Read Daniel 5 and 6 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
Dan 5:1-7 {s} Belshazzar’s feast + blasphemy against YHVH/ the writing on the wall + Beshazzar’s fear
Dan 5:8-12 {p} The king’s wise men could not explain the meaning, but Daniel was sent for to explain it
Dan 5:13-16 {p} Daniel brought in/ Belshazzar asked for the explanation + promised rewards
Dan 5:17-30 {p} Daniel’s interpretation: Belshazzar’s kingdom given to Media-Persia/ that night he was slain
Dan 5:31-6:5 {s} Darius the Mede made Daniel governor/ the jealousy of the governors + satraps
Dan 6:6-10 {s} Darius’ decree determined by his governors + advisors in order to bring a charge against Daniel
Dan 6:11-28 {p} Daniel accused/ the king’s remorse/ the lion’s den/ his deliverance, his accusers suffer his fate
Dan 5 chiastic structure:
1a) Dan 5:1-4, Belshazzar the king made a great feast/ mocked YHVH + praised Babylonian idols;
1b) Dan 5:5-6, A man’s hand appeared + wrote on the wall/ the king saw it + fear gripped him;
1c) Dan 5:7 {s} The king called for the wise men to read, interpret the writing/ the king’s reward;
1d) Dan 5:8-9, The king’s wise men could not read + interpret the writing/ the king troubled;
central axis) Dan 5:10-12a, The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came to the banquet hall. The queen spoke, saying, “O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar;
2d) Dan 5:12b {p} Now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation;
2c) Dan 5:13-16 {p} Daniel brought in + the king’s request to read, interpret the writing/ the king’s reward;
2b) Dan 5:17-29, Daniel interprets the writing on the wall: Belshazzar’s kingdom given to Media-Persia;
1a) Dan 5:17a, Daniel answered: Let your gifts be for yourself + give your rewards to another;
1b) Dan 5:17b, Yet I will read the writing to the king + make known the interpretation;
1c) Dan 5:18-20, God gave Nebuchadnezzar the kingdom + glory/ but his heart lifted up + his glory taken away;
central axis) Dan 5:21, “Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. 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 rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses;”
2c) Dan 5:22-23, Belshazzar knew this but lifted himself up/ did not humble his heart + glorify God;
2b) Dan 5:24-28, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN: Belshazzar’s kingdom shall be given to Media-Persia;
2a) Dan 5:29, Belshazzar rewarded Daniel: clothed with purple + gold chain + 3rd ruler in the kingdom;
2a) Dan 5:30 {p} That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain.
In the historical notes for Daniel 7 and 8 we saw that Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian grew up together; Cyrus came to be the general of a combined army of Medians and Persians; and that they began to wage war against the Babylonians. By 540 BC, Cyrus had finally subdued all the provinces of Asia Minor (which were vassal to Babylon), and marching again to Babylon, met the Babylonian army in battle, this time divested of her allies, which he defeated once more. The Babylonians, retreating back into their city, determined to endure the coming siege.
All the Babylonians took this siege lightly, however. Not only did they have more than twenty years’ provisions stored, but the walls of Babylon were very secure, for Nebuchadnezzar had made triple walls which encircled the inner city, and a second set of triple walls which encircled the outer city. These walls were pierced only by very strong bronze gates, which were exceedingly tall and thick, and very closely guarded (model of the most famous bronze gate, which clearly show the triple walls).
Moreover, the channel of the Euphrates River had been divided, and caused to surround the city like a moat, and thus the only other entrance into the city besides the bronze gates, were by means of water gates, which allowed the river to flow in, but through which, the Babylonians thought, no army could enter, for the rushing of the river prevented access.
On the night of a great annual feast to the Babylonians gods, Belshazzar held a feast for one thousand of his nobles, and this is the feast recorded in Dan 5. Belshazzar vowed to make Daniel the third ruler of the country, for as co-regent with his father, Nabonidus, he was the second ruler, and his father was the first. Unknown to Belshazzar, on the very night of this feast, a force from Cyrus’ main army had finished a new channel for the Euphrates, which lowered the level of the river through the water gates to the height of a man’s thigh, according to Herodotus, and the Persian force thus entered the city and began its conquest.
Herodotus records that the Persians had taken the outer city while the revelers in the palace were completely unaware that the city had been breached. At some point during the night, when the palace was taken, Belshazzar was slain, and Cyrus’ uncle, Darius the Mede, took possession of the capital.
Meanwhile, Cyrus with his main army, had pursued Nabonidus, who had fled to Borsippa when his troops were defeated in battle. Upon overtaking him, Nabonidus surrendered, and as he had asked for mercy, he received it, as was usual with the Persians under Cyrus. Because he submitted to Cyrus rather than continue to fight him, Nabonidus was sent away to be governor of one of the provinces newly under Persian control, where he lived out his life in peace. Thus the Babylonian empire ended, and the Persian began, in 538 BC.
Cyrus was now overlord of an empire greater in size than either the Assyrian or Babylonian empires. He set his uncle Darius as king of Babylonia, and as Cyrus had married Darius’ daughter, his only child, who brought the kingdom of Media as a wedding present, Cyrus himself was king of Media. Now Cyrus and Darius had taken counsel together, for they had observed that when a native king is left to rule over his country as vassal, as had been the practice of the Babylonians, revolts from the authority of their overlord are sure to follow. Therefore Darius sent one hundred and twenty Persian governors into all the provinces and nations of the empire, to rule the provinces on Cyrus’ behalf. Three princes were set over these governors, of whom the first was Daniel.
That Daniel — a Babylonian official and a Jew — should be in authority over the Persian governors, and the two other nobles of Darius, excited offense and jealousy within those nobles, and this was why they sought an occasion to accuse Daniel. As to why Darius signed such a law, that no man in all his dominion should pray to any god but to Darius the king for thirty days, perhaps his nobles convinced him that such a decree would settle the loyalty of the defeated Babylonians with their new king more securely; be that as it may, Darius signed the law.
Now the Medians and Persians regarded their kings and their laws differently than had the Babylonians. The Babylonian kings were the absolute authority, and any decree of his was considered sacred. Upon a whim the king could overturn any law, or do as he pleased. But the Median and Persian kings held their law to the absolute authority, and even a king was bound to obey it. This is why Darius was unable to overturn the law when he discovered that he had been tricked to enact it merely to trap Daniel and get rid of him.
After Daniel had been put into the den, Darius had a stone placed over its opening, upon which he set his seal, so that the stone could not be moved without his express authority. Darius believed that Daniel’s God would protect him from the lions; and he did not fear the hungry lions as much as he did his own wicked nobles, for he thought that they might had tried to enter the den themselves to murder Daniel, if they saw that he had been saved from the lions.
God delivered Daniel, and Darius, the new king of Babylon, glorified God; and by this decree, coupled with similar decrees glorifying God which Nebuchadnezzar had sent years before, served to cause all men everywhere to regard the God of the Jews with reverence, and the Jews themselves with awe, so that no man troubled them, and they prospered in the land of their captivity.
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