To rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)
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קוּם (qum) is the Hebrew verb for rising — one of the most common verbs in the OT (628 occurrences), covering the physical act of standing up, the establishing of covenants and kings, the arising of enemies, and the resurrection of the dead. What the word carries through all its uses is the movement from prostration or rest to active, upright engagement.
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Full entry for קוּם (H6965) · Open the biblical lexicon
קוּם (qum) is the Hebrew verb for rising — one of the most common verbs in the OT (628 occurrences), covering the physical act of standing up, the establishing of covenants and kings, the arising of enemies, and the resurrection of the dead. What the word carries through all its uses is the movement from prostration or rest to active, upright engagement.
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 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
קוּם (qum) is the Hebrew verb for rising — one of the most common verbs in the OT (628 occurrences), covering the physical act of standing up, the establishing of covenants and kings, the arising of enemies, and the resurrection of the dead. What the word carries through all its uses is the movement from prostration or rest to active, upright engagement. When YHWH is called to qum (Ps 3:7, 7:6, 44:26), it is the call for him to move from apparent inactivity to decisive action. When the dead are said to qum (Isa 26:19, Dan 12:2), the word that governs ordinary waking is the word that governs resurrection.
Psalm 3 is the great qum Psalm. David is surrounded by enemies who say, 'there is no salvation for him in God' (v. 2). His response is to lie down and sleep, confident that YHWH sustains him (vv. 5-6). Then comes verse 7: 'Arise (qumah), O YHWH! Save me, O my God!' The divine qumah is the turning point: when YHWH rises, the enemies are struck, their jaws broken. The Psalter's prayer vocabulary is dense with qumah petitions — the people call YHWH to qum against their enemies, to qum on their behalf, to qum and not be still. The qumah of YHWH is the hinge of deliverance.
The Hiphil stem (hiqim, to raise up, to establish) carries the covenant-establishment and messianic-promise uses of qum. Second Samuel 7:12 — 'I will raise up (hiqim) your offspring after you' — is the Davidic covenant promise, with hiqim as the verb of divine action. Deuteronomy 18:18 uses hiqim for the prophet like Moses: 'I will raise up (hiqim) for them a prophet from among their brothers.' Peter quotes this in Acts 3:22 as fulfilled in Jesus. The divine hiqim establishes what cannot be established by human effort.
Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2 bring qum to its most eschatological use. Isaiah 26:19: 'Your dead shall live; their bodies shall arise (yaqumu). You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!' The qum of resurrection is the same verb as the morning qum of getting out of bed — the bodily, physical rising from death. Daniel 12:2: 'Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake (yaqitzu) — some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' The awakening and the qum together form the OT's clearest resurrection text.
For the preacher, קוּם (qum) is the word that connects the morning alarm to the resurrection trumpet: the same movement — from lying down to standing upright — governs both.
קוּם (qum) is indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 628 OT occurrences. The Torah uses it for rising and setting out on journeys, for covenant establishment (hiqim), and for the prophet-raising promise. The historical books use it for kings arising, enemies arising, and YHWH raising up judges and prophets. The Psalms use the qumah petition (arise, O Lord) as a cry for divine deliverance.
The wisdom literature uses it for the upright standing when the wicked fall. The Prophets use it for the messianic raising, for restoration, and for resurrection. Daniel uses it for the end-times awaking of the dead. The word spans the entire range from daily embodied life to eschatological hope.
Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.
The qumah petition in its most concentrated form: 'Arise (qumah), O YHWH — save me!' The prayer assumes that YHWH has not yet risen, that the enemies are still standing while YHWH appears to be at rest. The petition is for divine action — for YHWH to qum and move. The answer is given in the perfect tense already (you have struck, you have broken) — as if the qum of YHWH is so certain that David can speak of its effects as accomplished before the battle is over.
This is the grammar of faith: asking YHWH to qum and already counting the enemies as defeated.
And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.
The Davidic covenant hiqim: 'I will raise up (hiqim) your offspring after you.' The divine action is the raising — the establishing of a successor whose throne YHWH will secure. The promise builds through the chapter: the son will build the house (v. 13), YHWH will be his father and he will be YHWH's son (v. 14), and the throne will be established forever (v. 16). The hiqim of verse 12 launches the entire messianic trajectory of the OT — the one whom YHWH raises up and establishes is the pivot of the covenant.
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 resurrection qum: 'their bodies shall arise (yaqumu).' Isaiah 26:19 is the OT's clearest pre-Daniel resurrection text: the dead are addressed directly ('awake and sing'), and the verb yaqumu places their rising in the same semantic field as every other rising in the OT. The dew metaphor grounds the resurrection in the life-giving quality of divine action — new morning, life-bringing moisture, bodies arising as naturally and inevitably as vegetation in dew.
The physical concreteness of 'bodies' and 'dwell in the dust' sets the bodily nature of the qum beyond question.
And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt.
The dual resurrection: the same qum-awakening reaches those whose acharith (final end) is everlasting life and those whose acharith is shame and contempt. Daniel 12:2 is the OT's most explicit statement of a universal resurrection with differentiated outcomes. The 'many' (rabbim) does not exclude the few — it marks the comprehensiveness of the awakening. The sleeping in dust and the awaking from it is the qum movement applied to death and resurrection: the same bodily rising from a horizontal to a vertical position, now applied to the graves.
Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, “Rise up, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered; may those who hate You flee before You.”
The battle-qumah: 'Arise (qumah), O YHWH!' spoken at the departure of the ark into the wilderness. This formula — also quoted in Ps 68:1 — is the liturgical expression of the divine warrior's qum: when YHWH arises, enemies scatter. The ark's movement is YHWH's movement; the qumah formula makes explicit what the ark implies. The congregation in Numbers learned to move when YHWH moved and to rest when YHWH rested — the divine qum structured Israel's journey through the wilderness.
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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.
קוּם (qum) gives the preacher an unexpected bridge between the ordinary and the eschatological: the verb that describes getting out of bed is the verb that describes the resurrection of the dead. Isaiah 26:19's 'arise' and the alarm clock's summons are the same word. This is not a trivialization of resurrection but a sanctification of ordinary waking: every morning rising is a small participation in the movement that the great qum will complete.
Psalm 3:7's qumah petition teaches the congregation that prayer for divine action is the primary response to overwhelming opposition — not strategy, not anxiety, not resignation, but the qumah cry: 'Arise, O YHWH!' The petition assumes YHWH can and will qum; it grounds courage in anticipated divine action. The Davidic hiqim of 2 Samuel 7:12 shows that YHWH's raising up of his chosen servants is the engine of covenant history — David was raised up, Solomon was raised up, and ultimately the Son of David was raised up from the dead (Acts 2:24).
The resurrection is the definitive divine qum: when YHWH raised Jesus from the dead (using the Greek equivalent egeiro and anistemi), he performed the act that all the qumah petitions were anticipating. The congregation's hope is not merely that Christ rose but that his qum guarantees their qum — as Paul argues in 1 Cor 15:20-22. The preacher who teaches qum teaches the congregation to see their own deaths as a temporary horizontal interval before the final qum.
Ps.3.7
קוּם (qum) is one of the most morphologically productive roots in Biblical Hebrew. The Qal stem (qum) covers most ordinary senses. The Hiphil stem (hiqim) is causative: to cause to rise, to raise up, to establish. The Hiphil is the covenant-establishment form: YHWH hiqims the Davidic line, prophets, and ultimately the dead. The Hophal (passive Hiphil) appears rarely.
The noun maqom (H4725, place) derives from qum — a place is a kind of 'standing point.' The imperative qumah adds a cohortative he (qum + ah) for force: 'Arise! Up!' The NT's primary resurrection verbs are egeiro (G1453) and anistemi (G450) — anistemi is the direct Greek calque of qum (ana = up + histemi = to stand). The NT's anastasis (resurrection, from anistemi) is the theological heir of qum.
The NT's resurrection vocabulary is built on the Greek equivalents of qum. Anistemi (G450) — to stand up, to rise — is used for physical rising (Mark 1:35, Jesus rising before dawn to pray) and for resurrection: Acts 2:24 ('God raised him up [anistemi], loosing the pangs of death'). The noun anastasis is resurrection throughout the NT. Egeiro (G1453, also meaning to wake/raise) is paired with anistemi in most resurrection texts.
Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:24-32) interprets the resurrection of Christ using Psalm 16 but with the qum-logic of Psalm 3 in the background: the one whom YHWH raises cannot remain dead. Paul's 'if the Spirit of him who raised (egeiro) Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised (egeiro) Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies' (Rom 8:11) is the hiqim-logic of 2 Sam 7:12 applied to the believer's resurrection: the divine raising that established the Davidic Son will establish those who are in him.
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