What Does Daniel 6:21 Mean?
Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live into the ages.
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 said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever.THE KEY
Daniel’s first words after the den join חֱיִי (ḥĕyî, “live”) to לְעָלְמִין (ləʿālmîn, “for the ages”), turning survival into a wish that reaches beyond the moment.
THE MEANING
The greeting speaks from the far side of mortal danger while addressing the ruler connected to that danger. For you, the verse holds survival and goodwill in one moment: the threat remains real, but it does not dictate every word that follows.
THE ROOT
חֱיִי
ḥĕyî
GROWS FROM
חיה
to live, to be alive
“live” in this verse is ḥĕyî. The Aramaic word is cognate with the Hebrew life-root חיה. Its branches include reviving and revival, revealing life as something that can be restored and shared; Daniel speaks that life outward toward the king from beyond the den.
ALSO GROWS
məḥayyê: one who gives life; revives
מְחַיֶּה
This branch shows life as something imparted again, opening Daniel’s wish beyond mere survival.
teḥiyyāh: revival; restoration to life
תְּחִיָּה
This branch carries the root into life returning after danger, fitting the voice that emerges from the den.
לְעָלְמִין
ləʿālmîn
GROWS FROM
עלם
age, a long span of time
“for ever” in this verse is ləʿālmîn. The Aramaic phrase speaks of life extending through the ages. Its plural gives the king’s greeting an expansive reach across one age after another.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolam: age; ages; a long duration
עוֹלָם
This Hebrew cognate shows the time-word’s reach as an age or span of ages.
ʿālmā: age; world
עָלְמָא
This Aramaic cognate carries the same root into the world or age in which life unfolds.
THE PATTERN
Life can be spoken and held as real even while death remains close.
I do not die, but live, and recount the works of the LORD.I went down to the broken places of the mountains; the earth, with its bars, closed about me for the ages. Yet you brought up my living soul from the pit, O LORD my God.Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.THE THREAD
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.Daniel’s Aramaic חֱיִי is cognate with the Hebrew חיה in “may live” here. Deuteronomy opens the shared root further: life is both a wish spoken to another and a way that remains open across generations.
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