Proverbs 22:6 · Symbol · Parenting and Its Trials
The Word Chanak
Chanak is the Hebrew verb translated “dedicate” in Deuteronomy, Kings and Chronicles and “train up” in Proverbs 22:6.
The noun of the verb behind “Train up a child” stands twice in a single verse for the joyful dedication of Jerusalem's rebuilt wall (Nehemiah 12:27).
And Solomon offered as peace offerings to the LORD 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the LORD.
- The word
- חָנַךְ (chanak), H2596
- First appears
- Deuteronomy 20:5 “Furthermore, the officers are to address the army,…”
Summary
Chanak is a rare Hebrew verb of dedication, and its family of words is small. Hebrew and Aramaic nouns built on its letters name other dedications in the history of Israel, from the altar of the tabernacle to the house of God rebuilt after the exile. Strong's dictionary gives the verb a first sense of narrowness, a sense that none of its verses carries.
- A different verb, sha'al, stands in Hannah's words dedicating Samuel (1 Samuel 1:28).
- The tagged Hebrew of Proverbs 22:6 parses the verb as an imperative, the only command among its uses.
- Franz Delitzsch noted that the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, has no rendering of Proverbs 22:6.
A New House
The first use of the verb stands in Deuteronomy's law of war.
The Word Chanak asks what the Hebrew verb behind “Train up a child” means, and how a word for dedicating a house came to be used of a child. It belongs to parenting in its trials, since Proverbs 22:6 is the verse on the raising of children that most parents know.
The study sets out every use of the verb in one table and follows its nouns through the histories of Israel. It also weighs the derivations given for the verb and gives two readings of it in Proverbs 22:6, each with its holder and the objection to it.
Furthermore, the officers are to address the army, saying, “Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.The verse holds two uses of the verb, the owner's dedication of his house and another man's.
Where Chanak Stands
The verb stands in the law, in the two histories of the temple, and in Proverbs.
In three of the verses where chanak stands a house is dedicated, and in the fourth a child is trained.
| Verse | What the verb acts on | The Berean words | The tagged Hebrew |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deuteronomy 20:5 | A soldier's new house | “not dedicated it” and “another man dedicate it” (Deuteronomy 20:5) | he has dedicated it; he will dedicate it |
| 1 Kings 8:63 | The temple | “dedicated the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:63) | and they dedicated |
| 2 Chronicles 7:5 | The temple | “the king and all the people dedicated the house of God” (2 Chronicles 7:5) | and they dedicated |
| Proverbs 22:6 | A child | “Train up a child” (Proverbs 22:6) | train, a command |
The Noun of Dedication
The nouns stand in Numbers, Chronicles, Nehemiah, Daniel and Ezra.
The leaders of Israel brought offerings for the dedication of the altar in Numbers 7, and the noun returns for the altar of Solomon's temple in 2 Chronicles 7:9. The Aramaic form names Nebuchadnezzar's dedication of his statue (Daniel 3:2 to 3) and the dedication of the rebuilt house of God (Ezra 6:16 to 17).
The two nouns of dedication1 figure
The Hebrew noun names the dedication of an altar or a wall, and the Aramaic noun of a statue or a house.
| Word | Sense in Strong's dictionary | Uses | One use in the Berean words |
|---|---|---|---|
| chanukkah, חֲנֻכָּה, H2598, Hebrew noun | initiation, i.e. consecration | 7, in 6 verses | Numbers 7:11, “for the dedication of the altar” |
| chanukka, חֲנֻכָּא, H2597, Aramaic noun | consecration | 4 | Daniel 3:2, “the dedication of the statue he had set up” |
The title of Psalm 30 also names a dedication.
At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade.The verse is the New Testament's one mention of the feast, which John names with the Greek enkainia.
Narrow, Initiate, Dedicate
The sense of the verb is drawn from its sentences, and its derivation is weighed beside them.
Franz Delitzsch, in the Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1857 to 1878), took the verb as a word formed from a noun for the palate. He wrote that “it signifies to affect the taste”, and that the Arabic verb means “to put date syrup into the mouth of the suckling”. He added that in later Hebrew the noun named what the church calls catechizing.
A different verb, chanaq (H2614), ends in qoph where chanak ends in kaph. It means to strangle, and it stands twice, for Ahithophel, who “hanged himself” (2 Samuel 17:23), and for the lion that “strangled prey for the lioness” (Nahum 2:12).
An adjective spelled with the same three root letters, chanik (H2593), stands once, for the “318 trained men born in his household” whom Abram led out in Genesis 14:14. John Gill, in his Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), sends the reader of Proverbs 22:6 to that verse.
Two Readings of “Train Up”
Commentators read the verb of Proverbs 22:6 as a beginning or as an imprinting.
To initiate the childAdam Clarke
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), rendered the verb “Initiate”. On this reading the verb names the start of a child's way, when he first walks alone and chooses.
The objection: Delitzsch derived the verb from the palate and the first taste, which points to an imprint that lasts rather than to a start.
To imbue the childFranz Delitzsch
Delitzsch read the training of the verse as a habit that lasts. He wrote that the instruction “becomes a second nature, that which is imprinted, inbred, becomes accustomed”.
The objection: his derivation rests on Arabic usage, and the three other verses of the verb dedicate a house with no taste in view.
A New and Living Way
The New Testament carries the language of dedication to the work of Christ.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body,The tagged Greek glosses the verb of Hebrews 10:20 “He dedicated”, so the way Christ opened into the Most Holy Place is spoken of as a dedication.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Robert Young, Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (1862, revised 1898), which carries the Hebrew title of Psalm 30.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, the tagged texts (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, in C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1857 to 1878), on Proverbs 22:6.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Proverbs 22:6.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), on Proverbs 22:6.
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