Daniel 5:1-6

1 Baltasar the king made a great supper for his thousand nobles, and wine before the thousand.

2 And Baltasar drinking gave orders as he tasted the wine that they should bring the gold and silver vessels, which Nabuchodonosor his father had brought forth from the temple in Jerusalem; that the king, and his nobles, and his mistresses, and his concubines, should drink out of them.

3 So the gold and silver vessels were brought which had taken out of the temple of God in Jerusalem; and the king, and his nobles, and his mistresses, and his concubines, drank out of them.

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

5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote in front of the lamp on the plaster of the wall of the king's house: and the king saw the knuckles of the hand that wrote.

6 Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one another.

Daniel 5:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL 5

This chapter gives an account of a feast made by King Belshazzar, attended with drunkenness, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels taken out of the temple at Jerusalem, Da 5:1-4, and of the displeasure of God, signified by a handwriting on the wall, which terrified the king, and caused him to send in haste for the astrologers to read and interpret it, but they could not, Da 5:5-8, in this distress, which appeared in the countenances of him and his nobles, the queen mother advises him to send for Daniel, of whom she gives a great encomium, Da 5:9-12, upon which he was brought in to the king, and promised a great reward to read and interpret the writing; the reward he slighted, but promised to read and interpret the writing, Da 5:13-17 and after putting him in mind of what had befallen his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar, and charging him with pride, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels of the Lord, Da 5:18-23 reads and interprets the writing to him Da 5:24-28, when he had honour done him, and was preferred in the government, Da 5:29 and the chapter is concluded with an account of the immediate accomplishment of ancient prophecies, and of this handwriting, in the slaying of the king of Babylon, in the dissolution of the Babylonish monarchy, and the possession of it by Darius the Mede, Da 5:30,31.