(2) Whiles he tasted--i.e., while he was enjoying the wine. The sacred vessels were brought out of the temple of Merodach, and profaned in this manner for the purpose of defying Jehovah. But it may be reasonably asked, What led him to think of Jehovah in the midst of the revelry? It may have been that some drunken fancy seized him. It may have been that he had been warned that the prophets of Jehovah had foretold the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus, whose armies were now in the neighbourhood. Whatever the true explanation may be, there can be no doubt, from Daniel's language (Daniel 5:23), and from the way in which Belshazzar's gods are mentioned (Daniel 5:4), that the whole act was one of defiance of Jehovah.

Verse 2. - Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. The Septuagint has included the last clause of the Massoretic recension of the first verse, "And he drank wine, and his heart was lifted up, and he commanded to bring the vessels of gold and of silver of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar his father had brought from Jerusalem, and to pour out wine in them for those companions of his (ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἑταίροις)." The translator seems to have regarded the first syllable of the name Belshazzar as a separate word, and has translated it according to the meaning the word has in Eastern Aramaic, "heart" (Exodus 12:23, Peshitta). After this initial mistake - if mistake it was - the remaining change was easy. The syntax here, according to the Massoretic text, is different from what we should expect. אמר ('amar), "to say," is translated "command" in eight cases in this book, and in every other case it is followed immediately by the infinitive' of the action commanded. Hence we are inclined, with the LXX., to omit "whiles he tasted the wine." While the LXX. Aramaic seems to have בהין, "in them," it has not had "king," "wives," or "concubines." As the Septuagint is the shorter, on the whole, we prefer it, though we maintain the Massoretic reading of "in them," referring to the vessels. Theodotion and the Peshitta follow the Massoretic reading. Whether or not the libation offered to the gods was in the mind of the writer, the mere fact that the sacred vessels were used for the purposes of a common feast was desecration. The addition of the "wives" and "concubines" adds at once to the degradation in the eyes of an Eastern, and to the stately rhetorical cadence of the verse. This renders all the stronger the suspicion engendered by the omission of these features in the Septuagint. It is to be observed that the Septuagint translator must have had an Eastern Aramaic manuscript before him, or he could never have translated bal "heart." At the same time, the presence of women at Babylonian feasts was not so uncommon as it was in the rest of the East, as we learn from the Ninevite remains. Certainly Quintus Curtius mentions this in connection with Alexander's visit to Babylon (v. 1). But was an obscure Jew likely to know this in Palestine? It is very difficult for a person writing in a different age to keep strictly to verisimilitude in these matters. Even a contemporary may make a blunder in writing, not a novel, but a biography, as Froude, in his 'Life of Carlyle,' declares he was "quietly married in the parish church of Temple." To be quietly married in a parish church in any part of Scotland, in the early years of this century, would be a contradiction in terms. Yet Froude had often been in Scotland, and knew Carlyle well. Could a Jew living in Palestine have all his wits about him so as to note every varying feature which distinguished the habits of Babylon from those of the rest of the East? The question may be asked why were the vessels of the Lord in Jerusalem singled out to be desecrated by a common use? It might, of course, be that the sacred vessels of the temples of the gods of all conquered nationalities were brought in, and thus that the singling out of the Jewish sacred vessels was due, not to the preference of the Babylonian monarch, but to the Jew, who saw only those. We think this can scarcely be. It was certainly the policy of Nabunahid to draw all worship to Babylon (Annals of Nabunahid, col. 3. line 20, "The gods of Akkad, which Nabunabid had brought to Babylon, were carried back to their city"). But this would lead him to avoid anything that would savour of disrespect to these gods whom he had brought to dwell in Babylon. We do not think it would have been merely the beauty of those vessels that led to their desecration, for the temple at Jerusalem had suffered several plunderings before the capture of the city, and the period between the age of Hezekiah and Zedekiah was not one in which wealth and artistic talent were likely to increase. Some suspicion must have reached the court of Babylon that the Jews were in league with Cyrus; perhaps the contents of the second Isaiah had reached the knowledge of the Babylonian police. If so, the act of Belshazzar was an act of defiance against Jehovah of Israel.

5:1-9 Belshazzar bade defiance to the judgments of God. Most historians consider that Cyrus then besieged Babylon. Security and sensuality are sad proofs of approaching ruin. That mirth is sinful indeed, which profanes sacred things; and what are many of the songs used at modern feasts better than the praises sung by the heathens to their gods! See how God struck terror upon Belshazzar and his lords. God's written word is enough to put the proudest, boldest sinner in a fright. What we see of God, the part of the hand that writes in the book of the creatures, and in the book of the Scriptures, should fill us with awful thoughts concerning that part which we do not see. If this be the finger of God, what is his arm when made bare? And what is He? The king's guilty conscience told him that he had no reason to expect any good news from heaven. God can, in a moment, make the heart of the stoutest sinner to tremble; and there needs no more than to let loose his own thoughts upon him; they will give him trouble enough. No bodily pain can equal the inward agony which sometimes seizes the sinner in the midst of mirth, carnal pleasures, and worldly pomp. Sometimes terrors cause a man to flee to Christ for pardon and peace; but many cry out for fear of wrath, who are not humbled for their sins, and who seek relief by lying vanities. The ignorance and uncertainty concerning the Holy Scriptures, shown by many who call themselves wise, only tend to drive sinners to despair, as the ignorance of these wise men did.Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine,.... As he was drinking his cups, and delighted with the taste of the wine, and got merry with it: or, "by the advice of the wine" (h), as Aben Ezra and Jarchi interpret it, by a personification; as if that dictated to him, and put him upon doing what follows; and which often puts both foolish and wicked things into the heads of men, and upon doing them: then he

commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; what these vessels were, and the number of them, we learn from the delivery of them afterwards to the prince of Judah by Cyrus, Ezra 1:9, these were put into the temple of Bel by Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 1:2 and from thence they were now ordered to be brought to the king's palace, and to the apartment where he and his nobles were drinking:

that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein; Saadiah says, this day the seventy years' captivity ended; and so, in contempt of the promise and prophecy of it, he ordered the vessels to be brought out and drank in, to show that in vain the Jews expected redemption from it.

(h) "vino dictante", Tigurine version.