Aramaic word · H7314

רוּם

rumeh

height

רוּם = height, loftiness. The root means 'to be high, exalted,' and in other forms 'to exalt oneself.' שַׂגִּיא = great, much, very large.

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. · Updated October 31, 2026

What it means

height

Aramaic of rum (רוּם "height" H7312)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: רוּם = height, loftiness. The root means 'to be high, exalted,' and in other forms 'to exalt oneself.' שַׂגִּיא = great, much, very large.
Against the English: 'Its height was great' is accurate. English loses the link that the same root, 'to be high/exalt,' is used of the king's arrogance (5:20 'his heart was lifted up'; 5:23 'you have lifted yourself up'), and of God, who alone is truly high (4:34, 37: 'I praise and exalt').
Used elsewhere in the period: Ezekiel 31:10 makes the same connection in Hebrew: 'because it towered high… its heart was lifted up in its height.' In Daniel 4:37 Nebuchadnezzar 'exalts' (from the same root) the King of heaven and says God is able to humble those who walk in pride.

Range of meaning: rûm: height, loftiness, from a root meaning to be high or exalted (also used of self-exaltation). məṭāʾ: to reach or arrive. šəmayin: the sky, and the dwelling-place and sphere of authority of God.
Against the English: BSB and WEB say "the sky"; KJV and YLT say "heaven(s)". Both are right, because the Aramaic word covers both meanings. "Sky" misses the overtone of God's realm. "Heaven" can suggest the afterlife to a modern reader, which is not in view.
How it drifted: "Heaven" in modern English mostly means the place the faithful go after death. That later sense is absent here.
Used elsewhere in the period: The phrase recalls Babel, "a tower with its top in the heavens" (Genesis 11:4), set in the same Babylonian plain. It also recalls Ezekiel 31:3, 10 (the tree's top among the clouds, its heart proud of its height) and Isaiah 14:13–14 (the king of Babylon: "I will ascend to heaven"). In Daniel 4:26 (Aramaic 4:23) "Heaven" itself stands in for God ("Heaven rules"), the only Old Testament use of the word as a name for God. It became common later, as in Matthew's "kingdom of heaven".

Ezra · 1

Ezra 6:3 רוּמֵהּ֙ height its

In the first year of King Cyrus, he issued a decree concerning the house of God in Jerusalem: Let the house be rebuilt as a place for offering sacrifices, and let its foundations be firmly laid. It is to be sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide,

Here: Begins the building measurements. The same formula ('its height … its breadth …') gives the size of Nebuchadnezzar's statue in Daniel 3:1.

Daniel · 4

Daniel 3:1 רוּמֵהּ֙ height its

King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Here: 'Its height'. The root means being high or lifted up. Daniel uses it later for the king's heart being 'lifted up' in pride (5:20, 23), which gives the measurement a faint undertone.
Daniel 4:10 וְרוּמֵ֥הּ and height its

In these visions of my mind as I was lying in bed, I saw this come to pass: There was a tree in the midst of the land, and its height was great.

Here: 'Its height, its loftiness.' The root also carries the sense of exaltation, and in Daniel 4–5 it is tied to the king's pride ('lifted himself up,' 5:20, 23).
Daniel 4:11 וְרוּמֵהּ֙ and height its

The tree grew large and strong; its top reached the sky, and it was visible to the ends of the earth.
Daniel 4:20 וְרוּמֵהּ֙ and height its

The tree you saw that grew large and strong, whose top reached the sky and was visible to all the earth,

Here: "And its height". The root also means being high or exalted. In Daniel it echoes the "height" of Nebuchadnezzar's statue (3:1) and the king's lifting himself up (5:20, 23).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.