What Does Daniel 11:22 Mean?
And with the arms of a flood they are swept away from before him, and they are broken, yes, also the prince of the covenant.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the root for “flood” in “overflown,” so the force that surges forward is itself swept away.
THE MEANING
A force surges like a flood, yet is swept aside and broken before him. The breaking reaches even the prince of the covenant, holding the violence of the collapse in full view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that covenant standing makes its prince untouchable: the verse includes him in the breaking.
THE ROOT
שֶׁטֶף
sheṭef
GROWS FROM
שטף
To surge, sweep over, or wash away.
“Flood” and “overflown” come from the same root: the image and the action echo one another in Hebrew. The invading force’s surge is not only overwhelming; it is itself swept away before him.
ALSO GROWS
sheṭifah: Washing or rinsing.
שְׁטִיפָה
The same root can describe water washing something away, extending the flood image into removal.
shotef: Flowing or sweeping over.
שׁוֹטֵף
This participial form keeps the sense of an active surge carried by the flood language.
יִשָּׁבֵרוּ
yiššāverū
GROWS FROM
שבר
To break or shatter.
“broken” in this verse is yiššāverū. The root names the forceful collapse of the flood’s arms and the prince of the covenant. Its branch מִשְׁבָּר (mishbar), “breaker” or “surf,” also carries the image of waves breaking, an echo that brings the verse’s flood and fracture together.
ALSO GROWS
shever: Fracture, breach, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes the breaking in the verse legible as a breach or collapse.
mishbar: Breaker or surf.
מִשְׁבָּר
The word for breaking surf links this root to the verse’s surge of waters.
THE PATTERN
A force that sweeps across a scene can itself be swept aside and broken before a greater power.
So they shall stand in awe of the nature of the LORD from the west, and of his weight from the rising of the sun. When the one who presses comes in like a flood, the breath of the LORD shall raise a banner against him.Their sword will enter their own heart, and their bows will be broken.And the beast is seized, and with him the false prophet who worked signs before him, by which he led astray those who received the engraving of the beast and those who bow down to his image. These two are thrown alive into a lake of fire burning with sulfur.THE THREAD
The LORD is near to those whose heart is broken, and delivers those crushed in breath.The Hebrew root שבר (shabar, “break”) behind “broken” here also appears in “broken heart.” Daniel uses it for political and covenantal collapse; Psalm 34 uses the same root for inner fracture, where the LORD is near.
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