to be brought low: to be forced down from a high or proud position, whether by another's hand or by one's own choice
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its root this word pictures someone or something being pressed down out of a high place. The same picture works in two directions, which is why English Bibles render it so differently from verse to verse.
When one party forces another down, the word means to subdue or bring low: a king crushes a hostile nation, or God beats down the proud. The defeated side is then said to be subdued or brought low, a state imposed on them by superior force, most often a military rout.
The same falling motion can also be chosen rather than suffered. A person can bring their own heart low, bowing before God in sorrow over wrongdoing. This is the word's most striking use: the books of Chronicles return to it again and again to mark the moment a king or a people stops resisting God and submits. Whether the lowering is inflicted or freely embraced, the underlying idea is one, a high thing made low.
Nuances
1ato humble oneself: to willingly bring one's own heart low before God, turning from pride or sin in submission and repentance
Names the finished low position itself, the state of being down, and stands as the direct opposite of being lifted high.Ezk 21:26Ezk 17:24Isa 40:4
Targets human pride and loftiness specifically, the haughty eyes and high looks that get pulled down to the ground.Isa 2:11Isa 2:17Pro 29:23
עָנָהto afflict or humble by hardship, often imposed suffering; overlaps with the forced sense but lacks the willing self-submission this word can carry
Means to subdue or bring into submission, the breaking of an enemy's power so they yield: nation after nation subdued before Israel.Jdg 4:231Sa 7:13Psa 81:14
Names the penitent humbling of oneself before God that turns away his anger, a softening of pride and a bowing of the heart.2Ch 7:141Ki 21:292Ch 33:12
Both
Both describe the proud and the strong being brought low, the lofty humbled.Isa 25:5Psa 90:15
Leans toward forcing an enemy or hostile nation down into defeat, the work of a conqueror or of God fighting for his people.Jdg 4:231Sa 7:132Sa 8:1
Describes a proud people broken down under God's judgment until their resistance collapses.Jdg 3:30Psa 106:42Psa 107:12
Both
Both can mean a person lowering himself before God in repentance, so that the proud heart bends and submits.2Ch 7:142Ki 22:19Luk 18:14Jas 4:10
Both cover being brought low by an outside force, not only humbling oneself, as when circumstances or a stronger power press someone down.Job 40:12Php 4:122Co 12:21
Leans toward a chosen, voluntary lowering of oneself, often before God, as a deliberate posture a person takes on.Mat 18:4Jas 4:101Pe 5:6
Carries a promise of reversal: the one who lowers himself will be lifted up, so the humbling is the path to honor rather than only an end in itself.Mat 23:12Luk 14:11Luk 18:14
Names Christ's own act of stepping down to a lowly place, the model the believer is called to follow.Php 2:8
Leans toward being subdued or brought low by a stronger power. God subdues enemy kings before Israel, treads down the wicked where they stand, and bows the proud low. The movement is forcible defeat, a foe crushed and made to stoop, not a settling into an assigned role.Jdg 4:23Jdg 8:28Psa 81:14Job 40:12
Also names the inward breaking of a proud heart before God, when a king or a people bow themselves low in contrition so that wrath is turned away. Even here the sense is a heart brought down and softened, closer to being humbled than to taking one's place under an authority.2Ch 12:62Ch 33:122Ki 22:19
Both
Both can describe a person lowering himself under a higher authority rather than standing over against it. Where the Hebrew names a heart that humbles itself before God, and the Greek names a believer who takes an ordered place under another, the two meet in the single posture of yielding oneself downward.2Ch 7:141Ti 2:11
Names taking one's assigned place within an ordered relationship, willingly ordering oneself under another. A learner receives teaching quietly and submissively; a father keeps his children respectfully under him; a gift is offered as obedient submission to the gospel that is professed. There is no note of being beaten down; the word describes a chosen posture inside a structure, not a defeat.1Ti 2:111Ti 3:42Co 9:13
Because this submission is a yielding one grants or withholds, it can be refused: Paul would not give way in submission even for an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might stand. A word for being crushed could not be declined like this; being subdued is not something you refuse to do.Gal 2:5
What scholars say about kana
The lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat כָּנַע as a single root meaning to be low or be brought low, attested chiefly in the niphal (passive or reflexive) and hiphil (causative) stems. The niphal covers both involuntary subjugation (the defeat of enemies, frequent in Judges and the historical books) and voluntary self-abasement before God, a usage the Chronicler develops into a theological keyword for repentance and submission (Japhet notes its programmatic role in 2 Chronicles, e.g. 7:14, 12:6-7, 33:12). The hiphil is causative: a victor or God himself brings an opponent low. Wagner's TDOT article frames the semantic unity as bending or pressing down a proud, resistant party from its elevated standing. The sense is well agreed across the lexica; the posited etymological link to a verb of bending is the only point of mild uncertainty.
Sources
BDB, s.v. כנעlexicon
HALOT, s.v. כנעlexicon
DCH, s.v. כנעlexicon
S. Wagner, "kanaʿ," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 7:204-210dictionary
Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, Old Testament Library (1993)commentary