Daniel 2:27 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Daniel 2:27
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;
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
presence
קֳדָ֥םko.Dam
H6925
before · noun, common both genders singular construct
king
מַלְכָּ֖אmal.Ka'
H4430
a king · noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
said
וְאָמַ֑רve.'a.Mar
H560
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
secret
רָזָה֙ra.Zah'
H7328
to attenuate · noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
king
מַלְכָּ֣אmal.Ka'
H4430
a king · noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
demanded
שָׁאֵ֔לsha.'El
H7593
to inquire · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
cannot
יָכְלִ֖יןya.khe.Lin
H3202
to be able · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
wise
חַכִּימִ֣יןcha.ki.Min
H2445
wise · adjective, masculine plural absolute
astrologers
אָֽשְׁפִ֗ין'a.she.Fin
H826
a conjurer · noun, common masculine plural absolute
magicians
חַרְטֻמִּין֙char.tu.Min
H2749
a horoscopist (as drawing magical lines or circles) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
soothsayers
גָּזְרִ֔יןga.ze.Rin
H1505
to quarry · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
shew
לְהַֽחֲוָיָ֥הle.ha.cha.va.Yah
H2324
to show · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct
king
לְמַלְכָּֽאle.mal.Ka'
H4430
a king · preposition + noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 44:25 That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish;
Isaiah 47:12-14 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt b…
Daniel 2:2 Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. S…
Daniel 2:10-11 The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no k…
Daniel 5:7-8 The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylo…
Job 5:12-13 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
Isaiah 19:3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Daniel 2:24-30
We have here the introduction to Daniel's declaring the dream, and the interpretation of it.
I. He immediately bespoke the reversing of the sentence against the wise men of Babylon, Dan 2:24. He went with all speed to Arioch, to tell him that his commission was now superseded: Destroy not the wise men of Babylon. Though there were those of them perhaps that deserved to die, as magicians, by the law of God, yet here that which they stood condemned for was not a crime worth of death or of bonds, and therefore let them not die, and be unjustly destroyed, but let them live, and be justly shamed, as having been nonplussed and unable to do that which a prophet of the Lord could do. Note, Since God…
cannot--Daniel, being learned in all the lore of the Chaldeans (Dan 1:4), could authoritatively declare the impossibility of mere man solving the king's difficulty.
soothsayers--from a root, "to cut off"; referring to their cutting the heavens into divisions, and so guessing at men's destinies from the place of the stars at one's birth.
Adam Clarke on Daniel 2:27
Cannot the wise men - Cannot your own able men, aided by your gods, tell you the secret? This question was necessary in order that the king might see the foolishness of depending on the one, or worshipping the other.
The soothsayers - One of our old words: "The tellers of truth:" but גזרין gazerin is the name of another class of those curious artists, unless we suppose it to mean the same as the Chaldeans, Dan 2:2. They are supposed to be persons who divined by numbers, amulets, etc. There are many conjectures about them, which, whatever learning they show, cast little light upon this place.
John Gill on Daniel 2:27
Daniel answered in the presence of the king,.... Boldly, and without fear:
and said, the secret which the king hath demanded: so he calls it, to show that it was something divine, which came from God, and could only be revealed by him, and was not to be found out by any art of man:
cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king; this he premises to the revelation of the secret, not only to observe the unreasonableness of the king's demand upon them, and the injustice of putting men to death for it; but that the discovery of the whole might appear to be truly divine, and God might have all the glory; it being what no class of men whatever could ever…
The Church Fathers
Verse 27. "As for the secret for which the king is asking, neither the wise men nor the magi nor the soothsayers nor the diviners are able to declare it to the king." In place of diviners (haruspices), as we have rendered it, the Hebrew text has Gazareni , which only Symmachus has rendered as sacrificers , a. class of people whom the Greeks usually call liver-diviners (epatoskopoi), and who inspect the inwards in order to make predictions from them concerning the future. By terming a mystery the category of a revealed dream, Daniel shows that whatever is hidden and unknown by men can still be called a "mystery." Moreover he obviates any evil suspicion on the king's part, lest he should imagine that human cleverness can discover something which is reserved to the knowledge of God alone.
He was astounded and said to Daniel, "'Are you able to proclaim the dream which I saw and its interpretation?' And Daniel said, 'The mystery which the king asks about is not for magicians, enchanters, or soothsayers to proclaim to the king, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and makes known to king Nebuchadnezzar what must be in the last days.'" [Daniel 2:26-28] See how through these words he saves the Chaldeans from the danger which was to kill them and he teaches the king not to seek heavenly mysteries from earthly men, mysteries which are about to be fulfilled by God in his own times. And on account of this he, sending the mind of the king up to God, said, "There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries," [Daniel 2:28] who receives the man who requests mercies and petitions.
The one who interprets what another has seen is more a prophet than the one who had seen.… Less a prophet is he who … sees in spirit only the signs of the things signified, and a greater prophet is he who is granted only an understanding of images. But the greatest prophet is he who is endowed with both gifts, namely, that of seeing in spirit the symbolic likeness of corporeal objects and that of understanding them with the vital power of the mind. Such a one was Daniel. His preeminence was tested and established when he not only told the dream he had had but also explained the meaning of it. For the corporeal images themselves were produced in his spirit, and an understanding of them was revealed in his mind. I am using the word spirit, therefore, in the sense in which Paul uses it, where he distinguishes it from the mind: "I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also." Here he implies that signs of things are formed in the spirit and that an understanding of the signs shines forth in the mind.
Dictionary and topics
Astrologer — (Dan. 1:20; 2:2, 10, 27, etc.) Heb. ‘ashshaph’, an enchanter, one who professes to divine future events by the appearance of the stars. This science flourished among the Chaldeans. It was positively…
Prayer — Is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or…
Soothsayer — One who pretends to prognosticate future events. Baalam is so called (Josh. 13:22; Heb. kosem, a “diviner,” as rendered 1 Sam. 6:2; rendered “prudent,” Isa. 3:2). In Isa. 2:6 and Micah 5:12 (Heb.…
Astrology · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dreams · God the only interpreter of — God the only interpreter of
Interpreter · Of dreams — Of dreams
Sorcery · .By the Babylonians — .By the Babylonians
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Daniel 2:27
27. 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;
27. Respondit Daniel regi, et dixit, Arcanum quod rex postulat sapientes, magi, astrologi, genethliasi non possunt indicare regi.
28. 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;
28. Sed est Deus in coelis, qui revelat arcana; et indicavit regi Nebuchadnezzar quid futurum sit in fine [142] dierum somnium tuum, et visio capitis tuisuper lectum…
Daniel's willingness to declare his dream to the king; his prayer for a revelation of the secret, and the answer to his prayer; his explanation before the king.
Dan 2:14
Through Daniel's judicious interview of Arioch, the further execution of the royal edict was interrupted. וּטעם עטא התיב, he answered, replied, counsel and understanding, i.e., the words of counsel and understanding; cf. Pro 26:16. The name Arioch appears in Gen 14:1 as the name of the king of Ellasar, along with the kings of Elam and Shinar. It is derived not from the Sanscr. ârjaka, venerabilis, but is probably formed from ארי, a lion, as נסרך from nisr = נשׁר. רב־טבּחיּא is the chief of the bodyguard, which was regarded…
