What Does Daniel 2:40 Mean in the King James?
And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
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
Iron’s strength is revealed as the power to reduce what is whole into what is fine and fragmented.
THE MEANING
The image lets you recognize power by its effect: it crushes and subdues whatever stands before it. Here, strength has a sharp edge; what it reaches is left fragmented.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that sheer force proves goodness or order dissolves here: this strength is named by the harm it can inflict.
THE ROOT
תְּדִק
teduq
GROWS FROM
דקק
d-q-q
To crush or reduce to fine particles.
Daniel’s Aramaic verb תְּדִק (teduq, “it crushes”) carries the cognate root דקק (d-q-q), whose branches also mean fine or slight. Crushing is more than force against resistance: it makes a whole thing small and fragmented. The iron’s strength is named by the reduction it leaves behind.
ALSO GROWS
daq: Fine, small, or reduced to particles.
דַּק
The crushing action is carried through into its result: what was whole becomes fine.
daqqah: Thin, fine, or slight.
דַּקָּה
This branch shows the same root’s sense of becoming small and delicate, the opposite of an intact whole.
THE PATTERN
When power is figured as iron, its force is shown by what it breaks.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.THE THREAD
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.Daniel 2:44 repeats the same Aramaic crushing verb תְּדִק (teduq), but the kingdom set up by the God of heaven does the crushing. The shared root turns the image of iron’s pulverizing force back toward the kingdoms themselves.
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