Daniel 5:30

5:30 And in that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, ¹  was killed. ² 

Daniel 3:8

3:8 Now ³  at that time certain ⁴  Chaldeans came forward and brought malicious accusations against ⁵  the Jews.

Daniel 2:10

2:10 The wise men replied to the king, “There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king’s secret, ⁶  for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man.

Daniel 2:5

2:5 The king replied ⁷  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ⁸  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ⁹  and your homes reduced to rubble!

Daniel 4:7

4:7 When the magicians, astrologers, wise men, and diviners entered, I recounted the dream for them. But they were unable to make known its interpretation to me.

Daniel 5:11

5:11 There is a man in your kingdom who has within him a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, he proved to have ¹⁰  insight, discernment, and wisdom like that ¹¹  of the gods. ¹²  King Nebuchadnezzar your father appointed him chief of the magicians, astrologers, wise men, and diviners. ¹³ 

Daniel 5:7

5:7 The king called out loudly ¹⁴  to summon ¹⁵  the astrologers, wise men, and diviners. The king proclaimed ¹⁶  to the wise men of Babylon that anyone who could read this inscription and disclose its interpretation would be clothed in purple ¹⁷  and have a golden collar ¹⁸  placed on his neck and be third ruler in the kingdom.

¹ tn Aram “king of the Chaldeans.”

² 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.

³ tc This expression is absent in Theodotion.

⁴ tn Aram “men.”

⁵ tn Aram “ate the pieces of.” This is a rather vivid idiom for slander.

⁵ tn Aram “matter, thing.”

⁷ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

⁸ tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

⁹ tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.

⁹ tn Aram “[there were] discovered to be in him.”

¹⁰ tn Aram “wisdom like the wisdom.” This would be redundant in terms of English style.

¹¹ tc Theodotion lacks the phrase “and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods.”

¹² tc The MT includes a redundant reference to “your father the king” at the end of v. 11. None of the attempts to explain this phrase as original are very convincing. The present translation deletes the phrase, following Theodotion and the Syriac.

¹¹ tn Aram “in strength.”

¹² tn Aram “cause to enter.”

¹³ tn Aram “answered and said.”

¹⁴ sn Purple was a color associated with royalty in the ancient world.

¹⁵ tn The term translated “golden collar” here probably refers to something more substantial than merely a gold chain (cf. NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT) or necklace (cf. NASB).