What Does Daniel 6:15 Mean?
Then these men rushed together upon the king, and said to the king, Know, O king, that the decree of the Medes and the Persians is this, that no bond or decree which the king makes stand may be changed.
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 these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed.THE KEY
The decree’s supposed unchangeability becomes a weapon that binds the king who issued it.
THE MEANING
A written rule can become a boundary around the very authority that sets it. Here, the men use its permanence to leave the king no room to change the outcome. The verse shows how a claim of unchangeable order can become leverage.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Power can always exempt itself from the rules it makes.
THE ROOT
לְהַשְׁנָיָה
lehashnaya
GROWS FROM
שׁנא
Change, alter (Aramaic root שׁ־נ־א).
“changed” in this verse is lehashnaya. The decree is described with the very verb for alteration, then declared beyond it. The claim is not merely that the rule lasts; it is that no one may perform the act of changing it.
ALSO GROWS
ishtanni: was changed
אִשְׁתַּנִּי
In Daniel 3:19, the same root describes a countenance changing; it names an actual alteration, the very act barred here.
shinnōhi: his countenance changed
שִׁנּוֹהִי
Daniel 5:6 uses the same root for a visible change in the king’s face, showing that the verb applies to concrete shifts as well as decrees.
lehashnaya: to change
לְהַשְׁנָיָה
Daniel 7:25 uses this same form for changing times and laws, directly echoing the alteration prohibited in this verse.
רְשַׁם
resham
GROWS FROM
רשם
To inscribe or sign (Aramaic root ר־שׁ־ם).
“makes stand” in this verse is resham. The king’s act carries the sense of marking a rule in writing, as well as establishing it. The decree’s authority is bound to an inscription bearing the king’s mark.
ALSO GROWS
reshim: signed
רְשִׁים
Daniel 6:10 uses this form for the writing that has been signed, tying the rule’s force to its written mark.
reshamta: you signed
רְשַׁמְתָּ
Daniel 6:13 addresses the king as the one who signed the decree, making his own mark part of the constraint now invoked against him.
קְרִבוּ
qerivu
GROWS FROM
קרב
To draw near, approach (Aramaic root ק־ר־ב; cognate with Hebrew קרב).
The verb translated “assembled” also carries the sense of approaching or drawing near. The men’s physical approach brings their claim close to the king, turning the decree into pressure at his own seat of authority.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: near
קָרוֹב
This Hebrew cognate shares the root consonants and makes the nearness in the men’s approach audible.
qorban: something brought near; an offering
קָרְבָּן
This Hebrew cognate shares the root and its movement toward nearness, echoing the men who draw near to present their demand.
THE PATTERN
When a written rule is treated as irrevocable, it can bind even the authority that set it.
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.Write also for the Jews, as is good in your eyes, in the king's nature, and seal it with the king's ring, for the writing which is written in the king's nature and sealed with the king's ring, no man can turn it back.Brothers, I speak in the way of humans. Yet once a human's covenant has been made firm, no one sets it aside or adds to it.THE THREAD
He shall speak words against the Uplifted One, and wear out the set-apart ones of the Uplifted One, and think to change seasons and instruction. And they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the splitting of a time.Daniel 7:25 uses the same Aramaic root for changing times and laws. Here, that alteration is forbidden to the king’s decree; there, the attempt to change times and laws marks a contest over power.
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