‘Then they brought the golden vessels which were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone.'
The blasphemy of the situation is starkly brought out. We cannot doubt the intent of the king. The golden vessels were those connected with the sanctuary itself (see Daniel 1:2). And in the midst of that lascivious, drunken feast they drank from them and drunkenly sang songs of worship to man made gods, gods made of earthly materials with no intrinsic life. The description is deliberately derisive.
His act was an insult to the God of Israel, perhaps a deliberate slight on the God Who had so influenced Nebuchadnezzar, who had seemingly never used the vessels in such a way. In Belshazzar's drunken mind there may have been in mind that ‘the Most High God' was failing them in their hour of need, so that they would show Him how much they cared.