Daniel 5

BLIVRE · Chapter 5/12

¹O rei Belsazar fez um grande banquete a mil de seus maiorais, e bebeu vinho diante destes mil.

²Tendo Belsazar experimentado o vinho, mandou trazer os vasos de ouro e de prata que seu pai Nabucodonosor tirara do templo de Jerusalém, para que bebessem com eles o rei e seus maiorais, suas mulheres e suas concubinas.

³Então trouxeram os vasos de ouro que foram tirados do templo da casa de Deus, que estava em Jerusalém; e beberam com eles o rei e seus maiorais, suas mulheres e suas concubinas.

⁴Beberam vinho, e louvaram aos deuses de ouro e de prata, de bronze, de ferro, de madeira, e de pedra.

⁵Naquela mesma hora saíram dedos de uma mão de homem, e escreveram diante do castiçal na caiadura da parede do palácio real, e o rei viu parte da mão que estava escrevendo.

⁶Então o semblante do rei se mudou, e seus pensamentos o perturbaram; as juntas de seus lombos se desataram, e seus joelhos se bateram um com o outro.

⁷O rei clamou em alta voz que trouxessem astrólogos, caldeus, e adivinhos. O rei falou, e disse aos sábios da Babilônia: Qualquer um que ler esta escritura, e me mostrar sua interpretação, será vestido de púrpura, terá uma corrente de ouro a seu pescoço, e será o terceiro líder no reino.

⁸Então vieram todos os sábios do rei, mas não puderam ler a escritura, nem fazer saber ao rei sua interpretação.

⁹Então o rei Belsazar ficou muito perturbado, e se mudou seu semblante; seus maiorais estavam perturbados.

¹⁰A rainha, por causa das palavras do rei e de seus maiorais, entrou na casa do banquete. A rainha disse: Ó rei, vive para sempre! Não te perturbem teus pensamentos, nem se mude teu semblante.

¹¹Em teu reino há um homem no qual mora o espírito dos deuses santos; e nos dias de teu pai se achou nele luz, inteligência e sabedoria, como a sabedoria dos deuses; e teu pai, o rei Nabucodonosor (o rei, teu pai), o constituiu por príncipe sobre os magos, os astrólogos, os caldeus e os adivinhadores.

¹²Pois nele foi achado um espírito extraordinário, conhecimento, e entendimento, interpretando sonhos, resolvendo enigmas, e desfazendo dúvidas. Ele é Daniel, a quem o rei pôs por nome Beltessazar. Chame-se agora a Daniel, e ele mostrará a interpretação.

¹³Então Daniel foi trazido diante do rei. E o rei disse a Daniel: És tu aquele Daniel dos cativos de Judá, que meu pai trouxe de Judá?

¹⁴Pois tenho ouvido de ti que o espírito dos deuses está em ti, e que em ti se acha luz, entendimento e extraordinária sabedoria.

¹⁵E agora foram trazidos diante de mim sábios e astrólogos, para que lessem esta escritura, e me fizessem saber sua interpretação; mas eles não puderam mostrar a interpretação destas palavras.

¹⁶Eu, porém, tenho ouvido sobre ti que podes dar interpretações, e solucionar dúvidas. Agora, se puderes puderes ler esta escritura, e fazer-me saber sua interpretação, serás vestido de púrpura, corrente de ouro terás em teu pescoço, e serás o terceiro líder no reino.

¹⁷Então Daniel respondeu, e disse diante do rei: Fiquem contigo tuas dádivas, e dá teus presentes a outro; contudo lerei a escritura ao rei, e lhe farei saber a interpretação.

¹⁸Quanto a ti, ó rei, o Deus Altíssimo deu a teu pai Nabucodonosor o reino, a grandeza, a glória, e a majestade;

¹⁹E pela grandeza que ele lhe deu, todos os povos, nações, e línguas tremiam e temiam diante dele. Ele matava a quem queria, e concedia vida a quem queria; ele engrandecia a quem queria, e abatia a quem queria.

²⁰Mas quando seu coração se exaltou, e seu espírito se endureceu em soberba, ele foi deposto do trono de seu reino, e a glória lhe foi tirada.

²¹E foi expulso dentre os filhos dos homens; e sua mente se tornou semelhante à dos animais, e com asnos selvagens foi sua morada. Foi alimentado com erva tal como os bois, e seu corpo foi molhado com o orvalho do céu, até que entendeu que o Deus altíssimo tem o domínio sobre os reinos humanos, e constitui sobre eles a quem ele quer.

²²E tu, Belsazar, filho dele, não humilhaste teu coração, mesmo sabendo de tudo isto;

²³Em vez disso exaltaste a ti mesmo contra o Senhor do céu; pois trouxeram diante de ti os vasos de sua casa, e tu, teus maiorais, tuas mulheres e tuas concubinas, bebestes vinho neles; além disto, louvaste a deuses de prata, ouro, bronze, de ferro, madeira e pedra, que não veem, nem ouvem, nem têm conhecimento algum; porém ao Deus em cuja mão está tua vida e todos os teus caminhos, a ele não glorificaste;

²⁴Então dele foi enviada aquela parte da mão que esculpiu esta escritura.

²⁵E esta é a escritura que foi escrita: MENE, MENE, TEQUEL, PARSIM.

²⁶Esta é a interpretação daquilo: MENE: Contou Deus o teu reino, e o acabou.

²⁷TEQUEL: Pesado foste na balança, e foste achado em falta.

²⁸PERES: Dividido foi teu reino, e entregue aos a medos e aos persas.

²⁹Então Belsazar deu ordens, e vestiram a Daniel de púrpura, [puseram] uma corrente de ouro em seu pescoço, e anunciaram que ele seria o terceiro líder no reino.

³⁰Naquela mesma noite Belsazar, rei dos caldeus, foi morto.

³¹E Dario, o medo, tomou o reino, sendo da idade de sessenta e dois anos.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

King Belshazzar holds a profane banquet using the sacred vessels from the Jerusalem temple, when a mysterious hand writes on the wall words that only Daniel can interpret: Belshazzar's kingdom has been numbered, weighed, and divided. That very night, the king is killed and the kingdom falls to the Medes and Persians.

Explanation

The profane use of the sacred temple vessels, taken by Nebuchadnezzar decades earlier, represents the height of arrogance and spiritual disrespect, especially coming from someone who already knew the story of his predecessor's forced humbling (mentioned explicitly by Daniel in v.22). The mysterious writing ('Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin') uses words that were also names of units of weight and currency, creating a powerful wordplay: the king was literally being 'weighed' and found too light to continue reigning. Babylon's fall that very night to the Medo-Persian Empire is confirmed by independent historical records, showing how the announced judgment was fulfilled immediately, without delay.

Fun facts

Historical and archaeological records, including the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus Chronicle, confirm that Belshazzar was co-regent with his father Nabonidus, who was absent from the capital — which explains why Belshazzar could only offer the 'third place' in the kingdom (v.16), since the second place was already his own.
Babylon's fall to the Persians, led by the general Cyrus, is described by ancient historians such as Herodotus as having occurred through the diversion of the course of the Euphrates River, allowing troops to enter along the dry riverbed beneath the city walls.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Daniel 5:1Belshazzar, mentioned here as king, was in practice a co-regent while his father (or predecessor) Nabonidus was away from the capital — Babylonian records outside the Bible confirm this ruler’s historical existence.
Daniel 5:2Drinking wine from the gold vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem, toasting gods of metal and wood, was a deliberate act of disrespect: using a conquered people’s sacred objects as party goblets was a public way of humiliating them and asserting power.
Daniel 5:3Drinking from the sacred vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem, decades after Nebuchadnezzar had carried them off, is a gesture of calculated mockery: using a conquered people’s religious objects as ordinary party goblets.
Daniel 5:4Praising gods made of metal and wood right after drinking from vessels stolen from the temple sets up the contrast that will explode in the next verse, with the hand that writes on the wall.
Daniel 5:5The hand writes on the wall lit by a lampstand, likely so that every guest at the banquet could see the phenomenon the moment it happened, leaving no doubt about what was going on.
Daniel 5:6The physical description of the king’s panic, his ‘knees smote one against another,’ is far more graphic than usual in biblical narratives, a vivid way of showing that his terror was uncontrollable.
Daniel 5:7Offering the post of ‘third ruler in the kingdom’ makes sense within the real political structure: Belshazzar himself ruled as second, under his absent father, so third place was the highest rank he had the power to grant.
Daniel 5:8The repeated failure of the court’s wise men, already seen in chapters 2 and 4, reinforces a pattern in the book: every time Babylon’s methods of divination fail, that is exactly when Daniel enters the scene.
Daniel 5:9The panic now spreads from the king to the whole audience of nobles, showing that the mystery of the writing affected not only the man on the throne, but the entire elite gathered at the banquet.
Daniel 5:10This ‘queen’ was probably not Belshazzar’s wife, since his wives were already at the feast, but a queen mother or grandmother who remembered Nebuchadnezzar’s time, which explains why she knows of Daniel’s existence.
Daniel 5:11The queen’s description of Daniel — ‘an excellent spirit,’ able to interpret dreams and solve riddles — repeats the same kind of praise used about him back in chapter 2, decades earlier; the text suggests his reputation at court lasted across different reigns.
Daniel 5:12The queen lists the same qualities already mentioned about Daniel in earlier chapters, a sign that his reputation, built decades before under Nebuchadnezzar, was still remembered at court.
Daniel 5:13Calling Nebuchadnezzar ‘father’ of Belshazzar is probably an old way of saying ‘predecessor’ or ‘ancestor on the throne,’ since historical sources outside the Bible indicate that Belshazzar’s literal father was Nabonidus.
Daniel 5:14Belshazzar repeats almost word for word what the queen had already said about Daniel, confirming that he listened carefully to her recommendation before sending for him.
Daniel 5:15The king sums up, for Daniel himself, the wise men’s failure already narrated in the previous verses — a common device of repetition in the book’s Aramaic narrative style.
Daniel 5:16The offer of reward repeats almost exactly the promise made to the other wise men in verse 7 — Belshazzar does not change his strategy, only his candidate, now that the earlier methods have failed.
Daniel 5:17Turning down the gifts before even knowing the content of the message is a strong gesture: Daniel makes clear he will not soften the interpretation in exchange for reward, especially knowing the news will be bad.
Daniel 5:18Before reading the writing, Daniel goes back over Nebuchadnezzar’s whole history, including his fall and restoration in chapter 4, as necessary background for the judgment about to come against Belshazzar.
Daniel 5:19Describing Nebuchadnezzar’s absolute power over life and death sets up the following contrast: even a power that great was eventually brought down when the king’s heart filled with pride.
Daniel 5:20Daniel sums up in one sentence the whole episode of chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar’s fall through pride, as a direct argument that arrogance has consequences already demonstrated within Belshazzar’s own family.
Daniel 5:21Repeating the details of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, eating grass, living among wild animals, serves as a vivid reminder that Belshazzar knew this family history well and still failed to learn the lesson.
Daniel 5:22The central point of Daniel’s accusation is not only Belshazzar’s sin, but the fact that he knew his own father’s experience and still repeated the same mistake of arrogance.
Daniel 5:23Daniel builds the accusation as a direct contrast: gods of metal and wood ‘which see not, nor hear, nor know,’ against the living God who literally holds the king’s own breath in His hand.
Daniel 5:24Only after laying out the whole historical and moral background does Daniel finally return to the starting point: the hand that wrote on the wall, whose origin he now clearly attributes to God.
Daniel 5:25‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN’ is a wordplay in Aramaic built on terms of weight and measure: the text itself explains the meaning — numbered, weighed and found wanting, divided — without leaving the puzzle for the reader to solve.
Daniel 5:26‘Mene’ sounds like the Aramaic word for ‘to count’ or ‘to number’ — this sound-alike wordplay is part of how Daniel builds his interpretation of each mysterious word written on the wall.
Daniel 5:27‘Tekel’ points to the word for ‘to weigh,’ evoking the image of a market scale: Belshazzar’s reign was placed on the scales of divine judgment and ‘found wanting.’
Daniel 5:28‘Peres’ sounds like ‘to divide’ and also like the Aramaic word for the Persians — a single wordplay that both announces the kingdom’s division and names who will seize it.
Daniel 5:29Calling Nebuchadnezzar ‘father’ of Belshazzar is an old, looser use of the word, meaning ‘predecessor’ or ‘ancestor on the throne’ — historically, Belshazzar’s actual father was Nabonidus, not Nebuchadnezzar, but this way of speaking of earlier kings as ‘fathers’ was common in the region.
Daniel 5:30Belshazzar’s fall happens that same night of the banquet, with no gap at all between Daniel’s warning and its fulfillment — one of the swiftest judgments narrated in the whole book.
Daniel 5:31‘Darius the Median’ is one of the most debated historical figures in the book: there is no clear outside record of a Persian king by that exact name reigning right after Babylon’s fall, and various proposals try to identify him with other known rulers of the period — the matter remains unresolved among historians.