As a Bible nerd, I have spent a lot time watching videos from a Protestant podcaster by the name of Mark Ward, who spent several years doing videos about "false friends" in the King James Bible. A "false friend" is a word you think you know, but that actually means something different. You find this phenomenon when the same word in one language means something completely different in another, such as "Burro," which in Spanish means "donkey," but in Italian means "butter." But you also encounter this over time within a language, when a word changes meaning. For example, the word "villain" once meant "villager," but now has a very different meaning.
False Friends in the King James Version
You find many examples of such false friends in the King James Bible, for example, "conversation," which in contemporary English means "to have a discussion," but in the King James Bible, usually means "conduct" or "behavior." When we read in Philippians 1:27, "...let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ," this does not just mean we should speak to each other in a Christian way, it means we need to live and act in a way that becomes the Gospel. There are many editions of the King James Version that have notes that explain what these words actually mean in contemporary English, and of course we have many more contemporary translations that eliminate these known false friends altogether. But one word which even these contemporary translations generally continue to use is "worship," as a translation for words in Hebrew and Greek which literally mean "to bow." In contemporary English, when we speak of "worship," most people immediately think of the worship which is due to God only, but these words in the original languages of the Bible do not have this limited meaning.
With My Body, I Thee Worship
It is a fact that the word "worship" in English had a broader meaning than is usually understood today. For example, in the old Anglican wedding service, the groom said to his bride, as he placed the ring on her finger: "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." Even though I was married in a Chinese Baptist Church, I said these words too, because this Anglican service was often used as the standard Protestant wedding service, though you are unlikely to hear these words used in a wedding these days. It was obviously not the intent of those who composed this service that the groom was to render to the wife the worship which was due to God alone. What this actually meant at the time it was composed was "with my body, I honor you." So what the word used to mean in English is "to honor," or "to reverence," or "to venerate," and often it was in reference to bowing to someone or something to show reverence, such as in Matthew 9:18, when we are told that Jairus came to Christ and "worshipped him...." More contemporary translations translate this as saying he "knelt before him," or "bowed low before him." The key word in Greek here is a form of the word "proskuneō." Obviously, at that time, Jairus would have not had reason to believe that Christ was God, and so he was not offering to him that worship which was due to God only.
Worshiping the LORD and the King
Another clear example of this is found in 1 Chronicles 29:20, which speaks of the people of Israel, in response to King David, "bowed down their heads, and worshipped the LORD, and the king." Here, the same verb, "shachah" is used with two objects, the LORD and King David. This clearly did not mean that the people were rendering to King David the worship that was due to God alone. Many modern translations translate this verse as saying that the people "paid homage" or "prostrated themselves" before the LORD and the King.
Worshiping the Ark of the Covenant
We also see in Scripture that we are to bow (or "worship") holy things. The Ark of the Covenant, for example, is referred to as "the Footstool" of God's feet:
"Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building" (1 Chronicles 28:2).
And in the Psalms, the people of Israel were commanded to bow to it:
"We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength" (131[132]:7-8).
"Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship the footstool of His feet; for He is holy" (Psalm 98[99]:5).
Now, in the first verse we have the phrase "worship [or "bow"] at his footstool," and in the second "worship [or "bow to"] the footstool." In both cases, there is a preposition [ל which is the Hebrew letter lamed] which is translated as "at" in the first case, and not translated in the second. But we find the same construction in Psalm 28[29]:2 where we have the command "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." The primary meaning of this Hebrew preposition in these contexts is "to" or "toward," not merely "in the general vicinity," and so indicates the object of the bowing.
The Second Commandment
The second commandment in the King James Version reads:
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them...." (Exodus 20:4-5a).
There are several things that need to be understood about what this commandment is really saying, and it is not saying. First off, what does the word translated "graven images" mean? The Hebrew word is "pesel" (פּסל), which is only used in reference to images of false gods, and never of the images that God commanded the Israelites to make (such as the images of Cherubim on the Ark, which God commanded the Israelites to make only five chapters later in Exodus 25:10-22), and so it simply cannot be understood as referring to images in general. Our best guide, however, to what Hebrew words mean, is what they meant to Hebrews—and when the Hebrews translated the Bible into Greek, they translated this word simply as "eidoloi", i.e. "idols." So clearly the reference here is to pagan images rather than to images in general.
Secondly, the second commandment says that you cannot make these images in the first place, and so if this commandment was speaking of images in general, the Ark of the Covenant would be the first of many examples of God contradicting Himself.
Thirdly, we find the King James translating the word "shachah" as "bow" here, which is the word "proskuneo" in the Septuagint. And the word translated as "serve" here is "‛abad" in Hebrew and "latreuo" in the Septuagint, and this refers to sacrificial worship, which is true worship due to God alone.
So this commandment says you cannot make idols, you cannot bow to idols, and you cannot offer sacrifices to idols. It obviously does not say you cannot make any images of any kind, and it also does not say that you cannot bow to any images of any kind.
The Temptation of Christ by the Devil
In the Gospels, we are told that Christ responded to Satan's offer to give Him all the kingdoms of the world, if he would "worship" (or "prostrate") him, by saying: "Get thee hence, Satan [or "Away with you, Satan!"]: for it is written, Thou shalt worship ["proskuneo"] the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve ["latreuo"]" (Matthew 4:10). So while "proskynesis" can be offered to persons or things other than God (though obviously not to the Devil, or to false gods), "latreia" is true worship, which can only be offered to God.
Conclusion
So why do we continue, even in modern translations, to use the "worship" to translate words that mean "to bow" or "to prostrate" or "to honor," except when God is not the object? I think it is because many of these translations are so deeply imbedded in our culture. For example, we have the Psalm verse: "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel [the LXX and Vulgate read "weep" rather than kneel here] before the Lord our maker (Psalm 94[95]:6. This could more precisely translated as "Come, let us prostrate ourselves and fall down..." but that doesn't quite have the same ring as the older translations, and when the word "worship" is used in reference to God, it causes no problems for Protestant sensibilities, and Protestants are generally the ones producing most of these translations, and Protestants are also the primary audience.
There are some instances in which "worship" is probably still the best way to translate "proskynesis" into English. For example, in John 4:20-24, where Christ is speaking to the Samaritan woman about whether proper worship was to be offered in Jerusalem (as the Jews did) or in Mount Gerizim (as the Samaritans did), the word is being used in the broad sense of the totality of the religious worship of the two respective religions, and so to translate it here as "to bow," or to translate the closely related word "proskunetes" ("worshipers") as "bowers" would not only be awkward, but too limiting given the way it is used in this context.
I am not proposing that we should never use the word "worship" in these translations, because I generally prefer using traditional forms of English, especially with texts that are going to be used liturgically, but I do think we need to educate people to understand what these words actually mean, and do not mean.
For More Information, See:
Old Testament Exegesis on the Hebrew Terms for Prostration and Worship, by Edwin Yamauchi
