What Does Daniel 5:16 Mean?
And I have heard of you, that you can make interpretations and loose knots. Now if you can read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed in purple, and have a chain of gold about your neck, and you shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
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
And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.THE KEY
Beneath “dissolve doubts” is a physical picture of loosening knots, so interpretation appears as release from what is bound.
THE MEANING
You can face words that remain opaque while authority tries to put a price on their meaning. In the Aramaic, what the KJV renders “doubts” are knots, and “dissolve” is to loosen them: understanding releases what has been bound in obscurity. Scarlet, gold, and rank make the offer concrete, yet they do not create the meaning being sought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Opacity is not permanent: what appears tied into knots can be opened and made known.
THE ROOT
לְמִשְׁרֵא
ləmišrē
GROWS FROM
שרא
To loosen or release.
“loose knots” in this verse is ləmišrē. The Aramaic verb gives interpretation the feel of letting something bound go. In this phrase, the interpreter loosens the knots of meaning.
ALSO GROWS
šərā: To loosen, release.
שְׁרָא
This verbal form carries the basic action beneath the KJV’s “dissolve”: letting something bound go.
šərayin: Loose, released.
שְׁרַיִן
The same root describes the men as “loose” in Daniel 3:25, linking the loosening of meaning with release from bonds.
קִטְרִין
qiṭrîn
GROWS FROM
קטר
To tie or knot.
The Aramaic word beneath “doubts” pictures knots. Read beside the verb for loosening, the phrase describes understanding as the release of what has been tied up.
ALSO GROWS
qiṭrā: A knot.
קִטְרָא
The singular form makes the image concrete: an uncertainty can be pictured as something tied.
qiṭrîn: Knots.
קִטְרִין
This plural form is the word in the verse; these are what the interpreter loosens.
THE PATTERN
What is hidden becomes legible when its meaning is opened to view.
He uncovers the deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light rests with him.The opening of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the open ones.But God unveiled them to us through his breath, for the breath searches all things, even the depths of God.THE THREAD
He answered and said, Look, I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the brightness of the fourth is like a son of the gods.The Aramaic root behind “loose” here is the same one behind “dissolve” in Daniel 5:16. In one verse it describes people released from bonds; in the other, it describes knots of meaning being loosened.
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