The knee is a part of the body that supports movement, bends in a posture and can become weak. First Kings 8:54 records Solomon rising from kneeling with his hands spread toward heaven after his temple prayer.
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Full entry for בֶּרֶךְ (H1290) · Open the biblical lexicon
The knee is a part of the body that supports movement, bends in a posture and can become weak. First Kings 8:54 records Solomon rising from kneeling with his hands spread toward heaven after his temple prayer.
The BSB source-word alignment has 25 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include . . . (4), knees (4), knee (3), her lap (2), his knees (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 30:3. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Kings (3), Ezekiel (3), Genesis (3), Isaiah (3).
The knee is a part of the body that supports movement, bends in a posture and can become weak. First Kings 8:54 records Solomon rising from kneeling with his hands spread toward heaven after his temple prayer. Isaiah 35:3 calls for feeble knees to be strengthened within a message of God's coming salvation. Isaiah 45:23 declares that every knee will bow before the Lord, placing the bodily image within His exclusive claim to be God and Savior.
The noun does not itself specify prayer, exhaustion or allegiance; its surrounding statement does. Kneeling can express reverence without becoming a requirement that people with limited mobility cannot meet. Weak knees can supply an image of vulnerability without proving moral failure. The universal bowing statement must be interpreted with its context of salvation and judgment, rather than made a claim that everyone is saved.
Knees appear in Solomon's prayer posture, encouragement of weakness and the Lord's declaration of universal acknowledgement. The bodily noun serves each action without making those actions identical.
Now when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the Lord, he got up before the altar of the Lord, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.
Solomon rises from kneeling with outstretched hands after an extended prayer; the narrator records his posture without imposing it on every worshiper.
Strengthen the limp hands and steady the feeble knees!
Feeble knees are to be strengthened in a message that immediately reassures anxious hearts with God's coming salvation, inviting encouragement rather than contempt.
By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.
Every knee bows under the Lord's irrevocable declaration as the only God and Savior; the following distinction concerning opponents prevents an automatic universal-salvation inference.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. a knee
a knee BDB: knee Usage: knee.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Isaiah 35:3 speaks to weakness by calling for strengthening, and its next verse addresses anxious hearts with the promise that God will come to save. A teacher who uses feeble knees as an insult would reverse the direction of the passage. Solomon's kneeling gives a different witness: bodily posture accompanies an extended appeal to the Lord, but the account does not rank the devotion of people whose bodies cannot kneel.
Isaiah 45 then broadens the horizon to universal bowing before the only God. Romans 14 quotes that declaration in a context of giving account, and Philippians 2 places the bowing of every knee at Jesus' exalted name. These canonical uses supply their theological claims through whole statements, not through the anatomy noun by itself.
Isa.45.23
A bodily noun acquires its interpretive force from verbs such as bowing, kneeling or strengthening. Similar anatomy across passages does not remove differences between recorded posture, exhortation and a universal declaration.
Isaiah 45:23 is explicitly quoted in Romans 14:11, where every person gives account to God. Philippians 2:10-11 also presents universal bowing at Jesus' name. These are substantive canonical uses of the declaration, not a doctrine inferred from the Hebrew knee noun or a promise that all acknowledgement is saving faith.