The honor of keeping the peace

I have never served in the military. But of the people I know who have served, I hear the word honor quite a bit when they engage in conversations with other current or former military. When they speak of honor you can see how important this concept is to them. If you look closely enough, you will often see tears begin to well up in their eyes as they speak of this awesome character trait. 

Honor is a great word. The Oxford dictionary primarily defines it as, “high respect; glory; adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct; nobleness of mind.” The Hebrew word, kavedh, that is translated as “honor” in the words of Solomon that we will consider in a moment, is most often translated as “glory” or “glorious.” It literally means “to be heavy” or “to be honored.” To be “heavy” in ancient times referred to the weightiness of a person’s reputation and of one’s very person. It is also commonly used for the idea of “respect” and “renown.”

You don’t have to be in the military to have or understand honor, but I think those who have been in one branch or another of our armed forces, have a much deeper and fuller understanding of the word. They have most likely lived it more than most.

Solomon speaks about gaining honor in a particular area of our behavior in today’s piece of advice – “Avoiding arguments and fights is a badge of honor; only the foolish insist on quarreling”. 

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