What Does Daniel 3:8 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews.
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 word translated “accused” pictures the accusers as eating pieces of the people they charge.
THE MEANING
The verse shows accusation moving toward power: people draw near to the king, and their words make the Jews a target. Its Aramaic idiom gives the charge a bodily edge, speaking of it as eating pieces of them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An accusation is not weightless information: the Aramaic idiom pictures it as eating pieces of the people named.
THE ROOT
קַרְצֵיהוֹן
qarṣêhôn
GROWS FROM
קרץ
q-r-ṣ
Piece or morsel; the related verbal sense carries the idea of nipping or biting.
The KJV’s “accused” condenses the Aramaic idiom “eat pieces of them.” That image lets the verse show accusation as words taking bites out of the people they name.
ALSO GROWS
qarṣêhôn: Their pieces or morsels
קַרְצֵיהוֹן
This is the noun in the idiom rendered “accused” in Daniel 3:8.
qarṣōhî: His pieces or morsels
קַרְצֹוהִי
The same noun appears in the idiom rendered “had accused Daniel” in Daniel 6:24.
וַאֲכַלּוּ
waʾăkallû
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
Eat, consume.
The Aramaic says they ate pieces of the Jews, making the accusation a picture of consumption. The familiar verb “accused” carries that image beneath its surface.
ALSO GROWS
ʾăkallû: They ate
אֲכַלּוּ
This is the verb that supplies the eating action in the accusation idiom.
maʾăḵāl: Food; something eaten
מַאֲכָל
This related word keeps the root’s concrete sense visible: something is taken in and consumed.
THE PATTERN
Accusation turns speech into an attack that wounds its target and seeks a place before power.
The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.THE THREAD
And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.Daniel 6:24 uses the same Aramaic “eat pieces” idiom for the men who had accused Daniel. The repeated phrase makes accusation’s biting image a verbal thread through Daniel, while this later scene holds the violence of the lions breaking their bones.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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