to put words into the air for others to hear: to shout something out, to call for someone, or to read a document aloud.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In the Aramaic chapters of Daniel and Ezra this one verb does work that English hands to several different words. A herald bellows a royal order to a crowd. A king calls for his advisers to be brought in. A letter is read out before the officials who received it. Underneath all three lies a single act: giving words a voice where people can hear them.
That is why the same word covers both "call out" and "read." Reading in the ancient world was almost always reading aloud, and usually to other people rather than to yourself. So the mysterious writing on the wall in Daniel 5 was never a private puzzle to be worked out in silence. It was something a wise man was expected to stand up and pronounce in front of the king, and then explain.
The three shapes it takes in these books are easy to see:
a herald or a heavenly messenger shouting an announcement at full force
a king calling for particular people to be brought before him
an official or a sage reading a written document out loud to those present
Set beside the ordinary Aramaic word for saying something (אֲמַר), this verb is about volume and audience: the words are aimed at people who are meant to hear and to act. A narrower verb for making a formal public announcement (כְּרַז) covers only the herald's job, while this word runs all the way from the herald's shout to a scribe reading a letter.
Nuances
1ato shout something out at full force so that everyone present hears it: to proclaim or herald.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 3:4Dan 4:14(11)Dan 5:7 (2×)*
1bto call for a particular person to come, or to be called for in that way: to summon.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 5:12
1cto read a written text out loud, in front of other people.
the reading is always done out loud and in front of other people, so an audience comes with the word in a way the English verb does not suggest.Ezr 4:18Dan 5:17
the same word also covers shouting an announcement, so reading is felt as one more way of giving words a voice rather than a separate skill.Dan 3:4
Both
both name taking in the words of a written document and knowing what it says.Dan 5:16
Only read
English "read" suggests a silent, private act done with the eyes, and it can suggest studying or decoding a text rather than pronouncing it for others.
the calling is loud and public, aimed either at a crowd that must hear the order or at a person who is meant to come.Dan 3:4Dan 5:12
Both
both cover raising the voice to get attention or to bring someone forward.Dan 5:7
Only call
English "call" also means to give something a name, to describe something as being a certain way, or to telephone someone; none of those belong to the Aramaic word.
“cry aloud”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“proclaim”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“summon”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How qera differs from similar Aramaic words
אֲמַרthe everyday Aramaic word for saying or telling. It carries no sense of volume or audience, while this word is about words sent out to be heard.
It is the word for reading a written document out loud to people who are listening, which the plain verb for saying never covers: a letter read before the king, a letter read before the officials who sent it, and the writing on the wall that the experts cannot make out.Ezr 4:18Ezr 4:23Dan 5:8Dan 5:16
It can mean summoning someone by calling for him, so the point of the word is getting a person to come rather than any words that get said: "let Daniel be called."Dan 5:12
Even when the text does not quote a word of it, this verb alone can name the whole task set before the experts: they are brought in so that they might read the writing.Dan 5:15
Both
Both are used for words sent out loud to an audience, and Daniel 3:4 puts them side by side in one announcement: the herald calls out, and then comes what he says to the assembled peoples.Dan 3:4
Both can move a royal command along, one raising the summons and the other supplying its terms: the king calls out for the experts to be brought in, then says to them what the reward will be.Dan 5:7
Both belong to the Aramaic sections of Ezra and Daniel, so the pair is the ordinary speech vocabulary of the imperial court scenes there, whether a watcher shouts from heaven or Daniel answers the king.Dan 4:14Dan 5:17
This is the everyday verb for saying, the one that hands the reader the exact words that follow, whoever is speaking: the wise men opening their reply to the king, or the sentence Israel is told to repeat to the nations around them.Dan 2:4Jer 10:11
In a king's mouth it becomes an order that puts people to work at once, with no speech quoted at all: he "says" and strong men are tied up, the temple vessels are fetched, a man is dressed in purple.Dan 3:20Dan 5:2Dan 5:29
It also carries words spoken to God or about God, not just talk between people: Daniel blessing God's name, and the king confessing that Daniel's God outranks every other god.Dan 2:20Dan 2:47
כְּרַזto make a formal public announcement, the herald's own verb (Daniel 5:29). It is narrower and never covers reading a document.
Covers reading a document out loud to listeners. The letter about Jerusalem is read before the Persian king (Ezra 4:18) and then read out to the officials (Ezra 4:23), and the writing on the wall is precisely what the Babylonian experts cannot read (Daniel 5:8, 5:15, 5:16, 5:17).Ezr 4:18Ezr 4:23Dan 5:8Dan 5:16
Also covers calling out for a person, summoning someone to come. Belshazzar calls loudly for the experts to be brought in (Daniel 5:7), and Daniel himself is called before the king (Daniel 5:12).Dan 5:7Dan 5:12
Describes the raw act of raising the voice, with no fixed content: a crier shouts to the assembled nations (Daniel 3:4) and a heavenly watcher shouts a verdict over the tree (Daniel 4:14). The same verb serves a court herald and a voice from heaven.Dan 3:4Dan 4:14
Both
Both describe words spoken out loud in public so that everyone present hears them at once, rather than a message passed privately.Dan 5:29Dan 3:4
Both can carry the weight of a ruler's order: what is announced is not the speaker's own opinion but a decision already settled by an authority.Dan 5:29Dan 4:14
Names the formal act of announcing a decision that has already been made, so that it becomes public and official. In Daniel 5:29 the king's ruling about Daniel's new rank is announced to the court, and the announcement is what makes the promotion known.Dan 5:29
Points only at the announcing itself, never at reading a written text or calling a person forward. Its single use is a public declaration of the king's word about someone else.Dan 5:29
זְעִקto cry out in distress, as Darius does at the mouth of the lions' den (Daniel 6:20). That cry is anguish, not an announcement or a reading.
qera in the other biblical languages
קָרָאHebrew“to call: call to”the Hebrew verb of the same root and nearly the same reach: to call, to proclaim, to read aloud. It also covers giving someone a name, which the Aramaic verb does not do in the Bible.
The Aramaic word can treat reading as a skill a person may simply lack: the king's advisers stare at the writing on the wall and cannot make it out, and Daniel is fetched precisely because he can.Dan 5:8Dan 5:15Dan 5:16
Every one of its appearances sits in a royal court, so it carries the flavor of an official act rather than everyday speech: a letter read out before the emperor, a herald announcing a decree, a king shouting for his experts to be brought in.Ezr 4:18Dan 3:4Dan 5:7
Both
Both words cover reading a written text aloud so that other people hear it, which is what reading normally meant: the covenant scroll read to Israel, the rediscovered law read to the king, an imperial letter read before the throne.Exo 24:72Ki 22:10Ezr 4:23Dan 5:17
Both are used for summoning a person, calling for someone to be brought in so a matter can be settled.Gen 24:58Dan 5:12
Both describe a herald raising his voice in front of a crowd so that an announcement is heard by everyone at once.Gen 41:43Dan 3:4Dan 4:14
The Hebrew word is the ordinary way to say that someone gave a name, so it stands behind the naming scenes of the Old Testament: God naming light "Day", the man naming the animals and his wife, God renaming Abram "Abraham". The Aramaic word never does this work.Gen 1:5Gen 2:19Gen 3:20Gen 17:5
It carries the language of worship: to call on the name of the LORD is to pray and to publicly own him as God, an idiom that runs from the days of Seth through the journeys of the patriarchs.Gen 4:26Gen 12:8Gen 13:4Gen 21:33
It is the word for God calling a particular person by name, the personal summons that opens a prophet's service, as when the boy Samuel keeps answering a voice in the night.1Sa 3:41Sa 3:6
It reaches into prophetic announcement, where the messenger is told to cry out a message that God has given him to deliver.Isa 40:3Isa 61:1Jer 36:6
ἀναγινώσκωGreek“to read”the Greek verb for reading, and the New Testament word for reading Scripture out loud to a gathering. It matches only the reading side, never the shout.
It covers shouting something out where there is no text in sight. A herald bellows the king's order to the assembled nations, a heavenly watcher cries out at full force, and the king himself yells for his advisers to be brought in. The Greek word never means to shout.Dan 3:4Dan 4:14Dan 5:7
It also means to call for a particular person, that is, to summon someone. The queen tells Belshazzar to have Daniel called in. The Greek word cannot be used for fetching a person.Dan 5:12
Both
Both are used for reading a written document out loud in front of others, which was the ordinary shape of reading in that world. A letter is read before the Persian king, and the writings of Moses are read out in the synagogues every Sabbath.Ezr 4:18Act 15:21
In both, the public reading of an official document is what moves the hearers to act. The reading of the royal letter sends officials off in haste to stop the building work, and the reading of the apostles' letter turns a worried congregation into a glad one.Ezr 4:23Act 15:31
Both treat reading the words and grasping their sense as two separate steps, so a reader can get through the text and still need someone to explain it. Babylon's experts can neither read the writing on the wall nor tell the king what it means, and the traveller reading Isaiah admits he cannot understand it without a guide.Dan 5:8Act 8:30
It can be a private act done with the eyes alone, with no audience at all. The court official reads the scroll of Isaiah to himself as he travels, and Paul expects each person who takes up his letter to read it and see what he means. The Aramaic word always puts words into the air for someone else to hear.Act 8:28Eph 3:4
It is the standard way of appealing to a written text to settle an argument. The repeated challenge "have you not read?" treats what stands written as the thing that decides the question. The Aramaic word never introduces a citation this way.Mat 12:3Mat 19:4Mrk 12:26
It stretches to a figure of speech in which people, not documents, are what gets read. Paul tells the Corinthians they themselves are a letter that everyone knows and reads. The Aramaic word stays with actual sound and actual writing.2Co 3:2
καλέωGreek“to call: call”the Greek verb for calling and summoning. It matches the calling side of the Aramaic word but never means to read.
Its most common use is reading a written document out loud to listeners, a sense the Greek word never carries (in Daniel 5 the whole crisis is that the experts cannot read the writing on the wall).Ezr 4:18Ezr 4:23Dan 5:8Dan 5:16Dan 5:17
It describes a loud public shout, the herald or the messenger raising his voice so a whole crowd hears the order at once.Dan 3:4Dan 4:14Dan 5:7
Both
Both are used of summoning a particular person so that he comes to the one calling, and in both the summons expects the person to turn up.Mat 4:21Mrk 1:20Mrk 3:31Dan 5:12
It is the ordinary word for giving someone a name, so the calling settles what a person will be known as for life.Mat 1:21Mat 1:25Luk 1:31Luk 1:60
It covers being addressed by a title or reckoned as a certain kind of person, where the point is the standing the name carries rather than any actual shout.Mat 5:9Mat 5:19Mat 23:8Mat 22:43
It is the standard word for inviting guests to a meal or a wedding, an invitation that can be accepted or refused.Mat 22:3Mat 22:9Luk 14:7
It carries a religious weight the Aramaic verb never takes on: God or Jesus calling people to repentance and to belong to him.Mat 9:13Mrk 2:17Luk 5:32
What scholars say about qera
The standard lexicons treat קְרָא as a single Aramaic root with two well attested spheres of use, vocal calling (proclaiming, summoning) and reading aloud. The Aramaic section of HALOT and the Biblical Aramaic appendix of BDB both gather the calling and reading senses under one entry, matching Hebrew קָרָא (H7121) and the wider Imperial Aramaic evidence, in which the verb is the standard term for the public reading of documents in administrative correspondence. The passive forms in Ezra 4:18 and 4:23 (קֱרִי) belong to the chancery formula for a letter read out before an official, a usage paralleled in the Elephantine papyri and discussed by Williamson; the reflexive form in Daniel 5:12 (יִתְקְרֵי) is the passive of the summoning use. Commentators on Daniel (Montgomery, Collins, Goldingay) debate the nature of the sages' failure in 5:8, whether the obstacle was an unfamiliar script, the unvocalized consonants, or the interpretation of the words, but none of them question the meaning of the verb: the task set before them was to pronounce the writing and then explain it. Rosenthal's grammar treats the stem alternation of this root as regular for verbs ending in aleph.
Sources
Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner and Johann Jakob Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, s.v. קראlexicon
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Biblical Aramaic appendix, s.v. קְרָאlexicon
Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 7th ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006)grammar
James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1927)commentary
John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary
John E. Goldingay, Daniel, Word Biblical Commentary 30 (Dallas: Word, 1989)commentary
H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, Word Biblical Commentary 16 (Waco: Word, 1985)commentary