Daniel 5:3-6

5:3 So they brought the gold and silver ¹  vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God ²  in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them. 5:4 As they drank wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

5:5 At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared ³  and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand. ⁴  The king was watching the back ⁵  of the hand that was writing. 5:6 Then all the color drained from the king’s face ⁶  and he became alarmed. ⁷  The joints of his hips gave way, ⁸  and his knees began knocking together.

Daniel 5:30

5:30 And in that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, ⁹  was killed. ¹⁰ 

¹ tc The present translation reads וְכַסְפָּא (vÿkhaspa’, “and the silver”) with Theodotion and the Vulgate. Cf. v. 2. The form was probably accidentally dropped from the Aramaic text by homoioteleuton.

² tn Aram “the temple of the house of God.” The phrase seems rather awkward. The Vulgate lacks “of the house of God,” while Theodotion and the Syriac lack “the house.”

³ tn Aram “came forth.”

⁴ sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.

⁵ tn While Aramaic פַּס (pas) can mean the palm of the hand, here it seems to be the back of the hand that is intended.

⁶ tn Aram “[the king’s] brightness changed for him.”

⁷ tn Aram “his thoughts were alarming him.”

⁸ tn Aram “his loins went slack.”

⁹ tn Aram “king of the Chaldeans.”

¹⁰ sn The year was 539 B.C. At this time Daniel would have been approximately eighty-one years old. The relevant extra-biblical records describing the fall of Babylon include portions of Herodotus, Xenophon, Berossus (cited in Josephus), the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Babylonian Chronicle.