What Does Daniel 4:24 Mean?
This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king.
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
This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king:THE KEY
The interpretation is not merely an explanation of the king’s dream; it names the Most High’s decree already reaching him.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where understanding becomes consequence: the Most High’s decree is already reaching the king. No height of rank places him beyond what the interpretation names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The king’s authority can put him beyond the reach of what is decreed.
THE ROOT
גְּזֵרָה
gezērāh
GROWS FROM
גזר
g-z-r
To cut or divide; in Aramaic usage, to decide or decree.
The root carries the sense of cutting and of issuing a decree: a decision draws a line around what will happen. Here, the dream’s meaning is not left open-ended; the decree has already reached the king.
ALSO GROWS
gazar: To cut; in Aramaic, to decide or decree.
גְּזַר
The cutting sense gives a decree the feel of a boundary set around what will happen.
gezērāh: Decree, decision.
גְּזֵרָה
This is the word in the verse: the dream’s meaning is stated as a decision of the Most High.
פִּשְׁרָא
pishrā
GROWS FROM
פשר
p-sh-r
To interpret or explain, making what is hidden or puzzling intelligible.
The verse places interpretation beside decree, so the explanation does more than clarify the dream: it identifies what is unfolding. The English keeps both words, while their pairing reveals that meaning and consequence arrive together.
ALSO GROWS
peshar: To interpret or explain.
פְּשַׁר
The verb names the act from which the noun interpretation comes: making the dream legible.
pishrin: Interpretations.
פִּשְׁרִין
This plural form appears in Daniel 5:16, where interpretation makes hidden things intelligible.
THE PATTERN
When God reveals what a sign means, the explanation names what is moving toward fulfillment.
And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one. God has set before Pharaoh what he is doing.For the Lord GOD does nothing, unless he uncovers his secret to his servants the prophets.The unveiling of Jesus, the Anointed One, which God gave to him, to show his servants the things that must come to be swiftly, and he sent it and made it known by a sign through his messenger to his servant John.THE THREAD
Since you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream stands firm, and its interpretation is firm.Daniel 2:45 uses the same Aramaic word פִּשְׁרָא (pishrā, meaning “interpretation”): there, the dream is made legible as what will come to pass. Here, interpretation also names the decree already reaching the king.
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