What Does Daniel 2:7 Mean?
They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show 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
They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.THE KEY
The dream must be spoken before its meaning can be shown: interpretation stays answerable to what has actually been revealed.
THE MEANING
The verse holds disclosure and interpretation together as two distinct moments: the dream is first spoken, then its meaning is shown. A claim to understand remains answerable to the thing it interprets.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a confident explanation can stand in for access to what is being interpreted; here, the dream itself must be disclosed first.
THE ROOT
פִּשְׁרָא
pishrā
GROWS FROM
פשר
pšr
Interpret, explain, make intelligible.
The word belongs to a family for making something intelligible, tying the meaning to the act of interpretation. In this verse, that act follows the dream being spoken, so the explanation stays connected to what was disclosed.
ALSO GROWS
peshar: To interpret or explain.
פְּשַׁר
This verbal form names the action promised: making the disclosed dream intelligible.
mephashar: Interpreting; one who interprets.
מְפַשַּׁר
This related form appears in Daniel 5:12, keeping interpretation tied to the act of rendering dreams clear.
חֶלְמָא
ḥelmā
GROWS FROM
חלם
ḥlm
To dream; have a dream.
The Aramaic noun belongs to the dream-word family also found in Hebrew. The sentence places the dream before its interpretation, making the dream the disclosed substance the explanation must answer to.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālam: To dream.
חָלַם
The verb names the experience that produces the content to be interpreted.
ḥalom: Dream.
חֲלוֹם
This Hebrew noun shares the root and reinforces that the dream itself is the material brought into the open.
THE PATTERN
Meaning becomes available through disclosure: what is hidden must be made known before it can be interpreted.
And they said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one to loose it. And Joseph said to them, Do not loosings belong to God? Tell me them, I pray you.The weight of God is to hide a matter; the weight of kings is to search out a matter.But God unveiled them to us through his breath, for the breath searches all things, even the depths of God.THE THREAD
Because an excellent breath, and knowing, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and loosing of knots, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.Daniel 5:12 uses the same Aramaic root פשר (pšr, “interpret, explain”) for interpreting dreams and showing their interpretation. The shared root keeps this verse’s promise tied to a clear movement: a dream is disclosed, then made intelligible.
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