What Does Daniel 2:34 Mean in the King James?
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
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
The image’s towering strength has a breakable base, and the stone that breaks it comes from beyond human hands.
THE MEANING
Whatever in your world appears too massive to challenge still has a point where its supporting base can be struck. This verse gives the stone an origin beyond human hands and shows the iron-and-clay footing unable to hold against it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that whatever looks vast and carries power must be unbreakable.
THE ROOT
אֶבֶן
ʾeben
GROWS FROM
אבן
Stone.
In this reading, אֶבֶן (even, stone) holds אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) together: the stone carries a lineage human hands do not manufacture. Its name gathers father and son into one seed, while the verse’s stone owes nothing to the image’s makers.
ALSO GROWS
avanim: Stones.
אֲבָנִים
The plural keeps the same seed: the stone in the verse belongs to a wider family of stones.
even ha-pinnah: Cornerstone.
אֶבֶן הַפִּנָּה
The same stone-word can name what holds a structure together, opening a connection between this stone’s force and the stone that becomes a foundation.
הִתְגְּזֶרֶת
hitgezeret
GROWS FROM
גזר
To cut or divide; by extension, to decree or determine.
The verb for the stone’s being cut out shares its root with a word for a decree. The cut carries the sense of a decisive separation: the image has reached its limit.
ALSO GROWS
gazar: To cut or divide.
גָּזַר
This is the cutting action named in the verse: the stone is separated from its source.
gezerah: Decree.
גְּזֵרָה
The decree branch gives the stone’s arrival the weight of a settled boundary, where the image’s power ends.
וְהַדֵּקֶת
wĕhaddeqet
GROWS FROM
דקק
To crush fine or pulverize.
“brake to pieces” in this verse is wĕhaddeqet. This root evokes reduction to fine fragments, more than a break into a few chunks. The image does not merely lose a piece; its material is made too small to remain a rival structure.
ALSO GROWS
daqaq: To crush into fine pieces.
דָּקַק
This root action describes the stone’s effect on the image’s iron-and-clay feet.
daq: Fine or small.
דַּק
The related form points toward the image’s reduction: its solid appearance gives way to what is fine and scattered.
THE PATTERN
The stone beyond human making exposes the instability of human structures, then becomes what stands beyond their collapse.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.THE THREAD
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.Daniel uses Aramaic אֶבֶן (ʾeben, stone); the psalm uses Hebrew אֶבֶן (even, stone), words from the same Semitic family. In Daniel the stone strikes the image; in the psalm builders refuse it, and it becomes the cornerstone, the same stone first revealed as force against the old structure, then as what holds a structure together.
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