What Does Daniel 5:4 Mean?
They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
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
They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.THE KEY
Their praise gives living attention to lifeless matter, making the worshippers’ act the only living thing in the scene.
THE MEANING
This verse shows reverence attaching to what can be counted and fashioned: gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone. The hands may shape these things, yet praise makes them seem to hold power over the lives that turn toward them. It exposes a present exchange: what looks valuable can be treated as the source of worth and security.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that what is valuable, durable, or impressive must also be worthy of ultimate praise.
THE ROOT
וְשַׁבַּחוּ
wəšabbaḥû
GROWS FROM
שׁבח
to praise, commend, or acclaim
“praised” in this verse is wəšabbaḥû. The same Aramaic root is used for praise directed to the living Most High elsewhere in Daniel. The verb itself does not change; what changes is where the acclaim lands.
ALSO GROWS
məšabbaḥ: praising
מְשַׁבַּח
This form uses the same root for praise directed toward God, showing that the object of praise matters.
šabbeḥēt: I praised
שַׁבְּחֵת
The same root here directs praise to the Most High, opening a contrast with the crafted objects praised in this verse.
THE PATTERN
What receives praise reveals where value and trust have been placed.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.And the rest of the men who are not killed by these blows still do not turn from the works of their hands, that they should not bow down to demons and idols of gold, and of silver, and of bronze, and of stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk.THE THREAD
And at the edge of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my perception returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him who lives for the ages, whose dominion is a dominion of the ages, and whose kingdom is from generation to generation.The Aramaic verb translated “praised” in this verse shares the שׁבח (š-b-ḥ) root with “praised” in Daniel 4:34. There the acclaim is directed to the living Most High, showing how the same human act can turn toward crafted objects or toward the One whose dominion lives.
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