What Does Daniel 6:13 Mean in the King James?
Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day.
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 officials frame Daniel’s continued seeking as disloyalty, but the Aramaic shows what their decree cannot stop: his request, he asks.
THE MEANING
This verse shows the pressure to let an authority define loyalty: the officials call Daniel’s repeated petition disregard because it continues beside the king’s decree. You can be named disloyal by a system that treats its command as the measure of all regard. Yet the petition remains visible as an act of seeking, not merely the meaning assigned to it by the accusation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that an authority’s accusation settles what an act means: the officials call Daniel’s petition disregard, while the verse lets his repeated seeking remain visible in its own terms.
THE ROOT
בָּעוּתֵהּ בָּעֵא
bāʿuteh bāʿē
GROWS FROM
בעא
b-ʿ-ʾ
To ask, seek, or request.
The Aramaic places the request beside the verb for asking: his request, he asks. The wording reveals petition as ongoing seeking, and the three-times-a-day detail makes that seeking a pattern.
ALSO GROWS
bāʿē: He asks or seeks.
בָּעֵא
This is the verb behind the petition: the act is active asking.
bāʿûtā: A request or petition.
בָּעוּתָא
This noun names what is asked, keeping the request and the act of asking together.
לָא שָׂם עֲלָךְ
lā śām ʿălāḵ
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
To put, set, or place.
“regardeth not” in this verse is lā śām ʿălāḵ. The accusation frames regard as a matter of placement: Daniel does not set the king before him. The next clause reveals what he continues doing, asking, again and again, so the charge is also about where attention is placed.
ALSO GROWS
śām: He puts, sets, or places.
שָׂם
This is the verb in the accusation, beneath the English wording regardeth not.
śîm lēv: Set the heart; attend to.
שִׂים לֵב
This Hebrew expression uses the same root to describe attention as something placed.
אֱסָרָא
ʾĕsārā
GROWS FROM
אסר
ʾ-s-r
To bind or tie; by extension, to prohibit.
“decree” in this verse is ʾĕsārā. The Aramaic word carries the sense of a binding prohibition. Set beside Daniel’s continuing request, the verse places a fixed legal bond beside an act of seeking that the accusation cannot make disappear.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsar: To bind or tie.
אָסַר
The verb exposes the binding force held in the decree’s name.
ʾāsîr: A bound person; a prisoner.
אֲסִיר
This related word shows the root’s concrete image of someone held by a binding.
THE PATTERN
A ruling power can brand continued allegiance as defiance when it claims the right to define loyalty.
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.THE THREAD
Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.The Aramaic word translated praying comes from the same root, בעא, meaning ask or seek, as petition in this verse. The accusers’ report echoes the very act they catch: Daniel continues to seek before his God.
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