What Does Daniel 5:22 Mean?
And you, his son, O Belshazzar, have not brought low your heart, though you knew all this.
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 thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this;THE KEY
Knowing the truth does not humble a heart that still insists on standing above it.
THE MEANING
You can recognize what is true and still keep your inner self elevated against it. This verse names the gap between what reaches your understanding and what is allowed to lower your stance. The knowledge is present; the heart’s yielding is absent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that knowing the right thing is the same as being changed by it.
THE ROOT
הַשְׁפֵּלְתָּ
hashpēltā
GROWS FROM
שפל
sh-p-l
to be low, or to bring low
“brought low” in this verse is hashpēltā. The Aramaic verb carries the shape of lowering. The sentence sets knowing beside a heart that refuses to come down: the missing change is not new information but a lowered inward stance.
ALSO GROWS
shāphāl: low, lowly
שָׁפָל
This adjective names the low position carried in Daniel’s verb for humbling.
hishpîl: to lower, bring down
הִשְׁפִּיל
This active form makes clear that the root describes a lowering, the very movement the verse says did not happen.
לִבְבָךְ
libbākh
GROWS FROM
לבב
l-b-b
the inward heart or center of the self
The heart here is the inward center, not only a passing emotion. What remains elevated is the self at its core, even while knowledge is already present.
ALSO GROWS
lēv: heart, inner center
לֵב
This related Hebrew form shows the shared Semitic word for the inward center named in Daniel.
ləvāḇ: heart, inner self
לְבַב
This fuller form carries the same root into the idea of the whole inward self whose stance remains unchanged.
יְדַעְתָּ
yəḏaʿtā
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
to know, recognize, perceive
“knew” in this verse is yəḏaʿtā. This root can name knowing through recognition or encounter. The verse’s ache is that even such knowing can sit beside a heart that will not lower itself.
ALSO GROWS
yāḏaʿ: to know, recognize
יָדַע
This related verb carries the same knowing named in Daniel.
daʿat: knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun shows the root’s reach into understanding, which the verse places beside an unlowered heart.
THE PATTERN
Knowledge that leaves the self exalted has not yet become wisdom; truth lowers the heart from its claim to stand above it.
Do not be wise in your own eyes. Be in awe of the LORD, and turn aside from harm.Now as touching the things slaughtered for idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.But he gives greater favor. Therefore it says, God sets himself against those who lift themselves high, and gives favor to those made low.THE THREAD
For thus says the high and lifted one, who dwells in the ages, whose nature is set apart. I dwell in the high and set-apart place, and with the crushed and the low of breath, to revive the breath of the low, and to revive the heart of the crushed ones.Daniel’s Aramaic verb for “humbled” and Isaiah’s Hebrew word for “humble” share the root שפל, the language of being low. Daniel shows knowing without lowering; Isaiah shows the lowly heart as the place where the high One dwells and revives.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us