The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1) is the first of Fox's books in a series that is intended to form the Schocken Bible (SB).  A review of the book can be found here.  Fox approached his work so "that translations of individual words should reflect 'primal' root meanings, that translations of phrases, lines, and whole verses should mimic the syntax of the Hebrew, and that the vast web of illusions and wordplays present in the text should be somehow perceivable in the target language."  Given this approach, I have not been surprised that the four instances of the word worship in the KJV Genesis have all been translated in the Schocken Bible using concrete language.  As you can see in the texts below, the concrete language conveys both a visual image along with the abstract sense of reverence.

Gen 22:5 SB Avraham said to his lads: You stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad wish to go yonder, we wish to bow down (Hebrew: ‏v'nishtachave; KJV: worship) and then return to you.

Gen 24:26 SB In homage the man bowed low (Hebrew: va-yishtachu; KJV: worshipped) before YHWH

Gen 24:48 SB and in homage I bowed low (Hebrew:  va-eshtachave; KJV: worshipped) before YHWH, and blessed YHWH, God of my lord Avraham,...

Gen 24:52 SB It was when Avraham's servent heard their words, that he bowed (Hebrew: ‏va-yishtachu; KJV: worshipped) to the ground before YHWH.

There are 11 verses in Exodus that use the Hebrew word shachah.  The KJV translates 7 of these as worship or worshipped.  The following texts are all from the KJV.  The translation of shachah is marked with a yellow highlight. The Hebrew transliteration of the shachah word and its Schocken (SB) translation are in parenthesis following the bolded KJV translation.  There is an extra Hebrew word— qadad (קדד)— that accompanies shachah in three of these texts.  It also means "to bow down".  Qadad occurs 15 times in the Bible and it is always used together with shachah.  The KJV translates qadad using these words (and counts): bow...head 11, stoop 2, and bow 2.  In the three texts below that use qadad together with shachah, the Schocken Bible translates one of them using bow and the others with homage.  The translation of qadad is marked with a green highlight.  All of these 11 verses are translated in the Schocken Bible using concrete language: bowed low and did homage, they shall bow, did homage and bowed low, he bowed, bow down, bowed to, bowing low, and bow down to.  The reader has a concrete, visual image and can infer the abstractions.

Exod 4:31 KJV And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads (Hebrew: va-yiqdu; SB: bowed low) and worshipped (Hebrew: va-yishtachavu; SB: did homage).

Exod 11:8 KJV And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down (Hebrew: v'hishtachvu; SB: they shall bow to me) themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger.

Exod 12:27 KJV That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head (Hebrew: va-yiqod; SB: did homage) and worshipped (Hebrew: va-yishtachavu; SB: bowed low).

Exod 18:7 KJV And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance (Hebrew: va-yishtachu; SB: he bowed), and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent.

Exod 20:5 KJV Thou shalt not bow down (Hebrew: tishtach've; SB: bow down) thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exod 23:24 KJV Thou shalt not bow down (Hebrew: tishtach've; SB: bow down) to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

Exod 24:1 KJV And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship (Hebrew: v'hishtachavitem; SB: bow down) ye afar off.

Exod 32:8 KJV They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped (Hebrew: va-yishtachavu; SB: bowed to) it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Exod 33:10 KJV And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped (Hebrew: v'hishtachavu; SB: bow down), every man in his tent door.

Exod 34:8 KJV And Moses made haste, and bowed his head (Hebrew: va-yiqod; SB: did homage) toward the earth, and worshipped (Hebrew: v'hishtachavu; SB: bowing low).

Exod 34:14 KJV For thou shalt worship (Hebrew: tishtachave; SB: bow down to) no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Looking at Exodus 34:8 in more detail may give us some additional insight.

Exod 34:8 Schocken Bible – Quickly Moshe did-homage, on the ground, bowing low,...

Exod 34:8 NASV – Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.

Exod 34:8 RSV – And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth, and worshiped.

Exod 34:8 Young's Literal – And Moses hasteth, and boweth to the earth, and doth obeisance,...

Exod 34:8 GOD's Word – Immediately, Moses knelt, bowing with his face touching the ground.

Exod 34:8 Douay-Rheims – And Moses making haste, bowed down prostrate unto the earth, and adoring...

Exod 34:8 Septuagint (Greek) – και σπευσας μωυσης κυψας επι την γην προσεκυνησεν

Exod 34:8 Septuagint (transliterated Greek) – kai speusas mouses kupsas epi ten gen prosekunesen

Exod 34:8 Apostolic Bible (Sept. translation) – And Moses hastening, bowing upon the earth, did obeisance.

The Greek Septuagint translated the qadad in Exodus 34:8 using kypto which is a word used three times in the New Testament: in Mark 1:7, John says he is not worthy to stoop down and unloose...; in John 8:6,8 Jesus stooped to write on the ground.  The Septuagint translated the shachah using proskyneo which means "by kneeling or prostration to do homage or make obeisance."  (There are some more abstract definitions as well.)

The translation examples above for Exodus 34:8 do not limit the interpretation of shachah to a reverent or adoring abstraction, but clearly translate showing Moses in a very concrete bowing, prostrating, kneeling, and earthward position.  This concreteness is lost in our modern understanding of the word worship when it is used alone.