# H3513 - kabed **Strong's:** [H3513](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3513/) ยท BLB lookup **Pronunciation:** kaw-BADE **Part of speech:** verb (primitive root) **OT occurrences:** tagged 120 times in 108 verses in the Strong's-tagged ASV (a common verb) **Core range:** to be heavy, weighty; hence to be **burdensome** or **grievous**, to be **honored** or **glorious**, and, of the heart, ears or eyes, to be **dull** or **unresponsive**. ## Semantic range *Kabed* is one root with two faces that look opposite in English and are one idea in Hebrew: weight. - **Heavy, burdensome.** Pharaoh orders "heavier work" laid on the Israelites ([Exodus 5:9](/codex/exodus-5-9/)). The sin of Sodom is "very grievous" ([Genesis 18:20](/codex/genesis-18-20-21/)). - **Weighty in substance.** Abram was "very rich" ([Genesis 13:2](/codex/genesis-13-2/)), heavy with goods. - **Weighty in honor.** "Honor thy father and thy mother" ([Exodus 20:12](/codex/exodus-20-12/)) is *kabed*: give them weight. "Them that honor me I will honor" ([1 Samuel 2:30](/codex/1-samuel-2-30/)). The nations "shall glorify thy name" ([Psalm 86:9](/codex/psalms-86-9/)). The noun from the same root is [*kavod*](/codex/h3519-kavod/), "glory." - **Heavy and dull.** Used of the senses and the heart, the weight becomes unresponsiveness: "make their ears heavy" ([Isaiah 6:10](/codex/isaiah-6-10/)). In the other direction, "neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear" ([Isaiah 59:1](/codex/isaiah-59-1/)). ## Theological force: the hardening of Pharaoh *Kabed* is one of three roots used for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, alongside [*chazaq*](/codex/h2388-chazaq/) (make strong, 12 times) and *qashah* (make hard, twice). *Kabed* appears six times as verb or adjective (English verse numbers): [7:14](/codex/exodus-7-14/); [8:15](/codex/exodus-8-15/); [8:32](/codex/exodus-8-32/); [9:7](/codex/exodus-9-7/); [9:34](/codex/exodus-9-34/); [10:1](/codex/exodus-10-1/). 1. **It is the verb of Pharaoh's own hardening.** Every verse that names Pharaoh as the one who hardened his heart uses *kabed* (8:15; 8:32; 9:34). Pharaoh "made his heart heavy." 2. **It is not reserved for Pharaoh.** God is its subject at 10:1, "I have hardened his heart." The roots do not divide human from divine hardening, and they do not form a progression across the plagues. 3. **The same root closes the story.** At the sea God says, "I will get me honor upon Pharaoh" ([Exodus 14:4](/codex/exodus-14-4/); [14:17](/codex/exodus-14-17/); 14:18), and the verb is *kabed* again. The man who made Israel's labor heavy (5:9) and his own heart heavy against God becomes the occasion of God's weighty glory. 4. **Israel's later memory uses the same word.** The Philistine priests warn: "Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?" ([1 Samuel 6:6](/codex/1-samuel-6-6/)). Both verbs are *kabed*. The hardening is remembered as something Pharaoh and Egypt did. See [Hardening Pharaohs Heart](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart/) and [Hardening Pharaohs Heart Objection Defeater](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart-objection-defeater/). ## Apologetic load 1. **The heart's weight and God's glory are one word.** The skeptic reads the hardening as God manipulating a puppet. The vocabulary frames it as a contest of weights: Pharaoh gives weight to his own will, and God shows whose weight is real. 2. **A caution against over-reading.** *Kabed* is a common verb with a wide range. The observation that Pharaoh's self-hardening always uses it is a modest narrative pattern in three verses, not a theory of the hardening vocabulary. An older claim that the hardening verbs move from *kabed* in the early plagues to *qashah* and *chazaq* later is not supported by the text. 3. **Honor is weight.** "Honor thy father" means to treat parents as weighty, which connects the fifth commandment to the language of glory and gives the commandment more than a sentimental sense. ## Notable verses - [Exodus 5:9](/codex/exodus-5-9/), "let heavier work be laid upon the men" - [Exodus 8:15](/codex/exodus-8-15/); [8:32](/codex/exodus-8-32/); [9:34](/codex/exodus-9-34/), Pharaoh "hardened his heart" - [Exodus 10:1](/codex/exodus-10-1/), "I have hardened his heart" - [Exodus 14:4](/codex/exodus-14-4/), "I will get me honor upon Pharaoh" - [Exodus 20:12](/codex/exodus-20-12/), "Honor thy father and thy mother" - [1 Samuel 6:6](/codex/1-samuel-6-6/), "as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts" - [Isaiah 6:10](/codex/isaiah-6-10/), "make their ears heavy" ## See also ### Lexicon - [H3519 - kavod](/codex/h3519-kavod/), "glory," the noun from the same root - [H2388 - chazaq](/codex/h2388-chazaq/), "make strong," the commonest hardening verb in Exodus ### Concepts and defeaters - [Hardening Pharaohs Heart](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart/) - [Hardening Pharaohs Heart Objection Defeater](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart-objection-defeater/)