What Does Daniel 3:3 Mean in the King James?
Then the princes, the governors, and captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same Aramaic root says the king “sets up” the image and the officials “stand” before it, power’s symbol and the crowd’s posture are one staged act.
THE MEANING
The verse shows authority made visible in an image, with every rank assembled and facing what the king has raised. In the reader’s present, a crowd’s presence can make a symbol seem inevitable without making it true.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The scene undoes the belief that a symbol becomes worthy because powerful people gather before it; their posture shows attendance, not proof.
THE ROOT
הֲקֵים
haqem
GROWS FROM
קוּם
qum
To rise, stand, or be established.
“set up / stood” in this verse is haqem. The king’s image is “set up,” and the officials “stand” before it using forms of the same root, קוּם (qum, “rise, stand, establish”). That root binds the raising of the object to the bodies arranged around it: the constructed authority rises, and the ranks take their places before it.
ALSO GROWS
haqem: Raised or established.
הֲקֵים
The king establishes the image that organizes the scene.
qayemin: Standing before something.
קָיְמִין
The officials’ posture completes the act begun when the image is raised.
THE PATTERN
Power makes a symbol into a loyalty test by staging a public posture before it.
Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up:And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.THE THREAD
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.The Aramaic root קוּם (qum, “rise, stand, establish”) links the king’s image that he “set up” here to the kingdom God will “set up” in Daniel 2:44, which is also said to “stand” forever. The passage places a ruler’s constructed symbol beside a kingdom whose permanence does not depend on a gathered crowd.
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