The Hebrew berek refers to the physical knee but carries extensive figurative meaning. Bending or bowing the knee expressed submission, humility, or worship. Receiving a child 'on the knees' (Genesis 50:23) signified adoption or acknowledgment of paternity.
Every knee bowing before the LORD is one of Scripture's grandest eschatological images (Isaiah 45:23), echoed directly in Philippians 2:10–11 where Paul declares that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. This posture captures the totality of creaturely submission and adoration before the sovereign God. The willful bowing of the knee — as in prayer and worship — is the appropriate human response to divine majesty, while forced bowing before false gods was the deepest degradation (1 Kings 19:18: 'seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal').