And Darius the Median took the kingdom— And Darius the Mede accepted the kingdom; so the Syriac and Arabic versions. This Darius, in the ninth chapter, is said to be of the seed of the Medes, and is supposed by the most judicious chronologers to have been the same with Cyaxares, the son of Astyages. Cyrus made him king of the Chaldeans, as being his uncle by the mother's side; and left him the palace of the king of Babylon, to live there whenever he pleased.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, Belshazzar, the subject of this chapter, was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 27:7 whose monarchy, according to the term fixed in the prophetic word, was now hasting to ruin. We have here,
1. An account of his impiety and profaneness. Unaffected with the danger of his situation, though a victorious army was at the gates of Babylon; on some returning solemnity in honour of his gods, or to celebrate his birth-day, he invites all the great men of his court, and chief officers of his army, to partake of a grand entertainment that he had provided, and makes one himself at the festal board, and drank wine before them. In the midst of mirth and jollity, the sacred vessels of the temple occurred to him; and in a frolic, or to express his contempt of Israel's God, and to do honour to his own, he commands them to be brought, and all present drank out of them, and praised their idol gods, who had given them these spoils of their enemies: probably the report of the deliverance of Israel from Babylon might now be propagated, the seventy years being just at an end; some say that very night they expired; and this might be done in defiance of Israel's God, and in ridicule of the prophetic word. Note; (1.) Drunkenness is the door to every abomination. (2.) They are hastening apace to ruin, who can make a jest of things sacred. (3.) The joyous sinner in the midst of his carousals is a most pitiable object, dancing and singing on the brink of the gulph, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
2. A sudden event terribly interrupts their impious joys. In the midst of their carousals, a hand appears over against the candlestick, and writes upon the plaister of the wall. Struck with terror at the sight, Belshazzar's countenance changed; his pallid cheeks, his quivering lips, his trembling knees, his tottering frame, bespoke the horrors of his soul; and conscious guilt awakened dire forebodings of the dreadful doom hereby portended. In haste he calls aloud to bring the wisest of his Chaldean sages, and promises the highest rewards to the man who can read and interpret the writing, but in vain; for though the words were Chaldee, the manner or form of writing was such as entirely baffled their skill; or by a divine judgment, to make the skill of Daniel more illustrious, God confounded their understandings; and this increased the more the anxiety of the monarch, and filled his lords with consternation and astonishment. Note; (1.) God can reach the most daring sinners; one touch of his hand, yea, their own thoughts let loose upon them, are enough to make them a terror to themselves. (2.) Shall an unknown writing thus trouble the conscience of Belshazzar, and shall not all the curses so plainly written in the book of God affect the careless and impenitent?
2nd, In this state of dismay and confusion we have,
1. The advice of the queen; who had not been present at the feast; but, on hearing what had passed, had come to the banqueting house. She is supposed to be not the wife of Belshazzar, but of his father Evil-merodach, called by Herodotus Nitocris, and greatly famed for her prudence: though others think her to be Amytis, the grandmother of the king, and wife of Nebuchadnezzar. It appears that she was well acquainted with the transactions of former times, and knew the abilities of Daniel; and therefore is bold to say, though the wise men of Babylon were at a stand, that the king need not fear but an interpreter could be found. Probably Daniel's interest had long since declined at court: so likely often, in a new reign, are the best and most faithful of the ancient counsellors to be neglected. But the high character that the queen gives of this now forgotten sage could not but excite a desire to have him called. She speaks of him as something more than human, possessed of wisdom approaching omniscience, and penetration so deep, that no secrets or difficulties whatever puzzled him; and by experience the king Nebuchadnezzar had proved him to be possessed of a spirit far excelling all the magicians and astrologers of his kingdom. In consequence of which, he had advanced him to be master of all the sages, and named him Belteshazzar, in honour of his god. The queen desires, therefore, that he may be sent for, and doubts not but he will give the king full satisfaction.
2. Daniel is instantly summoned, and appears before the king, unknown to him by person, as appears by Belshazzar's question, Daniel 5:13. But having heard such high encomiums of his wisdom, he is desirous to try whether he can read and interpret the writing, of which the magicians confess their ignorance; and promises him the same rewards as he had offered to them, if he could clearly explain the matter: even that he should be arrayed in the richest robes of honour, and promoted to the third place for dignity in his kingdom.
3. Daniel undertakes to read and interpret the writing; but prefaces his discourse with some striking remarks and admonitions.
(1.) The proffered gifts he nobly disdains, as the reward of his interpretation; he neither wanted nor sought them. At his age, advancement would be but a burden; and when the whole government was so quickly to be overturned, such honours were not worth acceptance. Yet he will freely satisfy the king, if that can be called satisfaction, which, instead of relieving his fears, must increase his distress. Note; A sense of the near approaching end of all things should make us sit loose to the trifles of this changing and perishing world.
(2.) He recounts God's dispensations towards the king's father, or rather his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar; it being not unusual in scripture to term a more remote ancestor father. By the providence and gift of the most high God, from whom all good things come, and to whose blessing all our prosperity ought ever to be ascribed, Nebuchadnezzar had acquired such dominion, honour, and authority, as perhaps no prince before had ever attained to; so irresistible his power, that none dared to contend with him; and, trembling at his feet, all nations bowed before him. His government despotic, his authority absolute; the liberty and property, the life or death of all his subjects hung on his breath; his will was law, his orders obeyed without remonstrance or hesitation: a dangerous power to be vested in the bosom of a fallen creature, a curse upon the land where such arbitrary monarchs rule. Abusing his authority, Nebuchadnezzar had acted with that tyranny and oppression which lawless power, directed by caprice, naturally produced; and, hardened in pride, he not only behaved unjustly to man, but insolently towards the most High, ascribing to his own prowess his successes, and affecting independence of every superior. For these things the God of heaven hurled him from his throne, and degraded him not merely to the lowest state of human meanness, but to a level with the brute creation, to be the companion of wild asses, justly depriving him of the reason that he had abused, and for his savageness and oppression sending him to dwell with the beasts that he chose to imitate; till, humbled in the dust, he was brought to acknowledge the government of the most High, and own himself the subject of his pleasure.
(3.) He arraigns Belshazzar for his crimes, aggravated by the neglect of all the warnings which God had given him in his father's case. He knew all that had passed, yet nevertheless,
[1.] He had not humbled his heart, but continued impenitent in the same pride and rebellion against God. Note; It is an aggravation of children's sins, if, instead of being admonished by their father's miseries, they persist to follow their destructive ways.
[2.] He had exceeded in impiety his ungodly fire. Thou hast lifted up thyself against, or above the Lord of heaven, with more daring blasphemy, defying his power and dishonouring his name, as if he was his superior; and shew-ing the contempt in which he held him, by his horrid profanation of the vessels of the temple, while he praised his idol gods, senseless as the vessels from which he poured out the libation to them.
[3.] The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified; a charge, before which who need not tremble! Our breath is from him; it is momentarily preserved by him, our ways under his controul, every event at his disposal. To glorify him is the great end of our being, our duty, and should be our delight; but we have failed and gone astray every one in his own way, casting off his government, and negligent of his glory. The Lord humble us for this, that we may not meet Belshazzar's doom.
4. Having thus proved his crimes, Daniel pronounces his doom, according to the tenor of the writing on the wall, the explication of which he had demanded. Then when his iniquity was at the height, at this impious feast, came this hand from God, and wrote these words—MENE MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. The words are Chaldee, and signify, He hath numbered, he hath numbered, he hath weighed, and they divide; the several particulars of which he explains:
MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; the term of the monarchy is expiring, its ruin is near, and the word is repeated to shew its certainty.
TEKEL, Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting; God, who weighs in the balances of exact justice the actions and characters of men, pronounces him worthless and reprobate.
PERES, the singular of Pharsin, (U being the copulative,) Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians; such is the irreversible decree of the Almighty; and Belshazzar, convinced in his conscience that Daniel had spoken the truth, though so fearful the sentence, immediately confers on him the promised reward. Withering honours! the pageantry of an hour! and all this world's honours, viewed in their true light, are no better.
The sinner and the hypocrites doom is like Belshazzar's. At death their days are numbered; in judgment they will be weighed in the balance of God's holy law, and found wanting; and then be given up to the devil and his angels, to be tormented to eternity.
3rdly, The writing is scarcely sooner interpreted than verified. That very night the city was taken, and Belshazzar slain: taking advantage of this debauch of the king, as history informs us, Cyrus entered the city by the bed of the river, the waters of which he had cut off; and the guards being fast asleep, and overcome with wine, made no resistance; so that all the gates being opened, Gadatas and Gobryas, two great men, who, being ill used by Belshazzar, had revolted to Cyrus, went directly to the palace, and slew the king with all his attendants. Thus ended the Babylonish empire; and Darius the Mede, called also Cyaxares, the uncle of Cyrus, ascended the throne; the first king of the second monarchy. He was sixty-two years old, and consequently was born in the year that Jeconiah was carried captive: God so ordering, that at the very time his people were sent into Babylon, their deliverer should be provided. Cyrus reigned in conjunction with his uncle; though, being the younger, he is not mentioned; and after two years succeeded him in the sole government of the empire, concerning whom so many prophesies had gone before, all which, we find, he most exactly fulfilled. Thus, though God visit his people and the nations for their sins, there is still hope for returning penitents even in the darkest day of affliction.