What Does Daniel 11:32 Mean in the King James?
And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Knowing God is not presented as stored information: it becomes the strength to hold fast and act when flattery bends loyalty.
THE MEANING
The verse sets two responses to the covenant side by side: smooth persuasion corrupts some, while those who know God remain firm and act. Knowing here is lived recognition, and its shape is visible in what a person holds to and does. The reader meets that contrast wherever loyalty faces pressure now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that knowing God can remain only private information, untouched by what a person does.
THE ROOT
יֹדְעֵי
yodʿei
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
Know, recognize, become acquainted with.
“know” in this verse is yodʿei. The verse describes people as “those knowing” their God, making knowing a lived relation rather than a fact held at a distance. That recognition stands beside firmness and action: the verse shows what knowing looks like when loyalty is tested.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun shares the root and shows that knowledge belongs to the same word family as the active knowing named here.
hodiʿa: Make known, inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form shows the root can describe knowledge being brought into the open, illuminating how knowing involves recognition rather than mere possession of facts.
יַחֲזִיקוּ
yaḥaziqu
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
Be firm or strong; strengthen or take hold.
The verb translated “shall be strong” carries the sense of firmness and holding fast. Beside “do exploits,” strength reads as something enacted: the people remain anchored and move into action.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Be strong, become firm
חָזַק
This form makes the firmness in the verse’s verb explicit.
ḥizzeq: Strengthen, make firm
חִזֵּק
This related form shows that the same root can describe firmness being reinforced.
וְעָשׂוּ
veʿasu
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
Do, make, bring about.
“do exploits” in this verse is veʿasu. The Hebrew says “and they do,” leaving the action open; “exploits” conveys the force of what they do. The root keeps the emphasis on action itself, completing the movement from knowing to holding firm to doing.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: Deed, work
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun names the work or deed that grows from the root’s basic sense of doing.
ʿoseh: One who does, maker
עֹשֶׂה
This participial form describes a person by their doing, echoing the verse’s portrait of knowing expressed through action.
THE PATTERN
Knowing God is a lived relation whose shape appears in what a person holds to and does.
But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.THE THREAD
But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.Daniel’s “those who know” and Jeremiah’s “knoweth me” share the Hebrew root ידע (y-d-ʿ), meaning to know or recognize. Jeremiah opens the phrase further by tying that knowing to God’s actions in the earth, while Daniel shows knowing taking form as firmness and action.
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