What Does Daniel 5:28 Mean in the King James?
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
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
Peres means divided, yet echoes Pāras, the Persia receiving the kingdom, so the word makes both the split and its destination audible.
THE MEANING
A power that seems whole can be divided, and its authority can pass to another hand. Here division names both fracture and transfer: what one power holds becomes another’s portion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A settled or powerful order cannot be divided or displaced.
THE ROOT
פְּרֵס
pĕrēs
GROWS FROM
פרס
p-r-s
To split, divide, or break into portions.
English makes “divided” sound only like damage, while this root can also describe breaking something into portions that pass elsewhere. Peres also echoes Pāras, Persia, so the word announces both the division and its destination through a consonant echo.
ALSO GROWS
perisat: Is divided; has been partitioned.
פְּרִיסַת
This is the Aramaic form in the statement that the kingdom is divided, showing the root at work in the kingdom’s changed shape.
pāras: To break or portion out.
פָּרַס
The Hebrew cognate appears in Isaiah 58:7, where bread is divided out for the hungry; division can transfer a portion as well as fracture a whole.
uPāras: And Persia; the Persian realm.
וּפָרָס
Its consonants and sound echo Peres in this line, placing the receiving power inside the pronouncement. This is a wordplay, not a claim that Persia derives from the verb.
THE PATTERN
Division breaks a whole’s single hold, and its authority or portions can pass into other hands.
And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:THE THREAD
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?The Hebrew word behind “deal” is פָּרַס (pāras), to break or portion out, a cognate of Aramaic Peres. Isaiah shows the same root dividing bread into a share for another, so Daniel’s division also carries the sense of a portion passing into new hands.
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