Daniel 5 - Introduction

BELSHAZZAR's FEAST

While Belshazzar and his lords are at a feast, impiously drinking their wine from cups which had belonged once to the Temple at Jerusalem, the fingers of a man's hand appear writing upon the wall. The king, in alarm, summons his wise men to interpret what was written; but they are unable to do so (Daniel 5:1). At the suggestion of the queen Daniel is called, who interprets the words to signify that the days of Belshazzar's kingdom are numbered, and that it is about to be given to the Medes and Persians (Daniel 5:10). Daniel is invested with purple and a chain of gold, and made one of the three chief ministers of the kingdom (Daniel 5:29). The same night Belshazzar is slain, and "Darius the Mede" receives the kingdom (Daniel 5:30).

Nearly 70 years have elapsed since the events narrated in ch. 1.; so that Daniel must now be pictured as an aged man, at least 80 years old.

On Belshazzar, see the Introduction. Nebuchadnezzar reigned from b.c. 604 to 561; and Babylon fell into the hands of Cyrus 23 years after his death, b.c. 538. The inscriptions have made it clear that Belshazzar was not king of Babylon, as he is here represented as being: Nabu-na'id (who reigned for 17 years, from 555 to 538) was the last king of Babylon; Belshazzar is called regularly "the king's son," and he bore this title to the day of his death. For a series of years, during his father's reign, he is mentioned as being with the army in the country of Akkad (N. Babylonia). AfterGubaru and Cyrus had entered Babylon, and governors had been established by them in the city, he is said (according to the most probable reading [253]) to have been slain by Gubaru -during the night," i.e. (apparently) in some assault made by night upon the fortress or palace to which he had withdrawn. Nabu-na'id was a quiet, unwarlike king; and Belshazzar, as general, may have distinguished himself, at the time when Cyrus took possession of Babylon, in such a manner as to eclipse his father, with the result that in the imagination of later ages he was himself regarded as -king" of Babylon.

[253] See above, p. xxx, ll. 22, 23.

Nebuchadnezzar in ch. 4 was the personification of pride: Belshazzar is the personification of profanity as well; and his fall is all the more tragic and complete: in a single night the brilliant revel is changed, first into terror and bewilderment, and then into disaster and death. Herodotus (i. 191), and Xenophon (Cyrop.vii. Daniel 5:15-31), testify to the existence of a tradition that Babylon was taken by Cyrus during the night, while the inhabitants were all feasting. This tradition is shewn now by the inscriptions (p. xxxi) to be unhistorical, at least in the form in which these writers report it; but it is, of course, not impossible that Belshazzar was holding a feast in the night on which he was slain by Gubaru. Even, however, though this may have been the case, there are features in the representation of the present chapter which so conflict with history as to make it evident that we are not dealing with an account written by a contemporary hand, but with a narrative, constructed doubtless upon a basis supplied by tradition, but written, as a whole, for the purpose of impressing a moral lesson. Those who regard the Book as dating from the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes often think that the chapter may be intended indirectly to allude to him: his audacity and impiety are mentioned pointedly in Daniel 8:10-11; Daniel 11:36-38; in 1Ma 1:21-24 we read that he -entered proudly into the sanctuary" and robbed it of the golden altar, and most of the other sacred vessels; and so it is thought that the fate which is elsewhere (Daniel 8:25; Daniel 11:45) distinctly predicted for the impious Syrian prince, is here indirectly hinted at by the nemesis which overtakes the profanity of Belshazzar.