TO SHARPEN, to whet — the verb hiding under the most famous parenting instruction in the Bible. Deuteronomy 6:7's ‘you shall teach them diligently to your children’ is, in Hebrew, ‘you shall SHARPEN them into your sons’. ⭐ Searching the archived Hebrew Bible for the root's two written shapes turns up six verses, and the other five all sharpen a weapon: arrows at Isaiah 5:28, Psalm 45:6 and Psalm 120:4, and a TONGUE at Psalm 64:4 (‘who have sharpened their tongue like a sword’) and Psalm 140:4. Deuteronomy 6:7 is the only place in the Bible the verb points at a child. ⚠ No version on either shelf keeps the image; the renderings range from ‘teach them diligently’ (KJV, ASV) through ‘rehearse them continually’ (Geneva) and ‘impress them’ (NIV) to ‘inculcate’ (NWT) — all of them good guesses at the force of the word, all of them spending the picture to get there. → first discussed at Deut 6:7