the interpretation: the true meaning of a dream, an omen, or a vision, disclosed by God to someone who could not reach it on their own
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Every time this word appears it stands next to something no one can read unaided: a king's troubling dream, glowing words written on a palace wall, a strange night vision. The interpretation is the answer to that puzzle, the meaning that finally makes the mystery plain.
In the book of Daniel it works almost like a technical term. The king's own advisers cannot supply it; Daniel can, but only because God shows it to him. So the word means more than one possible reading among several. It points to the single correct meaning that heaven has already fixed and then reveals through a chosen person.
The thing being decoded changes from chapter to chapter, a dream in one place, the writing on the wall in another, a vision in another, but the word's sense stays the same. In each case it is the disclosed key that turns something baffling into something understood.
names the one true meaning that God discloses, not a reading the interpreter arrives at by skill or guessworkDan 2:36
is always tied to a specific mystery (a dream, an omen, a vision) that is otherwise sealed to everyoneDan 5:26
Both
both name the explanation that makes an obscure thing understandableDan 4:24
Only interpretation
English "interpretation" can suggest a subjective or scholarly reading, one of several a person might reasonably offer
“meaning”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“solution”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
peshar in the other biblical languages
פֵּשֶׁרHebrew“interpretation”the Hebrew form of the same word; it appears once, in Ecclesiastes, for the meaning of a matter that a wise person is able to explain
ἐπίλυσιςGreek“explanation”a Greek word for interpretation used of prophecy in the New Testament, making the point that Scripture's true sense is not something a reader simply invents
ἑρμηνείαGreek“interpretation”the Greek word for interpreting an otherwise unintelligible utterance, such as turning an unknown tongue into plain speech
Names the interpretation itself, the piece of knowledge that can be demanded, withheld, promised, or finally announced: the king orders his experts to produce it, and Daniel eventually declares "this is the interpretation of the matter".Dan 2:5Dan 5:26
Reaches well beyond dreams: the same word covers the meaning of the words written on the palace wall and the meaning of a night vision that a heavenly attendant explains.Dan 5:26Dan 7:16
Becomes a bargaining chip in a royal court, with lavish rewards and death threats attached to producing it, and with Daniel pointedly refusing the payment.Dan 2:5Dan 5:16Dan 5:17
Sits alongside other kinds of puzzle solving as a recognized ability Daniel is known for, listed with explaining hard sayings and untangling knotted problems.Dan 5:12
Both
Both belong to the same scene: a foreign ruler is shaken by a dream, his own professional experts cannot supply the meaning, and a Hebrew held in that empire steps in and gives it.Gen 41:8Dan 2:26
Both treat the meaning as something God hands over rather than a technique the interpreter owns: Joseph says such meanings belong to God, and Daniel insists the meaning reaches the king by no wisdom of his own.Gen 40:8Dan 2:30
In both, the meaning is the hinge of the future: it announces what will actually happen to officials and to kingdoms, and the text stresses that it proves reliable.Gen 41:13Dan 2:45
Describes the act rather than its result: a person works out a dream and tells the dreamer what it means, so the word takes a doer and an audience.Gen 40:8Gen 41:15
Stays entirely with dreams, and only with the dreams of the Joseph story in Egypt: the two prisoners in the royal jail and then Pharaoh himself.Gen 40:8Gen 41:8
Gets checked against events afterward, because the story reports what happened and measures it against what was said: as he interpreted, so it turned out.Gen 40:22Gen 41:13
Can be weighed as good or bad news for the person listening, so a bystander notices that one prisoner's dream was interpreted favorably and speaks up hoping for the same.Gen 40:16
What scholars say about peshar
The noun occurs almost entirely in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel, where it denotes the authoritative interpretation of a dream, omen, or vision. Standard lexica (HALOT; BDB) connect it with Akkadian pasaru, "to loosen, release, interpret (a dream)," placing it within the wider ancient Near Eastern practice of dream divination, though in Daniel the interpretation is credited to God rather than to divinatory technique. The Hebrew cognate appears once, in Ecclesiastes 8:1. The term later gave its name to the Qumran pesharim, the sectarian running commentaries on prophetic books, a development scholars generally treat as downstream of, and not identical to, the usage in Daniel (Collins).
Sources
HALOT, s.v. פְּשַׁר (Aramaic)lexicon
BDB, s.v. פְּשַׁרlexicon
John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary