What Does Daniel 4:12 Mean in the King James?
The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.
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 Aramaic root names both the food in the tree and the feeding of all flesh, so the tree’s abundance is provision in motion.
THE MEANING
You meet an image of life whose abundance extends outward: it offers fruit as food, shade as shelter, and branches as dwelling. Nourishment is not separate from its growth; it is how that growth reaches all flesh. Here, flourishing is shared.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that abundance is private possession: in this image, fruitfulness becomes food, shade, and dwelling for other lives.
THE ROOT
מָזוֹן
māzôn
GROWS FROM
זון
zûn
To nourish, provide food, or feed.
“meat / fed” in this verse is māzôn. The Aramaic uses the זון (zûn) root both for the food available in the tree and for all flesh being fed from it. English presents these as separate facts, but the shared root binds provision to its circulation: abundance becomes nourishment for others.
ALSO GROWS
māzôn: Food, provision.
מָזוֹן
This names what the tree holds for all within it.
yittəzîn: Is fed, receives nourishment.
יִתְּזִין
This shows the provision moving outward until all flesh is nourished.
THE PATTERN
Life that is abundantly rooted becomes provision and shelter beyond itself.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell.Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.THE THREAD
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.Genesis names the sharing of food across beasts, birds, and every creature that has life; Daniel gathers those same kinds of life around one tree. Together they show a living world where growth sustains other life.
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