What Does Daniel 4:14 Mean?
He called out, and said, Cut down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it, and the birds from his branches.
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
He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches:THE KEY
The command does not only cut down the tree; it sends every life sheltered by it into motion.
THE MEANING
The command strips the tree of its height, branches, leaves, and fruit. The creatures gathered beneath it and among its branches must leave, so the loss of shelter and yield becomes displacement.
THE ROOT
תְּנֻד
tĕnūd
GROWS FROM
נוד
n-w-d
To move to and fro, wander, or be driven from a place.
“flee” in this verse is tĕnūd. This Aramaic word echoes the Hebrew root behind “vagabond” in Genesis 4:12 and the name Nod, associated with wandering. “Get away” can sound like simple clearance, but the root carries the unsettled movement of life displaced from its shelter.
ALSO GROWS
nād: Wandering; a wanderer.
נָד
This Hebrew form appears in the description of a “vagabond” in Genesis 4:12, linking departure with a life without settled place.
Nōd: Wandering; the land of wandering.
נוֹד
The name of Cain’s dwelling in Genesis 4:16 carries the same root’s sense of movement and displacement.
פִּרְיֵהּ
piryēh
GROWS FROM
פרי
p-r-y
Fruit or produce; what a tree yields.
The root holds fruit together with the idea of yield: the tree is defined by what it produces as well as by the shelter it provides. The command scatters its yield while dismantling the structure that bore it.
ALSO GROWS
pĕrî: Fruit or produce.
פְּרִי
The Hebrew cognate names the tree’s yield, which this command scatters.
pārāh: To bear fruit or increase; a cognate Hebrew verb.
פָּרָה
The verb makes fruitfulness an act of yielding; here that capacity is stripped away with the tree.
THE PATTERN
The life gathered around a tree depends on its shelter, so its fall displaces those beneath it and in its branches.
And strangers, the violent of the nations, have cut him off, and have let go of him. On the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow, and have let go of him.Which is indeed the smallest of all seeds; but when it has grown, it is the greatest of the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.THE THREAD
When you serve the ground, she shall no longer give you her strength. A trembler and a wanderer shall you be on the earth.The word translated “get away” echoes the Hebrew root behind “vagabond.” In both verses, the loss of a place to remain turns life into movement.
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