to go from where it was: for rule, honor, or a binding order to pass away, or for someone with power to take it away
Daniel is a book about power changing hands, and this is one of its key verbs. The picture behind it is simple: something that was in place is no longer in place. What moves is almost always authority or honor, and the moving is rarely gentle.
Sometimes the thing simply goes. A voice from heaven tells Nebuchadnezzar that the kingdom "has departed from you." At other times someone makes it go, and the very same verb is used: God "removes kings and sets up kings." Aramaic marks the difference by reshaping the verb rather than by picking a different word, so the losing and the taking come across as one act seen from two sides:
- a kingdom leaves the king who had just been boasting about building it (Daniel 4:31)
- a proud king's glory is stripped from him after he is brought down (Daniel 5:20)
- the beasts lose their dominion while their lives are extended for a season (Daniel 7:12)
The word also does legal work. A Persian order, once signed, "does not pass away," which means it cannot be lifted or allowed to lapse. That is a different claim from tampering with its wording, which is what the verb for changing something (שְׁנָא) covers in the very same sentence. The contrast peaks in Daniel 7:14, where the everlasting dominion given to the one like a son of man will never pass away, and his kingdom will never be destroyed (חֲבַל).
One use runs the other direction. When the three men step out of the furnace, not even the smell of fire had passed onto them, so here the verb describes something settling on a person rather than leaving.