What Does Daniel 6:27 Mean?
He brings out and snatches away, and he works signs and wonders in the heavens and in the earth, who has brought Daniel out from the hand of the lions.
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
He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.THE KEY
The Aramaic uses two rescue verbs, then repeats the first for Daniel, turning his escape into a concrete example of deliverance.
THE MEANING
When danger seems to hold you, this verse presents rescue as an active reality: it says God delivers and rescues, then names Daniel’s escape as the concrete instance. The phrase translated “power of the lions” literally means “hand of the lions,” picturing a grip that does not have the final authority. Signs and wonders in heaven and on earth place that release across the whole field of life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that whatever has you in its grip has final authority over what happens to you.
THE ROOT
מְשֵׁיזִב
məšēzib
GROWS FROM
שׁזב
š-z-b
To rescue or deliver.
“brings out” in this verse is məšēzib. This Aramaic root appears again at the verse’s end, so the broad claim “he delivers” and Daniel’s particular rescue are the same action. Daniel’s name, דָּנִיֵּאל (Daniyyel, “God is my judge”), sharpens the scene: the lions’ grasp is not the highest court.
ALSO GROWS
yəšēzib: Will deliver (Daniel 3:17).
יְשֵׁיזִב
The same root names deliverance from the fiery furnace, showing the rescue verb at work in another life-threatening grasp.
šēzib: Delivered (Daniel 3:28).
שֵׁיזִב
This form describes the servants’ rescue from the fire, echoing the word used for Daniel’s rescue from the lions.
מַצִּיל
maṣṣîl
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
To draw away or snatch from a grasp; to rescue.
“snatches away” in this verse is maṣṣîl. This second verb gives the paired phrase another texture: it pictures someone being pulled out of another’s hold. The phrase rendered “power of the lions” literally means “hand of the lions,” so the verse’s rescue is pictured as release from a grasp.
ALSO GROWS
ləhaṣṣîlô: To deliver them (Exodus 3:8).
לְהַצִּילוֹ
The same Hebrew root describes bringing people out of the Egyptians’ hand, matching Daniel’s rescue from the lions’ hand.
haṣṣîlû: Deliver (Psalm 82:4).
הַצִּילוּ
Here the root calls for the poor and needy to be pulled from the hand of the wicked, again framing rescue as release from a grip.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance reaches into the hand that claims a life and opens a way out.
And I have come down to snatch them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and wide land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Let the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be blessed, who has sent his messenger, and brought out his servants who leaned their weight upon him, and who have changed the king's word, and have given their bodies, that they might not serve nor bow down to any god, except their own God.The Aramaic word שֵׁיזִב (šēzib, “delivered”) here comes from the same root as “delivereth” in Daniel 6:27. The same verb names release from fire and from lions, joining both scenes through one recurring act of rescue.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us