What Does Daniel 2:6 Mean?
But if you show the dream, and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great weight. Therefore show me the dream, 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
But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.THE KEY
The passage makes interpretation answerable to what it claims to explain: the interpreter must disclose the dream itself.
THE MEANING
The promise of gifts and great honor depends on bringing both the hidden dream and its interpretation into the open. A confident explanation alone does not meet the condition; the claim must include the thing being explained. The verse speaks now wherever someone presents a meaning as knowledge of what remains concealed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A convincing explanation by itself proves that someone knows what is hidden.
THE ROOT
תְּחַוּוֹנַנִי
teḥawwōnannî
GROWS FROM
חוי
ḥ-w-y
To show, tell, or make known.
“shew” in this verse is teḥawwōnannî. This verb names the movement of making something known, whether as a report or a disclosure. Here, the dream itself must be made known along with its interpretation, so the meaning cannot stand apart from what it explains.
ALSO GROWS
teḥawwōnannî: You will show or make known to me.
תְּחַוּוֹנַנִי
This is the demanded disclosure of the dream and its interpretation.
neḥawwē: We will show or make known.
נְחַוֵּא
In Daniel 2:7 the interpreters use the same verb for their offer to explain the dream the king supplies.
פִּשְׁרֵהּ
pishrēh
GROWS FROM
פשר
p-š-r
To interpret or explain; in this passage, to make a dream’s meaning clear.
The root appears both in the act of interpreting and in the interpretation itself. The verse binds that explanation to the exact dream it claims to resolve.
ALSO GROWS
pishrā: Interpretation, explanation.
פִּשְׁרָא
This noun names the meaning the king requires alongside the dream.
pishrîn: Interpretations.
פִּשְׁרִין
Daniel 5:16 uses the plural for interpretations, keeping the same root for the explanations being sought.
יְקָר
yeqār
GROWS FROM
יקר
y-q-r
Preciousness, value, or esteem; a related Aramaic form can describe something difficult or rare.
“weight” in this verse is yeqār. The root gives honor the sense of being highly valued. In the next verse, a related form describes the demand as difficult, placing the promised esteem beside the burden of proving access.
ALSO GROWS
yeqār: Honor, esteem, value.
יְקָר
This is the high regard promised as the reward for disclosing both dream and interpretation.
yaqqîr: Difficult or rare.
יַקִּיר
Daniel 2:11 uses this related form for the king’s demand, linking the promised honor with the difficulty of the task.
THE PATTERN
A trustworthy reading of what is hidden requires disclosure of the thing itself as well as its meaning.
And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one. God has set before Pharaoh what he is doing.But there is a God in heaven who uncovers hidden things, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, are these.But God unveiled them to us through his breath, for the breath searches all things, even the depths of God.THE THREAD
They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.The Aramaic root חוי (ḥ-w-y), “show” or “make known,” appears in both verses. Their reply exposes the distinction at the center of the king’s demand: they offer to interpret the dream once he has disclosed it.
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