What Does Daniel 4:33 Mean in the King James?
The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.
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 verse makes a king’s fall visible as expulsion from human company, until his own body bears the signs of the field.
THE MEANING
A king’s place among people is gone in an hour, and his body lives by grass and bears the dew of heaven. Human rank cannot lift the body beyond dependence on food, shelter, and the conditions shared with other creatures.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that rank can place a person beyond ordinary creaturely limits. A title cannot keep the body from need or exposure.
THE ROOT
טְרִיד
ṭərîḏ
GROWS FROM
טרד
To drive out or expel.
“driven” in this verse is ṭərîḏ. The Aramaic verb describes expulsion from human company, not merely a change of location. The verse then makes that removal visible in the king’s food, exposure, hair, and nails.
ALSO GROWS
ṭārədîn: They drive away.
טָרְדִין
This form in Daniel 4:25 uses the same root for the expulsion that the present verse shows fulfilled.
ṭərîḏ: Driven away.
טְרִיד
The same form appears in Daniel 5:21, where the expulsion continues until the king recognizes who rules human kingdoms.
עִשְׂבָּא
ʿiśbāʾ
GROWS FROM
עשב
Herb or grass.
The grass here is the ordinary food of an ox, and the king now eats it in the same manner. The shared word links his changed standing to the most visible sign of his changed way of life.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēśeḇ: Herb or grass in Hebrew.
עֵשֶׂב
This cognate shares the consonants עשב and names the vegetation given for food in Genesis 1:29.
ʿiśbāʾ: Grass or herbage in Aramaic.
עִשְׂבָּא
The same Aramaic word occurs in Daniel 4:25, where the king’s coming diet is foretold.
THE PATTERN
Human honor cannot lift the body outside the conditions shared with other creatures.
Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?THE THREAD
And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.The same Aramaic root טרד names the driving away in both verses. Daniel 5:21 carries the expulsion through its full span: the beastlike condition has a limit, ending with recognition of who rules human kingdoms.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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