to become or be other than before: to change, be altered, or be different in kind
At its heart this Aramaic verb marks a departure from what was, or a standing apart from the rest. The same word covers a face that suddenly goes pale, a heart that turns wild, a beast unlike any other, and a royal order that someone dares to overturn. In every case something is no longer as it was, or is not as its neighbor is.
The book of Daniel leans on the word in two intransitive directions. Again and again a person's expression "changes" under fear or fury: Belshazzar's face falls at the writing on the wall, Nebuchadnezzar's look hardens against the three young men, and Daniel's own color drains away after his visions. In the dream of the four beasts the same verb turns outward instead, describing creatures and kingdoms that are each "different" from the others, one strange empire after another.
Its sharpest use is legal. A Persian decree, once issued, "cannot be changed," and Ezra's building order threatens anyone who would "alter" it. That fixed-law sense carries a theological charge: God is the one who "changes the times and the seasons," yet the arrogant little horn will "think to change the set times and the law." The same verb, used first of God and then of the creature, quietly frames the horn's ambition as a grasp at what belongs to God alone.