"Wait On" Is Not a False Friend in the KJV

Mark Ward proclaims that the phrase wait on is a “false friend” based on a story about a woman misunderstanding Romans 12:7 and a single piece of evidence. Ward’s sole piece of evidence is that the Oxford English Dictionary says that the verbal phrase wait on which was used in Romans 12:7 is obsolete. That’s it. Ward didn’t bother to investigate this phrase any further than that. The OED said the phrase was obsolete, Ward believed it, and that settled it.

Here is the OED entry that Ward quoted:

The OED identifies the phrase wait on that occurs in Romans 12:7 as an obsolete construction. Ward was correct to note, “No one uses the phrasal verb this way anymore,” but then Ward made a grand display of his ignorance when he added, “except perhaps in one limited context: waiting on tables. Waiters wait on people. And have you heard of ‘waiting maids’? Same idea, just a bit broader.”
 
Now, hold on just a second there. Why didn’t the OED use any examples of the phrase wait on tables or the phrase wait on people or the term waiting maids under this definition? Why is Tyndale’s translation of Romans 12:7 the ONLY example listed? Apparently, these questions never even occurred to Mark Ward. His “beloved OED” says that the use of this phrase in Romans 12:7 is obsolete, and that’s enough for him. Why should he be bothered to think about it any further?
 
Ward enthralled his readers with an even greater spectacle of ignorance in the final paragraph of this section of his book. Let’s look at what he wrote, and then we’ll take a closer look at the OED to see just how easy it would have been for Ward to avoid his embarrassing blunder. Here’s the paragraph from Ward:
 
It’s much more common to hear waiting on in a sentence like this: “We’re waiting on an answer from the insurance company.” When you say this, you’re not “giving attention to” the insurance company’s answer; you don’t have it yet. You’re waiting. So the woman’s misreading makes perfect sense in light of her mastery of contemporary English – and her ignorance of four-hundred-year-old English, an ignorance nearly every English speaker shares. We don’t speak that language.
 
Notice how Ward contrasted two possible definitions of the phrase wait on. When speaking of waiting on an answer, he used the definition “to remain in one place in expectation of.” This is the correct definition for that particular use of the phrase wait on, but notice how Ward worded the other definition. He contrasted the first definition “to remain in one place in expectation of” with the definition “giving attention to.” Now, that’s pretty close to the OED’s definition that Ward previously quoted and that I shared in the photo above, but Ward left out something vitally important for understanding the OED entry. He omitted the part in the parenthesis.
 
The OED lists fifteen senses or definitions for the phrase wait on. Let’s take a quick look at all fifteen of them and see if Ward’s omission makes a difference in how we understand this phrase. Here are all the definitions of the phrase wait on listed in the OED:
 

1. To observe, watch; to fix one's eyes upon, gaze at. Obsolete.
2. To lie in wait for. Obsolete.
3. To secure, protect (oneself). Obsolete.
4. To attend to (a business, a duty). Obsolete.
5. With clause as object: To take care that. Obsolete.
6. To await, expect with desire or anxiety. Obsolete.
7. To await the action of; to look to (a person) for something. Obsolete.
8. In Bible phrase, to place one's hope in (God).
9. To remain in one place in expectation of.
10. To attend as or in the manner of a servant to the personal requirements of; to minister to the comfort of.
11. To accompany on one's way (as a mark of respect or to render service or assistance); to escort. Now rare (? exc. U.S.).
12. Hence (?) in Hunting, to wait close upon: to keep close to (the horse immediately in front).
13. To pay a respectful visit to; to call upon with the intention of showing respect, asking a favour, or the like.
14. Of things: To accompany; to be associated with; to attend as a concomitant or consequence.
15. To support the opinion of. Obsolete.

 
Ward attempted to contrast definition 4 with definition 9, but he left out the part of definition 4 that is in parenthesis. Consequentially, Ward declared that using the phrase wait on to mean “giving attention to” is an obsolete way of speaking that no one uses anymore. He claimed, “We don’t speak that language.” But Ward completely overlooked definitions 10 and 14. Both of these definitions have to do with giving attention to something, and neither of them is marked obsolete. How would the woman in Ward’s story have understood Romans 12:7 if she had used one of these definitions?
 
“Let us attend to our ministry in the manner of a servant.”
 
“Let us attend to our ministry as a fellow minister or as a consequence of having received that gift.”
 
Either one of these definitions would have given Ward’s mystery woman a proper understanding of the verse (though this would be an improper application of definition 14), and neither of them are marked obsolete in the OED. Ward is simply wrong to conclude that no one uses wait on to mean “attend to.” And if he had devoted just two or three additional brain cells to this part of his book, he may have noticed that his exception of waiting tables and waiters waiting on people fits under definition 10 in the OED. Of course, even if Ward had read all fifteen definitions, he still would have argued that the form of wait on used in Romans 12:7 is obsolete just because it’s listed as the example of an obsolete sense in the OED, so let’s consider why the OED presented Romans 12:7 as an obsolete use of this phrase.
 
If we set definition 4 and definition 10 next to each other, we can see an important distinction between them.

The recipient of the attention in definition 4 is an abstract concept like duty or business while the recipient of the attention in definition 10 is a concrete object like a person or a table. That is the only substantial difference between these two definitions. Apart from that, they are essentially the same. The OED lists these as two separate definitions solely because one is followed by an abstract concept while the other is followed by a concrete object. They are two variations of the same thing.
 
These two definitions of wait on can be compared to the definitions of the phrasal verb take off. The OED lists fourteen different definitions for take off including:
 
1.a. To remove or detach (something positioned or situated on something else)
2.c. To remove or do away with (an objection)
 
There is very little difference between these two definitions. One refers to removing a physical object that is sitting on top of something, and the other refers to removing an abstract concept that is being used to argue against someone. In both cases, the phrase take off means “remove,” but the OED marks the second of these definitions obsolete. The only reason the OED labels the second definition obsolete is that we no longer use take off when referring to the removal of abstract concepts. It’s an obsolete construction, not an obsolete definition.
 
With both of these phrases, wait on and take off, the OED lists two slightly different constructions as having basically the same definition, and it marks one of them as obsolete. In both cases, however, it is only the constructions which are obsolete. The definitions are the same between the current constructions and the obsolete constructions. Take the sentence, “Ward laid down his best arguments against the KJV, but Fortenberry took them off one by one with detailed refutations.” This is an obsolete way to use the phrasal verb take off, but the vast majority of readers will have no problem understanding that “took them off” means “removed them” just like it would mean in a sentence about taking off coats and scarves when coming in from the cold. Moving the action of a verb from a concrete object to an abstract concept changes the construction of the sentence, but it does not change the meaning of the verb.
 
With that in mind, we can see that the phrase wait on in Romans 12:7 is only an obsolete construction. It does not take an obsolete definition. It shares the same definition as modern constructions of the same phrase such as “waiting on tables” or “waiting on customers.” Practically no one familiar with the modern constructions of this phrase will have difficulty applying that same definition to the obsolete construction found in Romans 12:7.
 
But wait! There’s more! Remember when I pointed out that the OED only listed a single example under definition 4? Well, there’s a reason that Romans 12:7 was the only example given. This particular construction of wait on followed by an abstract concept is so rare that Romans 12:7 is the only example that I could recall, and it is the only example that I’ve been able to locate after many hours of additional study. It was probably the only example the editors of the OED could find too. Tyndale appears to have crafted this construction specifically for this verse by borrowing a phrase developed in the previous century to speak of a servant attending to his master. Tyndale then applied that phrase to Christians fulfilling their duty toward God. The “modern” sense of the phrase was developed in the fifteenth century, and then Tyndale and other translators used that sense in a unique format when translating Romans 12:7.
 
This means that readers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would have come to understand this verse in the exact same way that modern readers come to understand it today. Those ancient readers would have first read the phrase wait on with its primary meaning of remaining in place in expectation of something. They would have realized that this definition didn’t quite make sense, and they would have shifted to the secondary definition of attending to someone or something. Finally, the most astute of those ancient readers would likely have noticed that the thing being attended to in this case was an abstract concept rather than a concrete object, but they would also have realized that this recognition didn’t change the definition in any way. Modern readers go through the same process. Early readers of Tyndale’s translation, the first readers of the Geneva Bible, and previous generations of KJV readers all understood the phrase wait on in Romans 12:7 the same way that it is understood by modern twenty-first century Americans. Ward’s preposterous claim that “we don’t speak that language” just shows how ignorant he is of his native tongue.

Click here to read about more words that are not "false friends" in the KJV.