Discovery BoxDaniel 5:10-11 
Context5:10 Due to the noise 1 caused by the king and his nobles, the queen mother 2 then entered the banquet room. She 3 said, “O king, live forever! Don’t be alarmed! Don’t be shaken! 5:11 There is a man in your kingdom who has within him a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, he proved to have 4 insight, discernment, and wisdom like that 5 of the gods. 6 King Nebuchadnezzar your father appointed him chief of the magicians, astrologers, wise men, and diviners. 7
1 tn Aram “words of the king.”
2 tn Aram “the queen” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). In the following discourse this woman is able to recall things about Daniel that go back to the days of Nebuchadnezzar, things that Belshazzar does not seem to recollect. It is likely that she was the wife not of Belshazzar but of Nabonidus or perhaps even Nebuchadnezzar. In that case, “queen” here means “queen mother” (cf. NCV “the king’s mother”).
3 tn Aram “The queen.” The translation has used the pronoun “she” instead because repetition of the noun here would be redundant in terms of English style.
4 tn Aram “[there were] discovered to be in him.”
5 tn Aram “wisdom like the wisdom.” This would be redundant in terms of English style.
6 tc Theodotion lacks the phrase “and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods.”
7 tc The MT includes a redundant reference to “your father the king” at the end of v. 11. None of the attempts to explain this phrase as original are very convincing. The present translation deletes the phrase, following Theodotion and the Syriac.
