To rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)
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The Hebrew verb קוּם (qûm) can describe getting up, rising, standing, arising for action, remaining valid, establishing something, appointing someone, restoring what has fallen, or causing another to rise. The subject, object, stem, and surrounding action determine the sense.
Reader summary
Full entry for קוּם (H6965) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb קוּם (qûm) can describe getting up, rising, standing, arising for action, remaining valid, establishing something, appointing someone, restoring what has fallen, or causing another to rise. The subject, object, stem, and surrounding action determine the sense.
The BSB source-word alignment has 628 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include got up (37), Get up (35), Arise (27), Rise up (23), . . . (19).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 4:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (51), Psalms (51), 1 Samuel (47), Jeremiah (43).
This entry includes 3 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
The Hebrew verb קוּם (qûm) can describe getting up, rising, standing, arising for action, remaining valid, establishing something, appointing someone, restoring what has fallen, or causing another to rise. The subject, object, stem, and surrounding action determine the sense. Abraham gets up from beside Sarah’s body in Genesis 23:3, Moses sets out with Joshua in Exodus 24:13, and Joshua is commanded to arise and cross the Jordan. These ordinary movements remind readers that the verb does not carry one spiritual meaning wherever it appears.
The moral direction also comes from context. Cain rises against Abel and kills him, while Leviticus 19:32 commands rising in the presence of the elderly as an act joined to honor and fear of God. Deuteronomy 22:4 requires helping a neighbor lift a fallen animal. The same lexical identity can therefore describe aggression, respect, movement, and practical assistance without approving every act of rising.
Other passages use qûm for establishment or effective standing. God establishes His covenant with Noah. Deuteronomy 19:15 says a legal matter must be established by adequate testimony. Numbers 23:19 asks whether God could speak and fail to fulfill what He promises. Judges 2:16 says the Lord raised up judges. Isaiah 58:12 speaks of restoring ancient foundations. In such settings, English “rise” may not communicate the function of the Hebrew form.
Selected prophetic and wisdom texts give rising a further horizon. Isaiah 26:19 declares that the dead will live and their bodies will rise. Proverbs 24:16 depicts the righteous person getting up after repeated falls. These passages can nourish resurrection hope and perseverance, but not every occurrence predicts resurrection or promises quick recovery. Faithful teaching should not turn “rise up” into a demand for relentless productivity, unsafe confrontation, or able-bodied performance. Qûm may call someone to act, receive help, rebuild, honor, testify, or trust God to establish what human strength cannot secure.
Qûm ranges from bodily movement and hostile action to legal establishment, covenant confirmation, divine appointment, practical assistance, rebuilding, resilience, and selected resurrection hope. The actor, stem, object, and purpose keep these uses related without making them interchangeable.
Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
Cain’s rising is explicitly directed against Abel and culminates in murder, so movement language does not itself signal faithful courage.
But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
The causative form describes God establishing His covenant with Noah within the announced preservation of the flood narrative.
A lone witness is not sufficient to establish any wrongdoing or sin against a man, regardless of what offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
The legal matter stands only through the required testimony, making evidence and process central to this establishing use.
If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up.
The causative form places responsibility on the observer to help raise what has fallen rather than pass by.
“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore arise, you and all these people, and cross over the Jordan into the land that I am giving to the children of Israel.
Joshua’s imperative to arise initiates a commanded transition after Moses’ death and is followed by the task of crossing.
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them.
The Lord is the appointing agent who raises judges for a stated work of rescuing Israel from plunderers.
Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.
The prophetic song uses rising for the dead within a concentrated declaration of renewed life and divine victory.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will restore the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of the Streets of Dwelling.
The Piel form describes restoring foundations as part of communal repair associated with the chapter’s demanded faithfulness.
For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up; but the wicked stumble in bad times.
Wisdom contrasts repeated righteous recovery with the wicked person’s collapse without claiming that righteousness prevents falling.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
קוּם is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Qûm is not a biblical slogan for visible energy. Cain rises to kill, a legal matter stands through multiple witnesses, a neighbor helps lift a fallen animal, God raises judges, ruined foundations are restored, and the dead rise in Isaiah’s song. These movements share a verb but receive their moral and theological meaning from distinct settings. The word therefore teaches careful agency.
Faithful rising moves under God’s command and toward truth, service, repair, or promised life; corrupt rising turns strength against a neighbor. Pastoral use must also honor human limitation. A person may need another to help lift what has fallen, and perseverance may include rest, treatment, accommodation, lament, or slow rebuilding. Scripture’s hope is not that every believer performs immediate recovery, but that God establishes His word and finally overcomes death.
Gen.6.18
Qûm frequently appears in the Qal for rising, standing, or coming into effect, while causative forms can establish, appoint, raise, or restore. A translation may foreground result rather than physical movement, so stem, subject, object, and complement are decisive.
The New Testament proclaims Jesus’ bodily resurrection, God’s future raising of the dead, the establishing of believers, and practical restoration of those who fall. Those themes meet selected qûm passages canonically, but no single Greek verb or resurrection claim governs every Old Testament occurrence.