What Does Daniel 5:8 Mean?
Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king its interpretation.
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
Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.THE KEY
The verse separates seeing the marks from receiving their meaning: even a room full of experts cannot make the inscription speak.
THE MEANING
Even when the signs are present and the room is full of expertise, meaning can remain inaccessible. The verse separates reading what is written from making its meaning known; seeing the script and knowing what it says are not the same.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that enough intelligence or status can make every hidden meaning available by force.
THE ROOT
פִּשְׁרָא
pishrā
GROWS FROM
פ־ש־ר
p-sh-r
To interpret or explain; to resolve the sense of a sign or matter.
The writing is present, but its pishrā, its interpretation, remains unavailable to the wise men. The verse distinguishes an inscription from the explanation that makes it intelligible.
ALSO GROWS
peshar: To interpret or explain.
פְּשַׁר
The verb names the act the wise men cannot perform: turning the writing into an account the king can understand.
pishrīn: Interpretations; the plural form appears in Daniel 5:16.
פִּשְׁרִין
The same root names interpretations Daniel can give, showing that meaning is not automatic just because writing is visible.
לְמִקְרֵא
lemiqra
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
To call out or proclaim; in this form, to read.
English “read” can suggest looking silently at marks and decoding them. This root also carries the sense of calling out, so reading brings visible signs into voiced form.
ALSO GROWS
qera: To read, recite, or proclaim in Aramaic.
קְרָא
The wise men cannot call the writing out as readable speech.
miqra: Reading or convocation in Hebrew.
מִקְרָא
The same root connects reading with a public calling together, where words are voiced and heard.
לְהוֹדָעָה
lehodāʿāh
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive; in this causative form, to make known.
“make known” in this verse is lehodāʿāh. The final failure is communicative: the wise men cannot bring the interpretation into the king’s knowing. The wording carries knowledge beyond private recognition to something made present between people.
ALSO GROWS
yedaʿ: To know in Aramaic.
יְדַע
The root anchors the verse’s “make known” in the act of knowing itself.
yadaʿ: To know or perceive in Hebrew, often through encounter.
יָדַע
This shade of knowing reaches beyond identifying marks to grasping what they mean.
daʿat: Knowledge or awareness in Hebrew.
דַּעַת
The related noun shows the destination the wise men cannot reach: the meaning brought into knowledge.
THE PATTERN
A visible sign can remain unreadable to experts until its hidden sense is revealed and made known.
But there is a God in heaven who uncovers hidden things, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, are these.In that season Jesus answered, and said, I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have covered these things from the wise and the discerning, and have uncovered them to the infants.But God unveiled them to us through his breath, for the breath searches all things, even the depths of God.THE THREAD
This is the dream, and we will tell its interpretation before the king.The Aramaic word translated “interpretation” comes from the same p-sh-r root. Here, Daniel says the interpretation can be told; the shared word makes the contrast with the wise men’s inability exact.
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