What Does Daniel 2:4 Mean in the King James?
Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.
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 Chaldeans promise interpretation, but first ask the king to disclose the dream they cannot see.
THE MEANING
You are looking at the gap between a hidden thing and the explanation it receives. The Chaldeans offer to interpret, but they first need the dream to be told; their promise can speak only to what reaches them. The greeting wishes the king life across the ages while the exchange turns on a secret not yet disclosed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A confident explanation cannot supply what is missing from its source: the Chaldeans themselves ask for the dream before they interpret it.
THE ROOT
פִּשְׁרָא
pishrā
GROWS FROM
פ־ש־ר
p-sh-r
To interpret or explain; in Biblical Aramaic, to make the meaning of something plain.
The line distinguishes the hidden event from its explanation: the Chaldeans promise to make the meaning plain, but first ask the king to disclose the dream. The word carries interpretation as an act of explaining something given, not as access to the concealed thing itself.
ALSO GROWS
peshar: To interpret or explain.
פְּשַׁר
The verbal form shows the act the Chaldeans promise to perform once they receive the dream.
pishrā: Interpretation or explanation.
פִּשְׁרָא
This noun names the meaning they say they will make plain.
חֶלְמָא
ḥelmā
GROWS FROM
ח־ל־ם
ḥ-l-m
To dream; the root names both the dreaming and the dream that is told.
The dream is the concealed source; its interpretation is a separate act that follows. The verse makes that dependence explicit: the dream must enter speech before its meaning can be shown.
ALSO GROWS
ḥălam: To dream.
חֲלַם
The verbal form points to the experience from which the hidden content comes.
ḥelmā: A dream.
חֶלְמָא
This is the dream the king is asked to disclose before the Chaldeans interpret it.
לְעָלְמִין
ləʿālmīn
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ם
ʿ-l-m
Age or an extended span of ages.
The greeting’s ‘for ever’ carries the texture of life extending through the ages. The familiar blessing thus speaks in the language of a span of time, not only an abstract duration.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālmīn: Ages.
עָלְמִין
This plural form gives the greeting its sense of life continuing through the ages.
ʿālmā: Age or world.
עָלְמָא
This related form shows the root’s reach from a span of time to the world or age in which life unfolds.
THE PATTERN
What is hidden becomes intelligible through disclosure, not through confident interpretation alone.
And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.THE THREAD
But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;This verse opens the limit inside the Chaldeans’ promise: they can interpret once the dream is disclosed, but the secret itself must first be revealed. Daniel names the source of that disclosure as God in heaven.
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