What Does Daniel 2:15 Mean?
He answered and said to Arioch, the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the word known to Daniel.
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
He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.THE KEY
A question turns a rushed decree from a sealed command into a matter that can be spoken and known.
THE MEANING
When urgency presses like a decree, a clear question opens space for what the command has not explained. Arioch makes the matter known, and pressure gives way to disclosure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that urgency leaves no room to ask what is happening: even a hasty decree can be questioned, and its hidden matter can be disclosed.
THE ROOT
מִלְּתָא
milləṯā
GROWS FROM
מלל
məlal
To speak or utter.
The Aramaic word translated “thing” also means “word” or “matter,” from the speaking root מלל. The crisis is not left nameless: it becomes something that can be put into words and brought into the open.
ALSO GROWS
millāh: Word, matter, or discourse.
מִלָּה
This Hebrew cognate shows the same joining of what is spoken with the matter being discussed.
məllal: To speak or utter.
מְלַל
The verb makes audible the root beneath the “thing” Arioch reveals.
הוֹדַע
hôdaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
yedaʿ
To know; in this form, to make known.
“known” in this verse is hôdaʿ. The Aramaic form hôdaʿ comes from the seed of knowing. The sentence ends with the matter being made knowable to Daniel; what was hidden enters perception.
ALSO GROWS
yedaʿ: To know.
יְדַע
The root names the knowing that becomes possible when the matter is disclosed.
deʿāh: Knowledge or understanding.
דֵּעָה
This related form shows knowledge as a branch of the same seed as the act of making something known.
עֲנָה
ʿănāh
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿnh
To answer or respond.
“answered” in this verse is ʿănāh. The same response root appears in Hebrew and Aramaic. Daniel’s response takes the form of a question: answering does not close the exchange, but opens it until the matter is disclosed.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānāh: To answer or respond.
עָנָה
The Hebrew cognate keeps Daniel’s response connected to the same Semitic root.
maʿăneh: An answer or response.
מַעֲנֶה
The noun form appears in the proverb about an answer turning away wrath, linking response with what it can change.
THE PATTERN
Inquiry opens urgent judgment to what it has not yet heard.
The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.Does our instruction judge a man before it hears him, and know what he does?To whom I answered, It is not the habit of the Romans to hand any man over as a favor to death, before the accused has the accusers face to face, and has a place to answer for himself concerning the charge laid against him.THE THREAD
A soft answer turns away the burning, but words of pain stir up the nostrils.Daniel’s “answered” and Proverbs’ “answer” grow from the same Semitic root ענה, response. Daniel’s response is a question that brings the hidden matter into view; Proverbs shows how the quality of a response can turn the course of an exchange.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us