Daniel 5

KJV · Chapter 5/12

¹Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

²Belshazzar, 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.

³Then 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.

⁴They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

⁵In 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.

⁶Then 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.

⁷The 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.

⁸Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

⁹Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.

¹⁰Now 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:

¹¹There 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;

¹²Forasmuch 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.

¹³Then 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?

¹⁴I 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.

¹⁵And 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:

¹⁶And 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.

¹⁷Then 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.

¹⁸O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour:

¹⁹And 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.

²⁰But 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:

²¹And 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.

²²And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this;

²³But 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:

²⁴Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.

²⁵And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

²⁶This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

²⁷TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

²⁸PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

²⁹Then 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.

³⁰In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

³¹And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

📖 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.