What Does Daniel 4:1 Mean?

Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all peoples, nations, and tongues that dwell in all the earth. Let your wholeness be multiplied to you.

Daniel 4:1 · 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

Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.

THE KEY

The greeting asks for wholeness to grow across every people and language.

THE MEANING

This greeting reaches you now across the boundaries named in it: wholeness can increase among people. The peace here carries the depth of wholeness, and the word “multiplied” lets that wholeness expand through a community.

THE ROOT

שְׁלָם

shelām

GROWS FROM

שׁלם

Be whole, complete, intact.

“your wholeness” in this verse is shelām. The Aramaic shelām is kin to Hebrew shalom, from the root for wholeness and completeness. Its family includes being whole and making good what is owed, giving this greeting a sense of fuller well-being that can spread among peoples.

ALSO GROWS

shalēm: Whole, complete.

שָׁלֵם

This branch shows the wholeness carried within the greeting’s word for peace.

shillēm: Repay, make good.

שִׁלֵּם

The same root can name making good what is owed, giving wholeness a reparative dimension.

shalom: Wholeness, well-being.

שָׁלוֹם

This Hebrew relative makes visible the shared root beneath Aramaic shelām and Hebrew shalom.

יִשְׂגֵּא

yisgēʾ

GROWS FROM

שׂגא

Grow, increase, become great.

“multiplied” in this verse is yisgēʾ. The verb yisgēʾ names peace as something that increases. Related forms describe what is great or abundant, so the greeting pictures wholeness growing into abundance.

ALSO GROWS

śəgēʾ: Increase, grow.

שְׂגֵא

This verbal form makes the wish for peace an active increase.

śaggîʾ: Great, much, abundant.

שַׂגִּיא

This related form shows the abundance toward which the greeting’s increase moves.

THE PATTERN

Wholeness is spoken outward as a condition that can grow across communities.

There shall be no end to the growth of his governance and wholeness, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to set it firm and to support it with judgment and with alignment, from now and into the ages. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:7 · SDVIsaiah uses the same shalom-root word and pairs peace with increase, opening a vision of wholeness that expands.

In his days the aligned one blooms, and wholeness in abundance until the moon is no more.

Psalm 72:7 · SDVThe abundance of peace presents wholeness as something that fills a people’s shared life.

To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be set-apart ones. Favor to you, and wholeness from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus, the anointed one.

Romans 1:7 · SDVThe greeting extends wholeness to an entire assembly, echoing Daniel’s address across peoples.

THE THREAD

There shall be no end to the growth of his governance and wholeness, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to set it firm and to support it with judgment and with alignment, from now and into the ages. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:7 · SDV

Daniel’s Aramaic shelām and Isaiah’s Hebrew shalom share the root ⁨שׁלם⁩, the language of wholeness. Isaiah pairs peace with increase too, opening Daniel’s greeting as a picture of wholeness expanding beyond a private wish.

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