What Does Daniel 4:27 Mean?
Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your shortcomings by alignment, and your crookedness by showing favor to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of your rest.
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
Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.THE KEY
The word translated “break off” also describes breaking a yoke from the neck: here, severing wrongdoing takes the form of alignment and favor toward the poor.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the part of you that can shape other lives: wrongdoing is broken away through alignment that takes visible form as favor toward the poor. It holds tranquility out as a possibility that may be lengthened, not a promised result.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wrongdoing can be left behind through private regret while people made vulnerable by your power remain neglected.
THE ROOT
פְרֻק
peruq
GROWS FROM
פרק
p-r-q
To break away, tear off, or remove.
“break off” in this verse is peruq. This Aramaic word shares its root with Hebrew words for breaking something away. The image is concrete: wrongdoing is something to sever, like a yoke detached from a neck.
ALSO GROWS
ūfāraqta: You will break off.
וּפָרַקְתָּ
In Genesis 27:40, the same root describes breaking a yoke from the neck, giving Daniel’s command an image of release from what binds.
vayyitpāreqū: They broke off or removed.
וַיִּתְפָּרְקוּ
Exodus 32:2 uses this root for removing earrings; the shared word keeps the sense of physical separation visible.
צִדְקָה
ṣidqāh
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right or just; rightness and alignment.
The word carries the sense of alignment with what is right. The verse makes that alignment tangible by linking it to favor shown to the poor, so rightness is visible in how people with little power are treated.
ALSO GROWS
ṣedeq: Justice, rightness.
צֶדֶק
This form names the quality behind the verse’s “righteousness”: the breaking of wrongdoing involves restoring right order.
ṣaddiq: A just or righteous person.
צַדִּיק
The same root describes a person in terms of rightness, connecting the verse’s action to the character it expresses.
מִחַן
miḥan
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥ-n-n
To show favor or act graciously.
The Aramaic phrase presents mercy as favor shown to people in poverty. Its root connects that act with favor itself: compassion becomes something given, not merely felt.
ALSO GROWS
ḥen: Favor.
חֵן
This noun from the same root shows the shared idea of favor, while Daniel makes that favor concrete toward the poor.
ḥanan: To show favor or be gracious.
חָנַן
This verb expresses the root’s action directly, illuminating mercy here as an enacted gift of favor.
THE PATTERN
Turning from wrongdoing takes visible form in justice and care for people with the least power.
Learn to do good. Seek justice, straighten the crushed, judge the fatherless, contend for the widow.The one who presses the emptied one taunts his Maker, but the one who gives him weight favors the poor.And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.THE THREAD
And by your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. And it shall come to pass, when you roam free, that you shall break his yoke from off your neck.The verb translated “break off” in Daniel shares the root פרק (p-r-q) with “break his yoke” here. That link makes the separation concrete: what binds is broken away, and Daniel names alignment and favor toward the poor as the form that severing takes.
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