What Does Daniel 2:47 Mean?
The king answered Daniel and said, In truth, your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and one who uncovers hidden things, since you could uncover this hidden thing.
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 unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.THE KEY
A secret is something covered, and revelation is the covering being lifted, not the mind inventing what was missing.
THE MEANING
What remains beyond your reach is not beyond God’s knowing. The verse locates disclosure in God, while Daniel’s insight is the means through which the hidden becomes visible. Authority over rulers does not mean authority over every truth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This loosens the belief that what human power cannot uncover must remain unknowable, or that the person who speaks the answer owns its source.
THE ROOT
גָּלֵא
gālēʾ
GROWS FROM
גלה
g-l-h
To uncover, disclose, reveal.
“one who uncovers hidden things” in this verse is gālēʾ. The Aramaic word for “revealer” shares the root גלה (gālāh, uncover or disclose). Revelation here is the lifting of what covers a truth that is already there; Daniel voices what God uncovers.
ALSO GROWS
megalleh: One who uncovers or discloses.
מְגַלֶּה
This Hebrew cognate makes the root’s action concrete: the revealer lifts what hides something from view.
gālûy: Uncovered or made known.
גָּלוּי
This branch names the result of the same action: what was hidden becomes exposed and available to see.
THE PATTERN
God is the source of disclosures that human insight can voice but does not originate.
For the Lord GOD does nothing, unless he uncovers his secret to his servants the prophets.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
Uncover my eyes, that I may gaze upon the wonders from your instruction.The Hebrew verb גַל (gal, uncover) in “Open thou mine eyes” comes from גלה (gālāh, to uncover or disclose), the same root as Daniel’s “revealer.” Daniel’s king names God as the one who uncovers the secret; the psalm carries that same movement into the reader’s sight.
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