Daniel 5:1-6

1 Belshazzar the king made a great banquet to a thousand of his lords, and against the thousand he drank wine.

2 Belshazzar, under the influence of the wine, commanded that they bring the vessels of gold and of silver which Nebuchadnezzar his father had brought from the temple of Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink with them.

3 Then they brought the vessels of gold that they had brought from the temple of the house of God which was in Jerusalem; and the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank with them.

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

5 In that same hour some fingers of a man’s hand came forth and wrote in front of the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the palm of the hand that wrote.

6 Then the king became pale, and his thoughts troubled him, and the girdings of his loins were unloosed, and his knees smote one against 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.