What Does Daniel 2:20 Mean?
Daniel answered and said, Let the name of God be blessed for the ages and the ages, for wisdom and might are his.
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
Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:THE KEY
God’s name is not a label beside divine power; it names a nature whose wisdom and might endure from age to age.
THE MEANING
Wisdom and might belong to God’s nature across every age. For you now, the verse locates their source in God rather than in the self alone. Its words remain present from age to age.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom and might are independent of God: both belong to God’s nature.
THE ROOT
חָכְמְתָא
ḥokhmətā
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful.
This root can name practical skill as well as discernment, so wisdom is more than detached thought. Paired with might, it joins understanding with the capacity to act.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: Wise; skillful.
חָכָם
The same root describes a person whose wisdom is expressed in their ability.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom; skill.
חָכְמָה
This form shows wisdom as a capacity that can be practiced, not merely possessed as an idea.
גְבוּרְתָא
geburta
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To be strong; to prevail.
The root names both strength and the mighty person who carries it. Beside wisdom, might is a capacity held together with understanding, not a force standing alone.
ALSO GROWS
gibbōr: A mighty or strong person.
גִּבּוֹר
The branch makes might concrete in the one who has the capacity to act.
gevūrāh: Strength; might.
גְּבוּרָה
This related form names the very capacity Daniel says belongs to God.
מִן־עָלְמָא וְעַד־עָלְמָא
min-ʿālmā wa-ʿad-ʿālmā
GROWS FROM
עלם
ʿ-l-m
Age; long duration.
“for the ages and the ages” in this verse is min-ʿālmā wa-ʿad-ʿālmā. The Aramaic phrase says “from age to age,” making duration a succession rather than an abstract forever. The blessing holds across every unfolding age.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālmā: Age; world.
עָלְמָא
This Aramaic form supplies the repeated “age” in the verse’s phrase.
ʿolām: Age; long duration.
עוֹלָם
This Hebrew cognate likewise carries the sense of age, preserving the verse’s sense of duration.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom and strength have their source in God and are given to people who lack them.
For the LORD gives wisdom; out of his mouth come knowledge and discernment.He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.But if any of you is left behind in wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without doubling and without taunting, and it will be given him.THE THREAD
I extend my hands to you in thanks, and lift my voice to you, O God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom and might, and has made known to me now what we asked of you, for you have now made known to us the king's word.The same words for wisdom and might return here, and God is named as the one who gives them. What belongs to God’s nature is not distant: it is given.
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