What Does Daniel 6:7 Mean?
All the princes of the kingdom, the governors, the guardians of the realm, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to raise up a royal statute, and to bind it fast, that whoever seeks a petition from any god or man for thirty days, except from you, O king, shall be thrown into the pit of lions.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.THE KEY
The decree’s claim to permanence is manufactured: the same Aramaic root means both to make something stand and the standing statute itself.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a familiar move: a governing circle turns its agreement into a rule designed to stand, then narrows every request for thirty days to the ruler alone. The restriction centralizes whom people may ask.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a rule becomes just because powerful people agree on it: here, their agreement serves to redirect every request toward the king.
THE ROOT
לְקַיָּמָה
leqayyāmā
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
To rise, stand, or remain established.
“raise up” in this verse is leqayyāmā. The Aramaic phrase ties “establish” to the noun “statute”: the leaders make a standing rule stand. The repetition reveals permanence as something power is trying to produce, not an authority the decree already possesses.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: Rise; stand.
קוּם
The decree’s language of establishment carries the root’s concrete sense of something rising and remaining upright.
qĕyām: A decree or established statute in Aramaic.
קְיָם
This is the statute the leaders want to make stand, from the same root as the verb “establish.”
hēqîm: Cause to stand; establish in Hebrew.
הֵקִים
This related form presents establishment as an act that makes something stand, illuminating the decree as a deliberate construction.
THE PATTERN
Power narrows people’s access to appeal by turning coordinated intent into binding command.
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit down together against the LORD and against his anointed one, saying,And they called them and commanded them not to let a sound out at all, nor to teach in the nature of Jesus.THE THREAD
Now, O king, make the bond firm, and seal the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the decree of the Medes and the Persians, which does not change.The next verse repeats the same root: the decree is made to stand and then declared unchangeable. The echo reveals how this law’s apparent permanence is built through a ruler’s signature.
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