throne of his kingdom], and they took [caused to pass away] his glory [the
21 dignity] from him. And he was driven from the sons of men [mankind] ; and
his heart was made like [with] the beasts [living creatures], and iiis dwelling
was with the wild-asses : they fed him with [would make him eat] grass [herb-
age] like oxen, and his body was [would be] wet with [from] the dew of heaven
[the heavens] ; till [that] he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingt^"ui
of men [mankind], and that he appointeth [will set up] over it whomsoevei ae
22 [may] will. And thou" his son, Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart,
23 though [because] thou knewest all this ; but [and] hast lifted up thyseli
against the Lord '" of heaven [the heavens] : and they have brought the vessels
of his bouse before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines,
CHAP. V. 1-30.
12-
24
25
26
27
28
29
have drank [are drinking] wine ' in them : and thou liast praised ihe gods of
silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, noi
know ; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways,
hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from [before]
him ; and this writing was written [signed].
And this is tlie writing that was written [signed], mene, mkne, tekel,
UPHAKSix. This is the interpretation of the thing [or, word] : mexe
numbered] ; God " hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. tekel
weighed] ; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting, peres
divided] ; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes [Media] and Per-
sians [Persia].
Then commanded [said] Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet [tlie
purple], and jjut a [the] chain oi gold about [upon] his neck, and made a pro-
clainatiiin concerning [upon] him, that he should be the third ruler in the king-
30 dom. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldaeans slain.
GRAMMATICAL NOTES.
[* The emphatic state in St^lJOHj Ulce the art. in Heb, and Gr., is equivalent to the pers. pron. his tctne. — ^ 25<
frequently used, in all the Shemitic tongues, of a forefather, whether immediate or remote. — * Literally, the king — his
bright looics changed for him. — * Liter-'lly, his bright looks were changing upon him. — * Literally, and let not thy Itright
looks be changed. — « The form n^rt", apocopated for brevity's sake from m^H^' is exclusively applied in Biblical
Chaldee to .ludmn. — ' The pronoun is emphatic, being expressed. — ® The participial form of thsse verbs {whom he was
willing he leas killing, and lohom ti£ wojt icilting he ?£><?« nutktnp live, and tchutn he waft icilliug he was raising, and
whom he was wilting he wa^t depressing) indicates the continued as well as absolute i>ower of the autocrat. — ' The pro-
noun here is resumptive of that which stands absolutely in verse 18. — i** 5t^^ is the Chaldee equivalent of "^"ni^-
• ■' Snbst is significant of the (riM God, like Dinbsn].
EXRGETICAL REMARKS.
Verses 1-4. The rfesecrntion of the sniyred res-
tels of the temple at the roi/nl feast. Belshazzar
the king made a great feast. The name of the
king ^2S*n;a differs in its orthography merely
from the Chaldee name 12!«-3t:b3, which Neb-
uchadnezzar, according to chap. i. 7 (cf. infra,
V. 12 of this chapter), had conferred on Daniel,
as it omits the f -sound between the letters I and
ih. It is therefore a softened form, having the
Same etymological significance in its elements,
and both are equivalent to Belt priitceps, = the
Bel-sarussiir of the Babylonian inscriptions (cf.
Introd., S f^i note 3). According to Hitzig (on i.
7. and on this passage), Bel-tsh-dznr is synony-
mous with the Sanscrit Pilla-tsht^arn, "pro-
vider and devourer," while in Bel-sliiizzar the
middle member of this compound, the Sanscr.
and Zend copula tslm. " and," has been dropped
out and replaced by the Heb. relative •,:■, so that
the shortened form signifies. " provider, who (is)
devourer." This hypothesis appears altogether
too artificial, and. like the direct derivation of
the word from the Aryan, is doubtful, especially
as the Bel-sarussur of the inscriptions on the
Babylonian monuments favors it but little.
Ewald's assumption that the royal name 2??3
comprehends the name of the male god Bel,
while that of Daniel, ^""33, includes that of
the goddess Belt, is likewise without suflScient
proof, and is opposed by chap. iv. .5 [8], and
also by the orthography with o instead of p. —
Concerning the hypothesis th.it Belshazzar was
the same as Evil-merodach, the son and imme-
diate successor of Nebuchadnezzar, see the
Introd., § 8, note 3. — Made a great feast, i.e.,
caused it to be made. 1??^, " he had prepared,"
as in chap. iii. 1. ^\y?, "bread, food," compre-
hends the beverages (Hn'.l"?3, v. 10) also, as the
second half of the verse shows ; cf. in the Heb.,
Gen. xxvi. 30; 1 Sam. xxv. yU ; Ecc. x. 19. — .
And drank wine before the thousand. This
does not probably mean that he "vied with
them in drinking" (Hiivemick), but that he
"drank in their presence, while .seated at a
separate table," — as was the custom of the Per-
sian kings on the occasion of their great ban-
quets, according to Athenseus, Dciprio.i. iv, 10.
On the expre.ssion, "to eat and drink before
others," cf. Jer. Hi. 33 ; it differs m.aterially
from " to eat and drink itith others," Ex. xviii.
13; Acts X. 41, etc. The number of the king's
guests, a thoUMind lords (grand-officers, mighty
ones, cf. iv, 33 [30], which the Sept. doubles,
(!((7Y'''-""). is not remarkable, when it is remem-
bered that, according to Ctesias (in Athen., 1. c. ).
the Persian king provided daily for fifteen thou-
sand persons at his table ; that, according to
Curtius, Alexander the Great invited ten thou-
sand to a wedding feast ; and that Ptolemy
Dionysius (according to Pliny, H. N.. XXXIII.
10) supported a thousand soldiers of the army
of Pompey the Great from his kitchen.
["The number specified is evidently a round
number, i.e.. the number of the guests amount-
ed to about a thous,aud " (Keil).] However,
according to the genuinely Oriental custom,
which is attested, e.;/.. by Herodotus, II. 78, in
the case of the Egyptians, and by ^Elian, V. U. .
XI. 1, among the Persians, the wine -drinking oi
ca.xous2i\ follows upon the feast proper. At such
times, and especially at a court like the Baby-
lonian immediately prior to the Persian period,
i the banqueters may have given way to all the
12J
THE PROPHET DA^fIEL.
excesses of their dissolute frivolity, in the man-
ner described in the ensujng narrative. In rela-
tion to the drunkenness and wantonness of the
Babj'lonians, cf. Isa. xiv. 11 ; xlvii. 1 ; Jer. li.
3:i; Herod., I. 193, 193; Athena;us, XIV. p.
601 ; Ciirtius. V. 1 etc. — Verse 2. Belshazzar,
â– while he tasted the wine, commanded, etc.
St^in Sf;w2, "while tasting, while enjoying the
wine," therefore, while under its influence ; cf.
Prov. XX. 1 ; Acts ii. 13 ; and in regard to -I's,
cf. Job \i. 6. [It "does not mean merely sip-
ping in order to determine the flavor, or as a pre-
lude to drinking more freely, but drinking with
rilish. and therefore plentifully" (Stuart).] —
To bring the golden and silver vessels, name-
ly, out of the " treasure-house of the gods." in
which they had been deposited by Nebuchad-
nezzar, according to chap. i. 2, The etymology
of the name Belshazzar invented by Saadia and
favored by Hitzig. by which it is derived from
this very act of causing the vessels to be brought
from the treasure-house (-iS, ''to seek" and
IIT'N), is an idle vagary that never entered into
the mind of the writer. — That the king ....
and his concubines might drink therein. The
1 in l"~r ^1 is expressive of the design ; cf.
chap. i. 5 b. nnd with 3, "to drink from a
vessel," occurs also in vs. 3 and 23 ; cf. Winer,
g 51, 1. — His wives and his concubines. ;3U!
designates the legal consort as contrasted with
the concubine (n^ni), as in the Hebrew (Psa.
xlv. 10; Neh. ii. 6). The Sept. represents only
the concubines as present at the feast (both here
and in vs. 3 and 33). being apparently governed
in this by what is described in Esther! 9 etseq.
(cf. Josephus. Ant., XI. G, 1) as the court custom
of the «/(c/t'«< Persians ; but even with reference
to them. Herodotus (v. 18) testifies that their
wives {unvftit^rai yi'viiiKsr') were admitted to ban-
quets (cf. also Plutarch, Sympos. I. 1 and
Macrob. vii. 1, who represent that at least con-
cubines were present at the Persian feasts). It
is clear that the luxurious Babylonians were
even more lax in the observance of a strict eti-
quette, from Herod, i. 191 ; Xenophon. Cyriyji.,
V. 2. 28, and especially from Curtius. V. 1 , 38.
From this may appear the propriety with which
Bertholdt (p. 3(10), on the strength of v. 10 of
this chapter, which he misunderstood, charges
ignorance of the Babylonian custom in question
on the prophet. — Verse 3. Then they brought
the golden vesssls that were taken out of the
temple of the house of God which was at
Jerusalem. Merely the golden vtunii') are here
mentioned, while the silver ones are omitted, on
the principle a piitionfit dtiumiinatio. The tem-
ple" (iS^^^D) in this place, as in 1 Kings vi. 3;
Ezek. xli. 4. is the temple proper, consisting of
the holy and the most holy place, and is here
di.stinguished from the " house of God," i.e., the
whole of the sacred area of the temple. — Verse
4. They drank wine, and praised, etc. T"?'.VS
(with s prosthet. , Winer, Gramm., % 23, note
I) resumes the '"^"r'*! of the preceding verse
supplemerted by '*â– )'?'!', "wine," in order to
"onnect immediately with it the praising of the
gods, and thus to present in a striking maimei
the profanity and lasciviousness of the scene. *
— On the six-fold number of the materials from
which the idols were constructed, "gold, silver,
brass, iron, wood, and stone." compare the simi-
lar number (" gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay stubble") in 1 Cor. iii. 11 ; rdso Psa. cxv.
5-7 ; Bar. vi. 7 et seq. ; Wisd. xv. 15. f On the
number itself, as the number of the world amen-
able to judgment because of its hostility to God,
cf. Auberlen, Dan., p. 304 et seq. ; and my
Theohyid natiiralix, p. 8Hi et seq. — The aggra-
vated feature of this profanation of the sacred
vessels of the temple does not consist in the
" placing of Jehovah and the idols of the king
upon the same level " (Hiivemick), but in the
fact, which Daniel mentions with censure in v.
23, that Belshazzar proudly exalted himself
above the God of Israel, and in mockery em-
ployed the vessels stolen from His sanctuary to
drink mne whUe singing the praises of the vic-
torious gods of Babylon It was thus essentially
an exaltation of the idok abnre Jehovah, who had
succumbed to them in battle, and whom they
had despoiled (cf . Kranichf. on this passage).
Verses .'), 6. The fingeron theueUl, and the cor^
sequent terror of the king. In the same hour,
therefore while the sacrilegious act was in pro-
gress ; immediately and suddenly. Cf . chap
iii. 6. — Came forth fingers of a man's hand.
The Kethib ^pC: (3 plur. masc.) is sulEciently
explained by its position before the feminine
subject 15i^?<, or also by the supposition that
the mind of the wTiter reverted in an indefinite
manner to the Divine powers here engaged.
The feminine plural ~P.^', substituted for it by
the Keri, is therefore to be rejected, as .<m easier
reading (similar to that in chap. ii. 33). The
participle l^"'?"! ("^â– ^d writing," instead of
"and wrote "), which follows the verb 1p?-., has
a realizing effect, as in ch.ip. ii. 7a; iii. 9 a. —
Over against the candlestick on the waU of
the king's palace. The wall of the banquet-
hall was not panelled nor draped, but rather a
simple, light-colored "wall of lime or plaster "
(iri3 = the irriS of the Targums). such as the
ruins of the palaces at Nineveh still exhibit in
great number, according to Layard (JS'in. and
Babylon, p. 051). Upon a spot of this wall that
was especially exposed to the light from the
lamp above the king, he suddenly beheld the
mysterious and terrifying phenomenon of the
hand engaged in writing. — And the king saw
the part (the extremity) of the hand that
wrote. ^<~â– ) "5 properly designates here and
in V. 24 the "extremity of the hand," probably
* ["As the city WHS alrcirly besief?ei,t. and the reai king
Naboniied hail pone into the tieid apaiust the armies ol
the Meiles and Persians under CjTiis. the sense of .security
which this feast implied must be aceountx-d for by theii
confidence in the a.ssumed strenjrth of the city. Plainly it
was supposed txi lie absolutely impregnable . — It may tx
added that God ha(t given up the kinp and the prir.ees t*
a blind infatuation, of such sort as usually precedes de-
Btrnetion." — Co/rlen. ]
t [-The si.K predicates of the gods are divided by the
copula 1 into two classes ; gold and silver — brass, iron, wiod,
and stone, in order Ki repre..,ent before the eyes in an ad
vuncing degree the varietj of these gods."' — Kei 1
CHAP. V. 1-30.
127
inclnding the fingers, honce what the first sen-
tence describes by IJ^^S. The rendering of
Gesenius and Dietrich in the HandwOrterbuch,
"palm of the hand. pKlnta." is hardly correct ;
nor is that of Hitzig, who. in connection with
Saadia, takes S~" in the wider sense of "' the
lower arm, including the hand." and hence ex
plains XTi'IE hy " the whole hand." The
writer appears rather to have employed the
words " lingers " and " extremity of the hand "
interchangeably, with design, — "in order to
excite more efEectually the conception of a mys-
terious person in the background, by the obser-
vation that only the extremity of the organ em-
ployed in writing was visible " (Kranichfeld).
Whether the phenomenon of the mysterious
band is to be placed solely to the account of
"the fancy of the king under the influence of
wine." and therefore to be reduced (with Kran-
ichfeld ) from an objective and actually transpir-
ing miracle to a merely subjective apprehension
(similar to the perception of the fourth person in
the fiery furnace — see on chap. iii. 24), or other-
wise, depends entirely on the other question,
whether the mysterious writing on the wall,
which certainly was visible to others as well as
to Belshazzar (cf. vs. 7, 8, IG, 25), is to be
regarded as having been previously carved or
painted in a natural way and by human agency,
or whether it is to be accepted that the inscrip-
tion was made by supernatural intervention at
the time of the lianquet and before the eyes of
the terrified king. In support of the former
theory reference might perhaps be made to the
distinction between an older and a later cunei-
form writing among the Babylonians, the former
of which differed materially from the latter, or
even to the hieroglyphics which the primitive
Babylonians are said to have emploj-ed (cf. Spie-
gel. Art. Ninete u. Ansyrieii. in Herzog's Re^d-
Eiioykl. , vol. XX. p. 2:j-t et seq. ), but with which
the later ages were entirely unacquainted. It
is conceivable that the king may suddenly have
noticed an inscription in characters of that
former time, that were traced on bricks and in-
serted in the wall, and that such characters were
not intelligible to the ordinary magians of the
time, but required the all-surpassing knowledge
of Daniel to decipher. But. aside from the evi-
dent design of the narrator to report a positively
miraculous incident, this theory is militated
against and positively overthrown by the luftiwe
of the icritind. which does not bear the charac-
ter of the primitive oracles of the kind repre-
sented by the Sibyl lines, but is a Divine sentence
of destniction upon the king and his people,
that was called forth by the insolent presump-
tion of the present ruler, and is adapted to the
circumstances of his time icf. on v. 25 et .seq.).
The theory of an actual miracle is therefore to
be received, and the psychological explanation
cited .ibove. as well as every other naturalistic
theory, must be rejected.* — Then the (color of
the) liin5's countenance was changed ; liter-
ally, "Then the king, his color was changed to
him." [" **?" (the king) stands absolutely,
• fThc appearance of the fin?ers "immediately awak-
sned the thought that the •^■r^ting was by a supernatural
being, and alarmed the king out of his intoxication.^* —
KtU.\
because the impression made by the occurrenca
on the king is to be depicted " ( Keil). ] The in-
transitive ^«:3 ("to change") has the accusa-
tive suffix in ^~^"â– 2, instead of the dative ; cf.
"'rn^'ra in the Heb. of Ezek. xlvii. 7. However,
the more circumstantial expression "l"^" "^"'l'''
^ni^5. T. 9, has substantially the same signifi-
cation, as is the case also with the somewhat
different expressions in v. 10 and chap. vii. 28.
On ^""."^ see on chap. iv. 33. — And his thoughts
troubled him ; "^irinsi, the imcomfortable and
terrifying thoughts concerning the meaning of
the writing, which sprang from the guilty con-
science of the king. Cf. chap. ii. 30. — The
joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees
smote one against another. The tremuloufc
knocking together of the knees is a consequence
of the yielding of the joints of the loins, and
this again, like the change of color in the coun-
tenance, is the natur.al effect of terror.* Cf.
with 7rr', "hip, loin," the etymologically equiv-
alent Heb. v;n (only in the dual, 3"^;n).
SI:1S"1S, "knee," appears not to be etymologi-
cally related to -i^;, c-;il, but rather to sigm-
fy originally "combination, amimmtirv ; " cf.
cumrimtiurei genu, Plin.. U. X., XI. lO'i.
Verses 7-9. The useless mnsiiltntioii with tJu
Magians. The king cried aloud j i^n^, " with
power," as in chap. iii. 4 ; iv. 11. — To bring in
the astrologers (soothsayers), the Chald8eai.&,
and the soothsayers (astrologers). Several
classes of wise men are here mentiouftd to desig-
nate the entire number, as in chap. ii. 2 (cf. 27)
and in iv. 4 ; and among them the Chartummin
or learned class (see on chap. ii. 2). whose wisdom
would be especially required in the present in-
stance, are not even mentioned by name. This
is evidently an oversight on the part of the
writer, which is paralleled in the somewhat
more complete enumeration of the piiucipal
classes of Magians in v. 11. and also in the ab-
breviated expression. " the wise men, the sooth-
sayers," in V. 15. The indefinite ^33 ^?:^:n in
this verse, and the expression i^SJIp "'^'^rH 3^
in V. 8, show clearly that the author always
refers to all the wise men. without excluding
any of the chief classes, and especially so in this
instance. But it cannot be required here, any
more than in the similar case mentioned in the
preceding chapter, that Daniel should have at
once presented himself am^ng all these wise men
of Babylon (see on iv. 5). The position of the
great Jewish wise man under Nebuchadnezzar's
reign, which was not official in the more limited
sense, was probably continued to him under Bel-
shazzar ; and, moreover, the latter, who. accord-
ing to V. 11 et seq.. knew little or nothing about
Daniel, would bt» far more likely than was his
father to ignore the prophet of Jehovah, and to
* [" It is an appalling scene w'len a sinning mortal
knows that the great God has come tr. meet him in the
very midst of his Bins ! — How chj.nffed the 8i;eu,. *rom th*
glee of his blasphemous reveliT ro this palenene uf cheek,
convulsion of frame, iemor?c o." jon:.rieuce, and dread for&
boding of doom ! Many a sipaer Las had a like experi
ence, and other thousands mu&f r*,<j itl"' — Coic^.l
I -28
THE PROPHET DANIEL.
geek the counsel of the heathen wise men at the
outset. The words of the queen in v. 11 et seq.
by no means indicate that the king was wholly
unacquainted with Daniel, but merely that up
to that time no personal or official intercourse
had taken place between them. This circum-
Btance also finds a sufficient explanation in the
greater freedom of action incident to the partly
official and partly private station of Daniel, which
devolved on him the oblig-ation to attend to cer-
tain portions of "the king's business" indeed
{see chap. viii. 27), but released him from the
duty of frequently presenting himself before the
king. The assumption of Hengstenberg and
Hiivei-nick, that on the accession of Belshazzar
Daniel was formally deprived of his office as the
chief Magian, is a very doubtful supposition, and
stands in direct contradiction to chap. viii. 27
(cf viii. 1) — Whosoever shall read this writ-
ing, etc. n~r2 (here and v. 15), for '^^f)?, v.
8, 16, 25, appears to be the orthography of a
later copyist, as in the case of n33, chap. iv.
82. and of n"irS in v. 13, below. — Shall be
clothed with purple (marg. ) and have (rather
"with"*) a chain of gold about his neck.
VJIS here, and in the Chaldaizing Heb. of 2
Chron. ii. 6, equivalent to the Heb. Tpal** (Ex.
XXV. 26, 27, and often), the "red or genuine
purple," Tzopiirpn^ was probably more costly and
brilliaEt than the violet or blue purple n^.2t|ii
from which it must be distinguished. It formed
the distinguishing feature of clothing among the
Persian kmgs (Pollux, VII. 13), and was by them
occasionally bestowed on high officials, as a mark
of especial favor and exalted dignity; e.g., on
Mordecai, Esth. viii. 15 ; and on the piD'pvrati,
i.e.. persons who were adorned \vith the purple
iCTi't/i'f, whom Xenophon(.4n«i., I. 5,8), Curtius
(III. 2, 10 ; VIII. 3, 15 ; XIII. 13, 14), and others
mention (cf. Xenophon, Cprop. . I. 3, 2 ; II. 4,
0; Herodotus, III. 20, etc.). Purple was pro-
bably the badge of distinguished rank at the
Babylonian as well as at the Persian court, espe-
cially as Babylon, like Tyre, was celebrated
among the ancients for its manufacture of pur-
ple goods. Cf. Philostralus, Np. , 27 ; Ezek.
xxvii. 24 ; Josh. vii. 21 ; and generally, Heereu,
Ideen. etc , I. 2, 205 el seq. With respect to
their etymology, both forms, pans and pais,
may be most readily derived from the Sanscrit,
in which both rdffiimaii and rdgavan occur as
adjectives derived from rdga, '-red," and sig-
nify 'Ted-colored;" cf. Gesen., Addit. ad The-
lai'i?:, p. 111. Hitzig however refers to the
Sanscr. argh = "' to possess value, be costly,"
and most of the older expositors prefer a Shem-
itic root, e.g. 23n-— ''^^•'^C, "chain, necklace"
(Sept. and Theodot., /lavinKT/r â– also Aquil. and
Symm . on Gen. xh. 42), seems not to have been
changed to S2^:':n (= Gr. /xavidKr/c), the form
which is here and in vs. 16 and 29 preferred by
the Keri. As among the early Egyptians (Gen.
xli. 42^, so also among the later Persians the
• [The phrase Sai ^l sailTini "does not depend
on dx"', but forms a clause by itself ; aiid a chain of
gold ftltall be about his neck.''^.- &'£)/,]
golden necklace served as the ornament of princea
and as the mark of special favor from the king,
cf. Herod. , III. 20 ; Xenophon, Aimb., I. 2, 27 ;
5, 8 ; 8. 29.— And shall be the third ruler in
the kingdom ; rather, " shall have power in the
kingdom as a triumvir." 'P-r-;', not the same
as S«PbP, vs. 16 and 29, is generally regarded as
an ordinal number, "the third," formed aft«r
the. Heb. analogy, and is compared with the
more usual "'H'^iP ; but it may perhaps, and
with greater probability, be regarded, with Kran-
ichfeld, as a feminine adverbial formation after
the analogy of adverbs like n^O"JH, ''^.~.'*, etc.,
and be rendered accordingly, by like, or as a tri-
umvir ; while xri.ri in vs. 16 and 29 is the
corresponding masculine noun "triumvir"
(formed from srjp, "three"). There is there-
fore no difference in sense between the term
employed in this passage and those found in the
parallel verses cited above ; but it is unneces-
sary and arbitrary to declare, with Hitzig, that
the two forms are identical, and on that account
to substitute "'BiP in this place. The dignity
of triumvir which is here promised to the for-
tunate interpreter of the mystery is probably
not identical with the office of one of the three
governors of the province of Babylon mentioned
in chap. ii. 49, but designates the position of
one of the three chief governors over the whole
kingdom. The latter office is noticed in chap,
vi. 3, as established by Darius the Mede ; but
that statement may be regarded as merely indi-
cating the restorption of a feature in the admin-
istration of government which had already