What Does Daniel 3:9 Mean in the King James?
They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live for ever.
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 greeting reaches for life across the ages, while “live” remains a wish spoken to the king.
THE MEANING
The words make the king’s life a spoken wish extending through the ages. His authority is met with reverence, yet the greeting asks for life as something he does not command into being. The word translated “for ever” carries the sense of ages, a duration whose boundary is not shown.
THE ROOT
לְעָלְמִין
leʿālmîn
GROWS FROM
עלם
The root carries the sense of hiding or being concealed; its word family also names an age or long duration.
“for ever” in this verse is leʿālmîn. The Aramaic phrase speaks of ages, and its Hebrew cognate עוֹלָם (ʿolam) also names an age or long duration. The related verb עָלַם (ʿālam) means to conceal, giving the family an echo of time whose far boundary remains unseen.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālmîn: ages
עָלְמִין
This Aramaic form shares the root consonants and shows the duration behind the king’s greeting.
ʿolam: age, long duration
עוֹלָם
This Hebrew cognate clarifies that “for ever” can speak in the language of ages.
ʿālam: hide, conceal
עָלַם
This verb shares the root consonants and echoes the unseen horizon of a duration that reaches beyond view.
מַלְכָּא
malkā
GROWS FROM
מלך
Reign, exercise rule.
The consonants מלך connect the king with the act of reigning and with kingship itself. The greeting grants him the title of authority while wishing him a life that authority cannot produce.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: king
מֶלֶךְ
This Hebrew cognate names the ruler through the same consonants as the Aramaic word in the verse.
mālak: reign, rule
מָלַךְ
This verb makes the king’s title an active relation to rule, not just a label.
malkhut: kingship, kingdom
מַלְכוּת
This noun extends the same root into the realm or condition of reigning.
THE PATTERN
A wish for life beyond one’s days makes duration something hoped for or received, not owned by authority.
Then Bath-sheba bowed with her face to the earth, and did reverence to the king, and said, Let my lord king David live for ever.Thou wilt prolong the king’s life: and his years as many generations.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:THE THREAD
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:Genesis uses לְעֹלָם (leʿolam), from the same consonantal root עלם as Daniel’s לְעָלְמִין (leʿālmîn), for life extending across the ages. The shared wording carries the royal greeting back to the tree of life, where “live for ever” bears a different and more weighty horizon.
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