Daniel 5:2

2 Under the influence of^[a] the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels^[b] that his predecessor^[c] Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines could drink from them.

Daniel 5:2 Meaning and Commentary

Daniel 5:2

Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine
As he was drinking his cups, and delighted with the taste of the wine, and got merry with it: or, "by the advice of the wine" ^F8, as Aben Ezra and Jarchi interpret it, by a personification; as if that dictated to him, and put him upon doing what follows; and which often puts both foolish and wicked things into the heads of men, and upon doing them: then he commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which his father
Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem;
what these vessels were, and the number of them, we learn from the delivery of them afterwards to the prince of Judah by Cyrus, ( Ezra 1:9-11 ) , these were put into the temple of Bel by Nebuchadnezzar, ( Daniel 1:2 ) and from thence they were now ordered to be brought to the king's palace, and to the apartment where he and his nobles were drinking: that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might
drink therein;
Saadiah says, this day the seventy years' captivity ended; and so, in contempt of the promise and prophecy of it, he ordered the vessels to be brought out and drank in, to show that in vain the Jews expected redemption from it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 (armx Mejb) "vino dictante", Tigurine version.

Daniel 5:2 In-Context

1 King Belshazzar held a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles and drank wine in their presence.

2 Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines could drink from them.

3 So they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines drank from them.

4 They drank the wine and praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

5 At that moment the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king's palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched the hand that was writing,

Footnotes

• [a]. Or When he tasted
• [b]. 1 Kg 7:51; Jr 52:19
• [c]. Or father, or grandfather