What Does Daniel 5:9 Mean?
Then King Belshazzar was greatly startled, and the brightness of his face was changed in him, and his great ones were stunned.
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 was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.THE KEY
The root for “changed” links the king’s altered face to a decree later called unchangeable, binding visible alarm to the empire’s claim that its order cannot shift.
THE MEANING
An unreadable message can unsettle you before you understand what it means. Alarm moves from within to your face and into the people around you; uncertainty becomes visible and shared.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that rank can shield you from what you cannot interpret: authority does not keep alarm from showing on the king’s face.
THE ROOT
שְׁנִין
shenīn
GROWS FROM
שׁנא
to change, alter
The same root describes the king’s changed face here and a decree declared unchangeable in Daniel 6:8. The Aramaic links bodily alteration with the empire’s language of unalterability.
ALSO GROWS
ishtanī: changed (Daniel 3:19)
אִשְׁתְּנִי
The same root makes a ruler’s altered expression visible again, showing that change registers on the face.
lehashnāyāh: to change (Daniel 6:8)
לְהַשְׁנָיָה
The root appears in the claim that the king’s decree cannot be changed, connecting this face’s alteration to the empire’s attempt to fix what may change.
בְּהַל
behal
GROWS FROM
בהל
to alarm, disturb, dismay
“startled” in this verse is behal. This root recurs in Daniel for distress stirred by visions and signs. It names alarm that arrives before understanding, when what confronts a person cannot yet be contained or interpreted.
ALSO GROWS
yevahălunnani: troubled me (Daniel 4:5)
יְבַהֲלֻנַּנִי
The same root describes visions disturbing someone before their meaning is understood.
yevahălunneh: troubled him (Daniel 5:6)
יְבַהֲלוּנֵּהּ
The root already names the king’s inward alarm earlier in the scene, which this verse shows in his changed face and the nobles’ astonishment.
THE PATTERN
An event that cannot yet be interpreted turns private alarm into public disturbance.
And it came to pass in the morning that his breath was struck. He sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men, and Pharaoh told them his dream. But there was none who could loose them for Pharaoh.When Herod the king heard these things, he was shaken, and all Jerusalem with him.THE THREAD
Now, O king, make the bond firm, and seal the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the decree of the Medes and the Persians, which does not change.The root שׁנא (shena), “to change,” appears in both verses: the king’s countenance is changed here, while the decree is declared unchangeable there. One root ties a visible bodily shift to the empire’s claim that its order cannot shift.
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