What Does Daniel 2:26 Mean?
The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen, and its interpretation?
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
The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?THE KEY
The king calls Daniel Belteshazzar, but no title can give him access to a dream only the king has seen.
THE MEANING
The king asks Daniel to make a private experience knowable, including what it means. The question exposes the gap between hearing about an experience and knowing what the one who saw it knows. That gap is still present whenever someone is expected to name what has not been made known.
THE ROOT
להודעתני
lehodaʿutanni
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
The Aramaic root means to know or perceive; in this causative form, it means to make known.
“make known” in this verse is lehodaʿutanni. The king asks Daniel to bring his private seeing into shared knowing. The root holds knowing and disclosure together, so the request reaches beyond interpreting a report: it asks whether Daniel can make another person’s unseen experience known.
ALSO GROWS
Aramaic: know
יְדַע
Daniel 2:22 uses this same root for knowing what is in darkness, linking the king’s request to knowledge that reaches what is hidden.
Hebrew: knowledge, perception
דַּעַת
This Hebrew cognate noun shows the same root becoming knowledge itself: what the king asks Daniel to disclose is more than a label for the dream.
THE PATTERN
Hidden things become knowable through disclosure that exceeds ordinary human access.
He uncovers the deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light rests with him.And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, Apart from me, God will answer Pharaoh with wholeness.But God unveiled them to us through his breath, for the breath searches all things, even the depths of God.THE THREAD
He uncovers the deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light rests with him.The Aramaic root ידע (y-d-ʿ) appears in the king’s request to “make known” and in “he knoweth” here. The root connects the demand for disclosure with a knowing that reaches what remains in darkness.
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