Daniel 5:3-5

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.

[5:3]  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.

[5:3]  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.”

[5:5]  ³ tn Aram “came forth.”

[5:5]  ⁴ sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.

[5:5]  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.