Discovery Box

Daniel 5:1

Belshazzar Sees Mysterious Handwriting on a Wall

5:1 King Belshazzar¹ prepared a great banquet² for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in front of³ them all.⁴

Daniel 5:5

Context

5:5 At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared⁵ and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand.⁶ The king was watching the back⁷ of the hand that was writing.

Daniel 5:30

Context
5:30 And in that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king,⁸ was killed.⁹

¹sn As is clear from the extra-biblical records, it was actually Nabonidus (ca. 556-539 B.C.) who was king of Babylon at this time. However, Nabonidus spent long periods of time at Teima, and during those times Belshazzar his son was de facto king of Babylon. This arrangement may help to explain why later in this chapter Belshazzar promises that the successful interpreter of the handwriting on the wall will be made third ruler in the kingdom. If Belshazzar was in effect second ruler in the kingdom, this would be the highest honor he could grant.

²sn This scene of a Babylonian banquet calls to mind a similar grandiose event recorded in Esth 1:3-8. Persian kings were also renowned in the ancient Near Eastern world for their lavish banquets.

³sn The king probably sat at an elevated head table.

⁴tn Aram “the thousand.”

⁵tn Aram “came forth.”

⁶sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.

⁷tn While Aramaic פַּס (pas) can mean the palm of the hand, here it seems to be the back of the hand that is intended.

⁸tn Aram “king of the Chaldeans.”

⁹sn The year was 539 B.C. At this time Daniel would have been approximately eighty-one years old. The relevant extra-biblical records describing the fall of Babylon include portions of Herodotus, Xenophon, Berossus (cited in Josephus), the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Babylonian Chronicle.

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