KNEE, KNEEL (Heb. noun, בֶּ֫רֶכְ, H1386, verb בָּרַכְ֒, H1384. Often confused with homophone, meaning “to bless,” a metathesized form of Akkad. karābu “to bless.”). The ancient Near Eastern custom was to stand in public prayer and so kneeling was confined to acts of obedience and obeisance. The official presentation of children on the father’s knee was a sign legitimizing the child’s legal claim in Israel (Gen 30:3; 50:23; Job 3:12). The knee was a symbol of submission to royalty and every letter in the vast cuneiform collections mentions the bowing down at the feet of the superior personage. Such acts of humility are pictured on Babylonian, Egyptian and Canaanite art works. The position of kneeling comes after that of total prostration, and indicates that certain rituals were observed if not performed in a kneeling posture (Ps 95:6). In Daniel 5:6 the rare Aram. term for knee, אַרְכֻבָּה, H10072, occurs which must be connected with the common Sem. root. In the NT the common Gr. term, γόνυ, G1205, is used without exception as the noun while two verbal forms are used for “kneel” Gr. γονυπετέω, G1206, which means specifically, “kneel down before someone.” This word is most commonly found in the aorist participle. The other verbal form is the phrase, τιθέναι τὰ̀ γόυατα, possibly a Lat. usage, ponere genua meaning to genuflect, “to flex the knee to a superior” as in Mark 15:19, et al. This usage of bowing down became the traditional posture of prayer in the Christian Church. As kneeling or squatting was often the posture of labor and giving birth, so on occasion it appears as the posture of dying, particularly in the case of Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 7:20). Paul and his converts prayed and said farewell on their knees (20:36), and kneeling is mentioned in Paul’s epistles. The apostle uses the conception of kneeling in the fig. sense of submission to the Almighty (Eph 3:14), where it is his own confession that is foremost, and in the magnificent prophecy of Christ’s ultimate triumph when all knees shall bow before the Messiah (Phil 2:10).