What Does Daniel 2:40 Mean?

And the fourth governance shall be strong as iron, since iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things, and like iron that breaks all these, so it shall break in pieces and crush.

Daniel 2:40 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

THE KEY

Iron’s strength is revealed as the power to reduce what is whole into what is fine and fragmented.

THE MEANING

The image lets you recognize power by its effect: it crushes and subdues whatever stands before it. Here, strength has a sharp edge; what it reaches is left fragmented.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that sheer force proves goodness or order dissolves here: this strength is named by the harm it can inflict.

THE ROOT

תְּדִק

teduq

GROWS FROM

דקק

d-q-q

To crush or reduce to fine particles.

“crush” in this verse is teduq. Daniel’s Aramaic verb ⁨תְּדִק⁩ (teduq, “it crushes”) carries the cognate root ⁨דקק⁩ (d-q-q), whose branches also mean fine or slight. Crushing is more than force against resistance: it makes a whole thing small and fragmented. The iron’s strength is named by the reduction it leaves behind.

ALSO GROWS

daq: Fine, small, or reduced to particles.

דַּק

The crushing action is carried through into its result: what was whole becomes fine.

daqqah: Thin, fine, or slight.

דַּקָּה

This branch shows the same root’s sense of becoming small and delicate, the opposite of an intact whole.

THE PATTERN

When power is figured as iron, its force is shown by what it breaks.

You break them with an iron rod, and you shatter them like a potter's jar.

Psalm 2:9 · SDVThe iron rod’s authority is pictured through its power to shatter.

After this I saw in night visions, and look, a fourth living one, dreadful and terrible and exceedingly strong, and it had great iron teeth. It ate and crushed, and trampled the remainder with its feet, and it was changed from all the living ones before it. And it had ten horns.

Daniel 7:7 · SDVThe iron teeth make the beast’s strength visible through what it devours and breaks.

And he will shepherd them with an iron rod, as the vessels of a potter are shattered, as I also have taken from my Father.

Revelation 2:27 · SDVRule with iron is again expressed as the breaking of what it reaches.

THE THREAD

And in the days of these kings the God of heaven shall raise up a governance which shall not be destroyed for the ages. The governance shall not be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these governances, and it shall stand for the ages.

Daniel 2:44 · SDV

Daniel 2:44 repeats the same Aramaic crushing verb ⁨תְּדִק⁩ (teduq), but the kingdom set up by the God of heaven does the crushing. The shared root turns the image of iron’s pulverizing force back toward the kingdoms themselves.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us