What Does Daniel 4:6 Mean in the King James?
Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream.
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 pairs a royal decree with a demand to be made to know: power can summon interpreters, but it cannot command insight.
THE MEANING
You can summon every recognized expert to explain what troubles you, yet their presence does not itself disclose the meaning. Authority can organize the search, but it cannot command insight into existence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that an order, or a room full of experts, can compel certainty.
THE ROOT
טְעֵם
ṭəʿēm
GROWS FROM
טעם
ṭ-ʿ-m
Taste; discernment or judgment, and in Biblical Aramaic, a command or decree.
The Aramaic word for decree belongs to a root family whose Hebrew branches mean taste and discernment. The king can decree who must answer, but discernment itself cannot be ordered into being.
ALSO GROWS
ṭaʿam: Taste; discernment or judgment.
טַעַם
This Hebrew branch gives the decree’s word-family a shade of judgment alongside command.
ṭāʿam: To taste or perceive by tasting.
טָעַם
This branch evokes direct perception, the very thing a decree cannot guarantee.
יְהוֹדְעֻנַּנִי
yəhoḏəʿunnannî
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know or perceive; in its causative form, to make someone know.
The English phrase ‘make known’ can sound like simply delivering an answer, but the Aramaic uses a causative form of ‘know’: the wise men are supposed to cause the king to know. The verse exposes the gap between commanding that outcome and possessing understanding.
ALSO GROWS
yəḏaʿ: To know or perceive.
יְדַע
This is the knowing the king seeks through his summoned interpreters.
hôḏaʿ: To make known, to cause someone to know.
הוֹדַע
This causative form names the task assigned to the wise men.
maddāʿ: Knowledge or understanding.
מַדָּע
This noun from the same root names the kind of knowing the king wants but cannot produce by decree.
חַכִּימֵי
ḥakkîmê
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful; wisdom and expertise.
“wise men” in this verse is ḥakkîmê. The summoned men are named for wisdom, yet the verse does not treat that title as a guarantee that they can disclose what is hidden. It keeps recognized expertise distinct from access to every answer.
ALSO GROWS
ḥakkîm: A wise or learned person in Aramaic.
חַכִּים
This is the singular form behind the title of the men summoned before the king.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom or skill.
חָכְמָה
This related Hebrew form names the expertise the king gathers, while the verse leaves the dream’s meaning unresolved.
THE PATTERN
A summons can gather experts, but rank and command cannot manufacture the insight that discloses hidden meaning.
And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;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;The phrase “maketh known” repeats the ידע (y-d-ʿ), to know or perceive, root used in this verse. The repeated wording sharpens the tension: the king can decree that knowledge be given, but the knowing of what is hidden is beyond the decree.
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