--- title: "Daniel 5 - Study King James Bible with the church pulpit commentary" description: "Read Daniel 5 with the church pulpit commentary commentary. 1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commande" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5" --- [ Read](/kjv/daniel/5)[ Commentary](/study/daniel/5)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/daniel/5) Audio 1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 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.** 3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which *was* at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in 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 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. 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.*** 7 The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. *And* the king spake, and said to the wise *men* of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and *have* a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.** 8 Then came in all the king’s wise *men:* but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. 9 Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.* 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: 11 There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom *is* the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, *I say*, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, *and* soothsayers;* 12 Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.*** 13 Then was Daniel brought in before the king. *And* the king spake and said unto Daniel, *Art* thou that Daniel, which *art* of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry?* 14 I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods *is* in thee, and *that* light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee. 15 And now the wise *men*, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not shew the interpretation of the thing: 16 And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and *have* a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.* 17 ¶ Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation.* 18 O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour: 19 And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. 20 But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:** 21 And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling *was* with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and *that* he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.* 22 And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; 23 But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath *is*, and whose *are* all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: 24 Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. 25 ¶ And this *is* the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. 26 This *is* the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. 27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. 28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. 29 Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and *put* a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. 30 ¶ In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. 31 And Darius the Median took the kingdom, *being* about threescore and two years old.** [Daniel 4](/study/daniel/4) [Daniel 6](/study/daniel/6) ## Commentary To verse 1 *BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST* **‘A great feast.’** ** [Daniel 5:1](/kjv/daniel/5/1)** ****I. The seat of the scorner.**—We see in this narrative that Belshazzar had, in the pursuit of a sinful course, reached this seat. He was a man of an entirely different character from the Nebuchadnezzar of the previous lesson, who was not his literal father, but his predecessor on the Babylonian throne. You can discern a marked difference in the bearing of Daniel to him and in his bearing towards this predecessor. He spoke to Nebuchadnezzar with the utmost respect and reverence, but there is curtness and a tinge of contempt in his words to his successor. ‘Let thy gifts be to thyself, and thy rewards to another’ ( [Daniel 5:17](/kjv/daniel/5/17)). He had not the same attachment to the one that he had felt towards the other. Belshazzar lacked any force or strength of character, and appears to have been a man given up to sensual pleasures. This is shown in his arranging a carousal in his capital when an enemy not to be despised was approaching its gates. This reveals a character which such a man as Daniel would regard with contempt. When, during the carousal, his nature was inflamed with his indulgence, he got the idea into his head of using the sacred vessels that had been brought from the Temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. He at once gave orders that they should be brought and take the place of the others that until now had been employed at the banquet. He evidently imagined that he would in this way show the superiority of the Babylonian gods over the God of the Jews who had been conquered. It was a piece of foolish bravado, behind which there was the spirit of the scorner. He scorned the religion of Jehovah, after His supremacy had been impressively revealed in the tragic experience of Nebuchadnezzar. He had scorned not in ignorance, but in the face of the light that had in this remarkable manner come to him. **II. A dark shadow.**—A dark shadow was cast upon the feast just when the revelry had reached its height, and the sacred vessels filled with wine were being circulated among the guests. It was brought by a mysterious hand that appeared and wrote some words on the wall of the banqueting chamber which were not understood. It would appear from the narrative that the prince alone noticed that mysterious hand at this work. Along with the sacred vessels, the golden lamp-stand that had lighted the holy place of the Temple at Jerusalem had been brought, and had been placed, with its lamps burning, against the wall opposite to where the prince sat. It was on the wall behind it that the mysterious words were written with the strange hand. His guilty conscience was stirred, and made him tremble all over. He felt that some announcement of an ominous kind was being made to him by that God in Whose service the lamp-stand had been used. His bravado left him, and terror took hold of him. He could no longer enjoy his carousal. Conscience in the wicked has but to be awakened, as it was now in him, to spoil all their pleasure and to fill them with fear. It brings a dark shadow over them. **III. The message interpreted.**—The hand, after doing its work, disappeared, but the writing remained. Belshazzar at once summoned all the magi at his court, and pointing them to the words, asked them to give the interpretation of them. He promised a rich reward to the one who would succeed. But they were all baffled. The words were in a vocabulary with which they were entirely unacquainted. This failure, surrounding the words with all the greater mystery, increased the trouble and fear of the prince. When Daniel, at the suggestion of the queen-mother, was summoned, he at once told him what the meaning of the message was. It was an intimation that the power which he had received from God and had abused was to be taken from him, and that he himself was to be punished. He had lifted himself against God, Who had warned him in the experience of Nebuchadnezzar, ‘in Whose hand his life was, and Whose were all his ways,’ and so the time of his reign was at an end, and his power would pass into other hands. **IV. The message fulfilled.**—That very night the city of Babylon was taken by Darius and the Median army, and this scornful prince was slain ( [Daniel 5:30-31](/kjv/daniel/5/30-31)). While he had been pursuing his sinful course, the instrument of his punishment, found in this Median army, was being prepared. When the culminating point was reached, the instrument was ready and at hand to do its dreadful work. It is ever the same with sinning individuals or sinning communities that slight the Divine warnings and resist the light that is given to them. **Illustrations** (1) ‘Revelry, always out of place, is especially ill-timed when, as here, there is an enemy at the gates. One who was in Paris during the siege of 1870–1 tells us that in a shop a few yards off from a bursting shell he saw a child that had been sent out to buy a pack of cards. To *revelry* was here added very daring *profanity*. To drink wine openly out of the Temple vessels that represented so much of the mutual love of God and His people, vessels that were wont to be handled and guarded so tenderly, was to defy to His very face that great God of Israel Whose fame had come to all peoples.’ (2) ‘In a thousand ways we are all numbered and weighed every day. People, as we say, take our measure; they figure us up; they reckon us of more or less account, as men that come up to expectation and rise to our opportunities, or as “bad ha’-pennies,” disappointing, not to be trusted, found wanting. Every one of us is written all over; there is something in our faces, our eyes, our mouths, our voices, our hands, our writing, our walk, our desks, our houses, that “brands us of whose fold we be.” Thus the Clerk in Tennyson’s “Sea Dreams” pursued his master down the street, and far away “Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, Read rascal in the motions of his back, And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.” But it is, after all, a small thing to be judged of a man’s judgment. What does God say and write about us?—that is the question. And it is a fearful thing to be tried by Him and found wanting, to be stripped by Him of our bishopric, and to see our work and our talents and our opportunities given to others. “Let no man take thy crown.” ’ ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5","name":"Daniel 5 - Study King James Bible with the church pulpit commentary","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Daniel 5 with the church pulpit commentary commentary. 1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commande","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary","name":"the church pulpit commentary"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel","name":"Daniel"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/daniel/5","name":"5"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```