What Does Daniel 7:1 Mean?
In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head upon his bed. Then he wrote the dream, and spoke the head of the words.
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
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.THE KEY
The “sum of the matters” is literally the “head of the words”, the same head that holds the visions on the bed.
THE MEANING
You meet a vision moving from the inward scene of sleep into a written account and spoken words. The verse’s repeated image of the head links the seer’s inward vision with the central matter he shares.
THE ROOT
רֵאשׁ
rēš
GROWS FROM
ראש
Head, top, chief; the leading part.
“the head of the words” in this verse is rēš. The Aramaic uses רֵאשׁ first in רֵאשֵׁהּ, “his head,” then in רֵאשׁ מִלִּין, literally “head of words,” for what the KJV calls the sum. The verse carries one image from the place of the visions to the central part of the account.
ALSO GROWS
rēšēh: His head.
רֵאשֵׁהּ
This form appears in the verse’s phrase about visions on the seer’s head, echoing the later “head of words.”
rēʾšît: Beginning, first part.
רֵאשִׁית
This Hebrew branch retains the consonants ראש and extends “head” toward what leads or comes first, illuminating the sense of a matter’s chief part.
חֶלְמָא
ḥelmā
GROWS FROM
חלם
Dream; to dream.
The Aramaic names the dream and places it beside a verb of seeing: Daniel “saw a dream.” The wording lets the dream read as a scene witnessed inwardly, not merely something he possesses.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālam: To dream.
חָלַם
This Hebrew verb keeps the same three consonants and makes the dream noun’s action visible within its root family.
ḥălôm: Dream.
חֲלוֹם
This Hebrew noun shares the same consonants, linking the dream in Daniel’s account with the broader Semitic word family.
THE PATTERN
An inwardly seen message becomes shareable when its central content is written and spoken.
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who calls it out may run.Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Write for yourself in a scroll all the words I have spoken to you.Write therefore what you have seen, and what is, and what is about to come to be after these things.THE THREAD
I, Daniel, was darkened in my breath in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head startled me.The Aramaic repeats רֵאשׁ, “head,” in the phrase “visions of my head,” bringing back the same inward image. Here the visions trouble Daniel, showing the force carried within what he writes and tells.
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