Daniel 2:19-23— Semitic Language Study

Laylat al-Qadr

אֱדַ֗יִן לְדָנִיֵּ֛אל בְּחֶזְוָ֥א דִֽי־לֵילְיָ֖א רָזָ֣ה גֲלִ֑י אֱדַ֙יִן֙ דָּֽנִיֵּ֔אל בָּרִ֖ךְ לֶאֱלָ֥הּ שְׁמַיָּֽא׃ עָנֵה דָנִיֵּאל וְאָמַר לֶהֱוֵא שְׁמֵהּ דִּי־אֱלָהָא מְבָרַךְ מִן־עָלְמָא וְעַד־עָלְמָא דִּי חָכְמְתָא וּגְבוּרְתָא דִּי לֵהּ־הִיא׃ וְהוּא מְהַשְׁנֵא עִדָּנַיָּא וְזִמְנַיָּא מְהַעְדֵּה מַלְכִיןוּמְהָקֵים מַלְכִין יָהֵב חָכְמְתָא לְחַכִּימִין וּמַנְדְּעָא לְיָדְעֵיבִינָה׃ הוּא גָּלֵא עַמִּיקָתָא וּמְסַתְּרָתָא יָדַע מָה בַחֲשׁוֹכָאוּנְהוֹרָא עִמֵּהּ שְׁרֵא׃ לָךְ אֱלָהּ אֲבָהָתִי מְהוֹדֵא וּמְשַׁבַּח אֲנָה דִּי חָכְמְתָאוּגְבוּרְתָא יְהַבְתְּ לִי וּכְעַן הוֹדַעְתַּנִי דִּי־בְעֵינָא מִנָּךְ דִּי־מִלַּתמַלְכָּא הוֹדַעְתֶּנָא׃

Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision, and Daniel blessed the God of Heaven. And answering, Daniel said, “Blessed be the name of God from age to age, for wisdom and might are his. And He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light begins with Him. I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers. You have given me wisdom and might and have now made known to me what we asked of You, for You have made known to us the matter of the King.

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God encounters man in man’s darkness. This verse highlights the mechanism I touched on in the previous entry concerning the fact that in scripture, it is God who reveals the mystery. The mystical, as in the content of secret things, cannot be deduced from the ascetic practice of a spiritual master. There are no bodhisattvas in the Bible. These types of sages are the magicians that scripture consistently critiques because what they reveal comes from their own mind. In fact, the very first words of the Dhammapada(the discourses of the Buddha) are: All things (Pali. dhamma/dharma/teachings) are proceeded by the mind. They are governed by the mind and are created by the mind. The scriptural corpus operates on a completely different paradigm than the śramaṇic schools of the Indo-Aryan arena. The mind, perception, and experience are not the reference for scripture. It is rather God’s revelation to his prophet and from the prophet to the people. The prophet is not the reference either. He is only a messenger. That is the disconnect between the magicians of the Babylonian (and later Persian) court and the prophet, Daniel. In order for the gentile Arameans (Babylonians) and Indo-Aryans (Persians and Greeks) to receive the Torahic instruction, their reference must be reoriented to the God of the full domain of “heaven and earth”.

This is featured heavily in the lexical item גְּלָה gelah, which properly means to “uncover” but generally refers to “revelation” on the one hand, but also “shame, nakedness, and exile” on the other. Immediately, there is a link between the prophetic kerygma and the shameful exile where Jerusalem is stripped naked before her enemies. It is like being “exposed” to the elements. The prophetic word is bound up into a scroll, מְגִלָּה megillah, which seals the revelation into a medium that stands still in time as a witness to future generations. Namely, it is the shameful story of Jerusalem’s harlotry (see Ezekiel 16 & 23). A related word in this triconsantal matrix is גָּלַל galal, meaning to “roll” or “remove” depending on the context. In Arabic, its equivalent, جَلَّلَ jallala can mean to “cover” in the sense of “glorifying” or giving “majesty”. Interestingly, we have the exact opposite function to גלה being linked with “un-covering” and “shame”. God’s consigment of the teaching, rolled up (גָּלַל) in a scroll (מְגִלָּה), reveals shame (גְּלָה) but glorifies (جَلَّلَ) God. In the Qur’an, we have the powerful expression:

وَيَبْقَىٰ وَجْهُ رَبِّكَ ذُو الْجَلَالِ وَالْإِكْرَامِ

But the face of your lord will remain, Possessor of Majesty and Honor — Q. 55:27

God is the possessor of majesty! In Arabic, this is ذُو الْجَلَالِ dhu al-jalāli… Only God is covered by majesty — covered by the pages of the scroll that projects him! This glorification is shown within the context of exile, where the Israelites are scattered amongst the nations, which is precisely where Daniel and his companions find themselves. God will soon be glorified among the Gentiles because of His work in them. I’d also like to touch on the importance of the name of Galilee, which is interestingly referred to in Isaiah as “Galilee of the Gentiles”.

כִּ֣י לֹ֣א מוּעָף֮ לַאֲשֶׁ֣ר מוּצָ֣ק לָהּ֒ כָּעֵ֣ת הָרִאשֹׁ֗ון הֵקַ֞ל אַ֤רְצָה זְבֻלוּן֙ וְאַ֣רְצָה נַפְתָּלִ֔י וְהָאַחֲרֹ֖ון הִכְבִּ֑יד דֶּ֤רֶךְ הַיָּם֙ עֵ֣בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֔ן גְּלִ֖יל הַגֹּויִֽם׃

For the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles. — Isa. 9:1

In this context, the “Galilee of the Gentiles” could very well be translated simply as “district of the nations” because גָּלִיל galil can also refer to a generic region. It is no coincidence that Jesus begins his ministry here in the New Testament, as the mystery of the Gentiles (that they are fellow heirs) finds its unraveling in the passion of Christ. Galilee is not just geography; it is functional terminology. It’s where the scroll is unraveled among the outsiders, in the midst of those who “sit in darkness” (Isa. 9:2). The ministry of Jesus begins not at the center of the Jerusalemite elite, but at the fringe of the Judean countryside— where the exiles meet the outsiders. What unravels there is not simply a message to the Gentiles but the mystery about them — that they are fellow heirs, members of the same body (Eph. 3:6). The body is not whole until the nations enter in and the two groups engage in common table fellowship. That’s what Paul means when he says this was the mystery “hidden for ages in God” (Eph. 3:9). It wasn’t deduced by sages nor uncovered by mystical ascent — it was revealed in the downward movement when the logos of the cross entered the human realm and tabernacled among the Jews and Gentiles alike and met its climax in the shame of the cross. There, the crucified Christ became both the harlot Israel and the prophet declared righteous — carrying both shame and majesty. That tension— shame that glorifies — is the scroll rolled open before the nations.

The scriptural function of blessing, בָרַךְ barak, has a considerable range. As is common in Semitic languages, this one root can have opposing connotations depending on reference and contextual itinerary. For example, it usually has the connotation of God bestowing blessings, it can also refer to God cursing as it does in the piel form found in 1 Kings 21:10 and 13. Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics should understand this connection immediately with respect to the Eucharist, which either brings life or death depending on the attitude of the communicant. Approach with arrogance, as Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11, and you eat and drink judgment on yourself. It isn’t yourtable. That’s why traditional Christians (in particular, the liturgical ones) take the Eucharist so seriously. God is the source of blessing, as is expressed in the construction מְבָרַךְ mebarak — blessed, which uses the mem preposition to turn the verb into a place noun. When applied to God, it typically has the sense of providing life or death. When applied to man, it refers to saluting a superior as it does in 1 Samuel 13:10 as it does in the piel infinitive. Since God is himself superlative, the verb acts differently when he “blesses” or “curses”. That is why a parishioner cannot bless the priest, but the priest can bless the parishioner. Likewise, priests cannot bless bishops. When believers “bless” God, we are not bestowing blessings upon God but saluting him. This is Semitic functionality in practice. It is the same word, but with radically different uses depending on who is doing the action.

Another word that applies to God in this passage is גְּבוּרָה gebōrah from the verb גָּבַר gabar — to be mighty. In Semitic languages, the function of גִּבּוֹר gibboris that of machismo and masculine strength generally. In scripture, God wields this function in its superlative orientation. In Arabic, this root is expressed as جَبَّارٍ jabār and refers to a “tyrant”. The verbal form can refer to the “restoration of broken parts” and is famous in the field of mathematics as algebra, literally referring to the process of solving and manipulating equations to restore or “reunite” unknowns into a solution. Related to this reading, the Ge‘ez word for “labor” is ገብር gäbr from the same root. It is also the source of the name of the archangel Gabriel (جِبْرِيل / גַּבְרִיאֵל). The use of this root is striking in Daniel because it undercuts the strength of the king and renders all of that authority to “the God of Daniel”.

The lexical item יְהַב yehab is interesting because it is typically rendered as “to give” but literally refers to “providing, caring, or burdening oneself with”. In that respect, it interacts functionally with אָהַב ’ahab — to love, with which it could share a consonantal matrix. Semitic languages tend to demonstrate emotions in terms of physical behavior and do not tend to deal in abstractions. Therefore, this connection between יְהַב and אָהַב could have merit based on that assumption. Love is not merely an emotion; it is rather a provision and has to be actualized as a verb in reality. Think of Paul’s classic “faith working through love” example from his letters.

In verse 22, there is an interesting statement vis-à-vis the reference for revelation when it speaks of God as the one who

ה֛וּא גָּלֵ֥א עַמִּיקָתָ֖א וּמְסַתְּרָתָ֑א יָדַע֙ מָ֣ה בַחֲשֹׁוכָ֔א וּנְהִירָא עִמֵּ֥הּ שְׁרֵֽא׃

He uncovers the deep and hidden things; he knows what is in darkness and light begins with him

The key item here is the word מְסַתְּרָתָ֑א mesatratā, which refers to “hidden things”. It comes from the verb סָתַר satar, meaning to be “hidden” or “absent”. The verb in the first person singular imperfect form is אֶסָּתֵ֑ר ’essater — I shall hide and is consonantally identical with the name Esther, which is אֶסְתֵּר ’estter in Hebrew. This makes sense in the context of the book of Esther, in that the titular character hides her Hebrew identity from King Ahasaurus. What is also notable about that book is that God is completely absent from its pages. If there’s one commonality to the corpus of the Ketubim, it would be the tension of the Tōrah in exile and actualizing God’s promise to Abraham that he would be a father to many nations. The component here is that through exile, the teaching of the scriptural deity is revealed to the outsider by the disobedience of the “insiders”. It is both a warning and an invitation for acceptance. This is a truth that is hidden to the Gentiles until God reveals it to them.