Bible Commentaries
Daniel 5

Verse 1

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

Belshazzar — The grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.

Made a great feast — After the manner of the eastern kings who shewed their magnificence this way. But this is prodigious that he should carouse when the city was besieged, and ready to be taken by Darius the Mede.

Verse 2

Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.

To bring the vessels — Triumphing thereby over God and his people.

Verse 4

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

And praised the gods of gold — At the same time insulting the great God of heaven and earth.

Verse 5

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

Came forth fingers — The likeness of a man’s hand.

Verse 6

Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

His knees smote — So soon can the terrors of God make the loftiest cedars, the tyrants of the earth.

Verse 10

Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed:

The queen came — The women in those courts had an apartment by themselves, and this being the queen-mother, and aged, did not mingle herself with the king’s wives and concubines, yet she broke the rule in coming in now, upon this solemn occasion.

Verse 24

Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.

From him — From that God whom thou hast despised.

Verse 26

This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

MENE — MENE MENE, it is numbered, it is numbered; the words are doubled for the greater confirmation. It relates to the number of the seventy years for the overthrow of the Babylonish empire.

Verse 27

TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

Art found wanting — There is no weight nor worth in thee; thou hast made light of God, and the Lord makes light of thee.

Verse 28

PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

PERES — Separated, divided, broken. Phars signifies two things, broken off, and Persian; noting that, first, this kingdom was broken down from Belshazzar. Secondly, that it was given to the Persians.

Verse 31

And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

Darius the Mede — This was he that with Cyrus besieged and took Babylon.