The word for iron occurs three times in this verse, making the Revised Standard Version rendering heavy. In many languages it will make for smoother reading to reduce this to one or two at the most.

The three verbs that describe the action of iron mean more or less the same (breaks, shatters, and crushes). It is not necessary for the translator to try to find an exact equivalent for each one of them, since it is the overall effect, rather than the slight differences of meaning, that is important. Furthermore, the parenthetical phrase and like iron which crushes is not found in several ancient versions. If it proves difficult to find three similar verbs in the language, it will be sufficient to use two. But if one wishes to retain the style of the ancient text, it is probably unwise to reduce the three to one (although this is done by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

All these: most probably this means “all the earlier kingdoms” (New Jerusalem Bible; compare also Good News Translation) or “all the kingdoms that went before it.” New English Bible follows a different assumption about the original text, with “the whole earth,” but this is reversed by Revised English Bible and is not recommended.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .