What Does Daniel 11:32 Mean?
Those who act wickedly against the covenant, he soils with smooth things. But the people who know their God grip, and act.
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 such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.THE KEY
Knowing God is not presented as stored information: it becomes the strength to hold fast and act when flattery bends loyalty.
THE MEANING
The verse sets two responses to the covenant side by side: smooth persuasion corrupts some, while those who know God remain firm and act. Knowing here is lived recognition, and its shape is visible in what a person holds to and does. The reader meets that contrast wherever loyalty faces pressure now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that knowing God can remain only private information, untouched by what a person does.
THE ROOT
יֹדְעֵי
yodʿei
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
Know, recognize, become acquainted with.
“the people who know their God” in this verse is yodʿei. The verse describes people as “those knowing” their God, making knowing a lived relation rather than a fact held at a distance. That recognition stands beside firmness and action: the verse shows what knowing looks like when loyalty is tested.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun shares the root and shows that knowledge belongs to the same word family as the active knowing named here.
hodiʿa: Make known, inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form shows the root can describe knowledge being brought into the open, illuminating how knowing involves recognition rather than mere possession of facts.
יַחֲזִיקוּ
yaḥaziqu
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
Be firm or strong; strengthen or take hold.
“grip” in this verse is yaḥaziqu. The verb translated “shall be strong” carries the sense of firmness and holding fast. Beside “do exploits,” strength reads as something enacted: the people remain anchored and move into action.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Be strong, become firm
חָזַק
This form makes the firmness in the verse’s verb explicit.
ḥizzeq: Strengthen, make firm
חִזֵּק
This related form shows that the same root can describe firmness being reinforced.
וְעָשׂוּ
veʿasu
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
Do, make, bring about.
“and act” in this verse is veʿasu. The Hebrew says “and they do,” leaving the action open; “exploits” conveys the force of what they do. The root keeps the emphasis on action itself, completing the movement from knowing to holding firm to doing.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: Deed, work
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun names the work or deed that grows from the root’s basic sense of doing.
ʿoseh: One who does, maker
עֹשֶׂה
This participial form describes a person by their doing, echoing the verse’s portrait of knowing expressed through action.
THE PATTERN
Knowing God is a lived relation whose shape appears in what a person holds to and does.
But let the one who boasts boast in this, that he discerns and perceives me, that I am the LORD who does faithful love, judgment, and alignment in the earth. For in these things I delight, says the LORD.And this is the life of the ages, that they might know you, the only God of truth, and Jesus, the Anointed One, whom you have sent.So then, my beloved brothers, be steady, unmoved, always overflowing in the work of the Lord, seeing that your toil is not empty in the Lord.THE THREAD
But let the one who boasts boast in this, that he discerns and perceives me, that I am the LORD who does faithful love, judgment, and alignment in the earth. For in these things I delight, says the LORD.Daniel’s “those who know” and Jeremiah’s “knoweth me” share the Hebrew root ידע (y-d-ʿ), meaning to know or recognize. Jeremiah opens the phrase further by tying that knowing to God’s actions in the earth, while Daniel shows knowing taking form as firmness and action.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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