cf. on chap. iL 39), are thus brought into prom
Inence, is not contradicted by chap. vi. 1. where
Daiius the Mede is mentioned as the first foreign
ruler over Babylon after the Chalda^an dynasty
was overthrown. The actual state of affairs
compelled the author to represent that at that
time Media stOl held the same rank as Persia, at
least formally and ofiicially, and at first ever
gave a dynasty and name to the whole empire ;
and this was done with sufficient clearness by
the mention of the Medes before the Persians in
this verse. *
Verses 29 and 30. Tlie mnseqvertces. Then
commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed
Daniel; rather, "and caused Daniel to be
clothed." The literal rendering is, " Then said
Belshazzar, and they clothed," etc. ; a similar
construction as in chap. ii. 49; iv. 17, 25. In
the Heb llli^sb^] (fut. "with "cav convers. — cf.
Neh. xUi. 9 ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 8 ; Jon. ii. 11),
rather than =ni;'^2b~T would have corresponded
to =l-3bn"l. The enrobing is therefore to be re-
garded as immediately succeeding the command,
and Hiivemick's opinion, that "the sudden
death of the king prevented the execution of
his design," is evidently wide of the narrator's
meaning The opinion that the prophet was in-
vested with the royal insignia of the purple and
the necklace on the same evening, involves no
questionable feature, which could lead us to re-
fer the execution of the king's command to the
following day (Dereser). or even to regard L~j
whole incident .as improbable (Hitzig, etc. ) ; but
rather, the immedinte bestowal of the promised
marks of favor and honor harmonizes fully with
the oriental despotic methods of admini-stering
government and justice, which under different
circumstances observed the most rapid modes
of executing punishment (see chap. iii. 0, 20 et
seq. ). The " public announcement" of the pro-
motion which had taken place (the verb '13 =
Sanscrit kriis, Ktmi-rciv, signifies to proclaim
piiblidy. as was shown on chap. iii. 4), in the
same night and in every street by means of
heralds, is however an unjustified demand which
the closing words of v. 29 by no means involve.
The solemnity in question may have been con-
fined to the range of the royal pa'.ace, and even
♦ ["In the namins of the Median before the Per-sian then
lies a notable proof of the genuineness of this narrative;
for the hegemony of the Medes was of a very short duration,
ai:d after its overthrow by the Persians the form of expre*
.sion used is always ' Perfiian>s aitd iifclen.' as is found in tb»
book of Esther."' — A'cif.l
CHAP. V. 1-30.
13?
to the banquet hall (which, acoordiDg to v. 1.
must be regarded as an extended building, and
as filled with an extraordinary multitude). —
Concerning the probable motive (namely, be-
cause his God and Lord was thus honored) \
which induced Daniel, despite his former refusal,
to accept the expressions of the royal favor, see
on V. 17. In connection with this, the assump-
tion is still admissilile, that any protest which
the prophet may have offered, remained without
effect, in view of the stormj' haste of the king in
his alarm, and was lost an::d the acclamations
and the nois.v conversation of the excited throng.
Of. Jerome : " Accepit aut.em (Daniel) iiisigne re-
gium, torguem et purpuram, lit Darim, qui erat
suceessnrun in regnum, fleret notior et per noti-
tiam hiinoratior. Nee niirum, si Baltasar,
audiens tristia, solverit prwmium, quod jtoUicitiis
est. Aut enim longo post tempore credidit Ven-
tura, quce dixerat, aut dum Dei Proplietnm
Imiwrat, sperat se veniam co/iseeuturum." — Verse
SO. In that night was Belshazzar, the king
of the Chaldaeans, slain — evidently through a
conspiracy of a number of his magnates, which
may have existed previously, but svhich did not
attempt the execution of its design, untU the
interpretation of the mysterious writing by
Daniel gave the conspirators courage. Only
this opinion seems to be justified by the lan-
guage of this passage and by the context,* to
the exclusion of the more general view, by
which the king was slain at the hands of the
victorious Medo-Persians, who are supposed to
have taken the city on that night, and by which
Belshazzar is in consequence identified with
Nabonidus, the last Chald;ean king — ah of which
ie based on a combination of Isa. xvi. ; xxi. 5 ;
Jer. li. 39; and of Xenophon, Cyrifp. vii. 5, 15
et seq.; Herodotus, I. 190, etc., with this nar-
rative. The latter view has recently been de-
fended, especially by Hengsteuberg (p. 325 et
seq.), Keil (Einl., p. 417), Havernick, etc., and
also by nearly all the rationalistic expositors and
critics (also by Stiihelin, Sinl. ins A. ?'., p. 350
et seq. ), and is certainlv supported by the open-
ing verse of chap. vL , m case it be immediately
connected with the one before us, as is done by
the writers named. It is however more than
questionable whether this arrangement corre-
sponds to the conception and design of the
author; for (1) the words, "And Darius the
Median took the kingdom," together with the
subjoined reference to his age, " being about
threescore and two years old," seems intended
to introduce the narrative concerning Darius and
his relations to the Babylonian dynasty, much
rather than to close that relating to Belshazzar.
(2) Berosus and Abydenus relate nothing of a
taki:«g of Babylon while a luxurious banquet,
held by the last Chaldaean king and his mag-
nates, was in progress, as the tradition of Xeno-
phoL and Herodotus asserts (cf. Introd. § 8,
note 3, and especially the extracts from Kranich-
feld on this question there adduced). (3) Bero-
Bus, in Josephus, Ant. x. 11, 1, does not, indeed,
Btato that Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king.
*[The requirements of the lungiiage are obviously met
quite as well by the presumption that the king fell that
Bame night together with his emjiire, and s(» the author c.an-
?idly admits a little further ou. although himself liriveu to
•.lother -lew by tils preconceived theory of the identity of
Belliaa££iir with £viI-merodach,l
became the victim of a conspiracy, but he does
ascribe that fate to Evil-merodach, the immediata
successor of his father Xebuchaduezzar (cf. vs.
11, 13, 18, 22). The conspiracy in the case of
the latter was headed by Xeriglissar, the brother-
in-law of the king, and removed the latter under
circumstances entirely similar to those under
which Belshazzar is said by our passage to hare
been slain, by murderers whose names are not
given. The identity of the latter with Evil-
merodach thtis becomes highly probable (cf.
Introd. 1. c). (4) Finally, the prophecy of the
mysterious writing in v. 25, which transfers the
Chaldaean empire to the hands of the Medes and
Persians, does not oppose, but it rather furors,
the mode of division we advocate, on which an
entirely new section begins with chap. vi. 1. For
precisely as in chap. ii. 38, 39, Nebuchadnezzar,
the head of gold, appears flr.st as an individual,
and then as identified with his dynasty and aa
the representative of the Babylonian world-king-
dom, so Belshazzar appears first under the con-
ception of a single person — in the words,
"numbered, numbered, weighed" — but after-
ward as identified with his kingdom, in th"
closing prediction expressed by 0~S or VP^.B
The interval of perhaps 22-2-1 years which thns
falls between his own destruction and that of
his kingdom, will, in view of the recognized per-
spective character of all nrophecy, appear no
more questionable than the stiU greater number
of years which, according to that earlier predic-
tion, were to elapse betsveen the death of
Nebuchadnezzar and the ruin of his dynasty.
Similar groupings of immediate with more dis-
tant events are frequent in the O.-T. prophecies ;
a particularly noteworthy and instructive instance
of which fact may be found in the remarkable
prophecy to the wife of Jeroboam by Ahijah of
Shiloh in 1 Kings xiv. , that comprehends three
distinct events, between which extended inter-
vals intervene : (1 ) The death of the sick prince,
Abijah"(vs. 12, 13) ; (2) the overthrow of Jero-
boam's dynasty, more than 28 years later (vs.
10, 14 ; cf. 1 kings xv. 29 et seq.) ; (3) the ruin
of the kingdom of Israel, which did not transpire
until two centuries afterward (v. 1 5 et seq. ; cf .
2 Kings xvii. ). The fundamental law of all
Messianic typology, by which later events are
grouped organically with earlier ones, and by
which one and the same guilty act conditions a
succession of Divine judgments in the course of
developments, underlies this collocation in the
perspective vision of a single prophecy. " The
cause of the sad end of the kingdom of the ten
tribes existed already in the beginning made and
cultivated by Jeroboam, two and a half centuries
before ; the fate that extinguishes the house
of Jeroboam is at bottom the same which de-
stroys the kingdom of the ten tribes. Jero-
boam's sin destroys his dynasty and his king-
dom ; for this reason the destruction of both is
comprehended in the same prophecy, and not
merely because the destruction of the dynasty
coincides with that of the kingdom" (Kianich-
feld ; cf. also Biihr, on 1 Kings chap, xiv p. 148
* (The weakness of these arguments is obvious, and in-
deed seems to have been apparent to the writer hiiiiHeif. TiM
eoUatA.'ral considerations which he adduces i-elow are tor
vague to support a tlieory so plainly at vuriance with tlu
tenor of the text and its comii*ctiuDa.]
i:ii
THE PROPHET DANIEL.
of vol. 7 of ibe Bibelicerk). Substantially the
same principles apply to the predictions of evil
lenounoed by our prophet against Nebuchad-
lezzar and his kingdom, and against Belshazzar
md his kingdom. The connection of widely
.eparate everts which they embody, is natural
md orgauically necessary ; and therefore the re-
erence to tin> events of fulfilment, although
i eparate in point of time, upon which we insist,
Lnvolves no arbitrary features. — The assertion
of Keil (Eiid. 1. c. ) that if the two events were
cot coincident, the author would have been re-
quired to -state, in chap. vi. 1, how the second
fact in the fulfilment stands related to the first,
or, in other words, "when and how the tr.ins-
mission of the kingdom to the Medes and Per-
sians came to pass," is entirely uncalled for, and
is opposed by the analogy of Ahijah's oracle,
whose final and complete realization by the
overthrow of Israel, is likewise not exj)r(:ssly
noticed ; and in addition the inere mention of
the taking of Babylon by Darius is a sufficient
indication of the anti-typical relation of that
event to chap. v. 25-38. The annexed reference
to the age of Darius seems rather to indicate a
reference to a period considerably later, than a
design to designate the particular night in which
Belshazzar was slain as falling in the sixty-
second year of Darius. There was certainly no
apparent motive for the .author to make a chron-
ological statement of this sort. — In relation to
the peculiar opinion of Ebrard (Die Offenhdrung
Johitnnii ei-kUirt, p. 53 et seq. ), that chap. v. 80
together with chap. vi. 1, refers to the overthrow
of Laborasoarchad, the grandson and third suc-
ce.ssor of Nebuchadnezzar, by Nabonidus (=
Darius the Jlede), see on chap. vi. 1 et seq. (cf.
supra Introd. § 8, notes 3 and 4).
Ethico-fundamental principles related
to the history of salvation, apolo-
GETICAL remarks, and HOMILETICAL SUG-
GESTIONS.
} . The principal object in an apologetic point
of view wQl have been realized in this section,
whenever the identity of Belshazzar with Evil-
merodach is established, and when, in conse-
quence, the repeated designation of Nebuchad-
nezzar as his father (vs. 11, 13, 18, 23), the cor-
respondence of the mode of his sudden and vio-
lent death (v. 30) with that attested by Berosus
with regard to Evil-merodach, and the accession
of Darius the Mede to the throne of Babylon at
a period considerably later, shall have been
properly substantiated. After what has been
observed upon this question on v. 30, and also
in the Introd. (§ 8, note 3), it only remains to
examine the question, " In how far does the
naiTative yield to the tendency-critical attempts
to represent it as a romantic fiction of the Mac-
cabiean age ? "—According to Bleek (Einl. §
2')(i), V. Lengerke (Dnnid, p. 241 et seq., p.
250) and others, the story was inspired by the
plundering of the temple .at Jerusalem by Anti-
ochus Epiphanes in the year B. C. ll>8, and
above a year before the MaccabaJan revolt. The
Virutal manner in which the Syrian king at that
<ime penetrated into the temple of Jehovah,
»nd seized, with polluted hands, the golden
lavers and other sacred vessels (1 Mace. i. 21 el
seq.; 2 Maco. v. 15 et seq.). is said to have led
the pseudo-Daniel to compose this history, and
" by the fate of Belshazzar to warn the Syrian
monarch, that a similar Divine judgment would
be visited on him, because of his sacrilege."
But the narrative concerning the Seleucidse and
the Maccabees makes no mention of a luxurious
banquet, such as a sacrificial feast, at which
anything transpired that would at all compare
with the profanation of the sacred vessels, as
described in this chapter ; and the only remain-
ing parallel between the passages cited from 1st
and 2d Maccabees, and Dan. i. 2 (cf. v. 2), is
surely insufficient to justify the adoption of the
charge that the history was invented to further
a tendency ! Any other embellishment of the
sacrilege that took place at that time would
certainly have been more appropriate than the
one here offered, which does not charge the in-
solent spoiler of the temple with venting his
frivolous pride on the stolen relics, but reserves
this for his son aiid successor! The tendency-
narrator might well be charged with clumsiness,
if he had represented his Epiphanes-Belshazzar
as not merely easy to be excited and capable
of contrition and repentance while influenced
by terror, but also as promising and conferring
the highest dignities and honors of his kingdom
upon a zealous theocrat and prophet of Jehovah.
The circumstance that such a theocrat is per-
mitted to accept such honors and rewards (v.
29) nnthout further question, is likewise in
strange contrast with the rigid monotheism and
anti- Hellenistic fanaticism of the Judaism of
Maccaba;an times, as whose representative the
author is said to have written, and for which
his work is alleged to have been designed (cf.
1 Mace. i. 24 ; Dan. xi. 28). — In no wise superior
to this theory of the date of the history, as ad-
vocated by Bleek and v. Lengerke, is the asser-
tion of Hitzig, that although this section was
not composed before the revolt of the Asmo-
najans, it yet originated in the first year aftcj
that rising took place, immediately after and in
consequence of the magnificent feasts which
Antiochus Epiphanes held in B. C. 166 near
Daphne, when, besides splendid games and lux-
urious banquets, there was a solemn procession
in the presence of many ladies of the highest,
as well as of lower rank, in which " the images
of all conceivable gods were carried, together
with an incredible number of golden and silver
vessels." If the report by Polybius (1. 31, cp,
3, 4) respecting those festivities be carefully ex-
amined, it will reveal a most marked discrepancy
between the historical original and the supposed
copy, which was framed after it \>y the alleged
pseudo-Daniel. Polybius does not mention the
sacrilegious use during those feasts of sacred
vessels belonging to the temple with a single
syllable. He states indeed that the expense
connected with those festivities was chiefly met
out of the treasures stolen from various temples
— but from Kijyptian temples, which the pseudo-
Daniel would assuredly have placed in the cate-
gory of the vain "gods of gold, silver, brass,
iron, wood, and stone" (vs. 4, 23), and whose
desecration he would have been more ready to
applaud than to censure. But beyond all this,
Polybius reveals no trace of a knowledge that
the wild festivities were interrupted by a terrify
CHAP. V. 1-30.
135
ing incident, which compelled the proud Syrian
king to recognize the judicial interference of
Buperior Divine power ; nor of any inclination
on the part of that prince to honor and promote
the prophet who opposed him with earnest cen-
sure, despite his boldness ; nor yet of a course
on the part of the heroic Jewish defender of his
faith towards the heathen ruler, which, al-
though not slavishly subservient, was yet cour-
teous, and mindful of the obedience due from a
subject to his superior. But if such a meeting
between a Je^vish zealot and the proud Anti-
ochus, who was fanatically devoted to his Hel-
lenistic faith in the gods, had transpired during
a public feast in the Maccabfean age, a materi-
ally different kind of incidents might have been
looked for, from that described in this chapter.
Both the i'-cpji(favia and (ppovoKTovta of the blood-
thirsty tyrant, and the defiance inspired by
faith, prepared for conflict, and careless of
death, which was characteristic of the martyr of
the theocracy who was engaged in an open re-
volt against the despot, would have been brought
into collision in a manner entirely different from
anything found in the report of Polybius —
which contains no mention whatever of such an
.nterruption during the feasts of Daphne — and
also from the description found in our alleged
tendency-forgerj'. The latter, if it were really
the work of a pseudological apocalyptist of the
Alaccabsan times, would, without any doubt
ivhatever, have presented to our notice persons
of the stamp of Matthias (1 Mace. ii. 2, 18 et
seq. ), Judas and Simon Maccabeus (ibid, chap,
iii. 1 et seq. ), and Eleazar |2 Mace, vi.) as op-
ponents of the raging heathen, instead of a man
like Daniel. A narrative of the kind before us,
as respects its contents and progress, would be
wholly inconceivable as a product of the ortho-
dox Palestinian Judaism of the year B. C. ICG,
and would rank as an unequalled historical
monstrosity.
2. Accordingly, if confidence may be placed
in the pre-Maccabajan, and, what amounts to
the same thing, in the Babylonian origin of the
history during the captivity, it will be possible
for that very reason to examine the miracle of
the mysteriously introduced hand which traced
the writing, as here recoi:ied, without being re-
strained by sceptical considerations. It will not
be necessary to inquire in this connection, hoio
such a thing could take place, but merely,
w/iet/ter and why ^uch an event was itecensai'y. —
The necessity for a miraculous announcement
to Belshazzar of the impending judgment was
co: ^tioned by the fact that hLs impious conduct
had reached an intolerable height when he de-
secrated the sacred vessels of Jehovah's temple
to a common use, and exposed them to the
ridicule of a besotted heathen mob, and also
that it threatened danger to the faith in Jeho-
vah of the community of exiles. If such an
act of presumption was permitted to pass with-
out being Divinely censured and punished, it
might certainly be expected that not only the
last spark of reverence for the mighty God of
the Jews would fade from the consciousness of
the royal officials and the Babylonian population,
but that the faithful adherence of the Jewish
captives to their confession would gradually
lose its firmness, and give way to a tendency to
favor the idolatrous worship of the Babylonians,
and to adopt their luxurious, dissipated, and
immoral mode of life. Dangers such as these
are described, in a realizing manner, in the
second part of Isaiah (see xlvi. et seq.; Ivii. 5
et seq.; Ixv. 3 et seq.; Iviii. 2 et seq.; lix. 3
et seq. Cf. supra, Introd. g 1, note 1); and
it appears from the penitential prayer of
our prophet in chap. ix. , that they existed
for his people, and threatened the continu-
ance of the theocracy and its Messianic faith,
while in the land of exile. With regard to them
it became imperatively necessary that a stem
example should be made of the presumptuous
king, while giving utterance to his witticisms
and blasphemies, and while surrounded by the
sycophants of his court and the women of his
harem, that thus the name of the only true God
might be brought powerfully to the recollection
of all, and that an emphatic testimc«i3', coupled
with an immediate execution of the threat,
might be borne against the impious conduct ot
the idolaters. Such a testimony, however,
could only possess sufficient weight if it were
demonstrated to be absolutely miraculous, ad-
mitting of no natural explanation {i.e., for the
purpose of destroying its supernatural force),
and transpiring under the observation of all who
were present. For this reason all the various
attempts to limit the incomprehensible character
of the incident, that have been made by modem
expositors since M. Geier, are to be rejected,
without exception; e.g., the assumption of
Geier, which decidedly conflicts with v. 8, that
the writing was visible to the king .and Daniel,
but to no others (similarly Calvin remarks that
the Chaldteans were all smitten with blindness—
" itd acteaitos fuiixe, nt tidendo non HdcviiU") ,
the coarsely naturalistic attempt at explanation
made by Bertholdt, that the hostile party of the
king's courtiers, who were in league with the
Medo-Persian besiegers of the city, produced
the writing in a purely natural manner, but gave
a mysterious appearance to the transaction, in
order "to gratify their malice and over-confi-
dence, by announcing his last hour to the victim
of their treason ; " and finally, the psychological-
visionary mode of interpretation, advocated in
the last century by Liiderwald, and more re-
cently by Kranichfeld — the latter by means of
an attempt to transfer the miraculous feature to
the imagination of the king (cf. his observation
on V. 8, p. 221 : "How and when during the
hilarious banquet the writing itself was traced
on the wall, was of no importance to the author,
as the wonderful feature was alone significant
for his purpose, that the king should obseiye, at
the moment of the blasphemous act by which he
ridiculed the God of Israel, the hand which
wrote the sentence that changed the confident
humor of the idolater into anxious fear "). In
opposition to these naturalizing interpretations,
and especially to the one last mentioned, see the
remarks on v. 5, and compare Buddeus, Iluit.
ecci. V. Tent., II p. 508: " Verum qnis non videt,
hec omnia ad mernit conjecturn^ redire, qticB
eadem rejiciunUir fiiHlitate. qvti afferuntur. Sa-
tiim itoqiiefiierit, in ii.t my/iiii'.icd'e. g>i(e Daniel
ipse de haa re tnididtrit, scripturam srii. ita com-
parntam fuisse, ut sapientes et magi, etn earn vide-
rent (v. 8), non tnmen legere, midto minus inter-
pretari putverint ; Danielem autem earn ita a
legere et interpretari potuiase, ut rex ipse itatin
lae
THE i-ROPHET DANIEL.
contitceretur, leclumem iettim atque interpreta-
tioneirt Tcram esse." Also cf. Pfeiffer, Dubia rel-
ate, p. 503 SB., and Starke, Synops. on the pass-
age.
3. In accordance with this, the homiletical
treatment of the section is chiefly concerned
with the miracle of the writing and its mys-
terious origin and contents, as the central point
of the narrative, and also of its theological and
ethical importance. As in the preceding chap-
ter the object of the narrative was to show tliat
" pride goeth before destruction," so the aim
here is to illustrate the ' ' judgments that are
prepared for scorners " (Prov. xix. 29), the
"snare" into which "they bring the whole
city" (Prov. xxix. 8), the " non-iinmunity from
punishment of the blasphemers of the Divine
Wisdom " (Wisd. i. 6). Cf. Psa. i. I ; Jer. xv.
1 7 ; Prov. xiii. 1 ; xiv. 6 ; xxiv. 9 ; also Ec-
^us. xxvii. 28 : " Mockery and reproach are
■ I'rom the proud ; but vengeance as a lion shall
lie in wait for them ; " Psa. Ixxil 4 : " He shall
break in pieces the oppressor " (or blasphemer) ;
1 Cor. V. 10 . "Nor revUers . . . shall inherit
the kingdom of God,"— and other oracles di-
rected against the re%-iling and blasjftieming of
the Holy One, which may afford a theme for a
homiletical treatment of the section as a whole.
Starke is therefore correct in designating as the
leading features of the narrative " Belshazzar's
transgression and his puEishment." Cf. Geior's
arrangement of subjects in this chapter : " (1)
Regiuia flayilium (v. 1-4) ; (2) subseqxiens por-
tentiim (v. 5, 6); (i) porientiinterpretamentnm,