Verse 30. - In that night was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldeans slain. The version of the LXX. is here very different, "And the interpretation came upon Belshazzar the king, and the kingdom was taken from the Chaldeans, and given to the Medes and the Persians. There seems no possibility of connecting these two readings so that either should be shown to have come from the other. The Massoretic text, which is here supported by Theodotion and the Peshitta, is the shorter; but in this instance, as neither can have sprung from the other, Brevity has less probative force. If we look at the probability of the situation, we are compelled to accept the Septuagint reading. If the Massoretic reading had been the original, the dramatic completeness of the disaster, following with such rapidity on the back of the prophecy, would certainly have been preserved in every translation. Whereas the desire for this dramatic completeness might lead to the Massoretic verse being fabricated. Further, when we look at the events of the night, it seems impossible to place all of them in the short interval of one night. The feast had begun after sundown, for the lamps were lighted. It had already gone on some time ere Belshazzar thought of the vessels of the house of God. Then, in contempt of Jehovah, the guests sang praises to the gods of Babylon. it is after all this that the writing appears. There is next the calling of the wise men, who were in the vicinity of the palace. On their failure to explain the writing, the other wise men are summoned by proclamation; they assemble, essay the reading, and fail. The queen-mother comps - either is called, or, hearing the tumult, comes in herself - and tells Belshazzar of Daniel. Daniel is summoned, and reads the writing. Even if we maintain - although it does not seem the natural reading of the passage - that the proclamation of a reward to him who could read the writing followed immediately on the order to call in the astrologers and other wise men, still, it is difficult to imagine all the events, especially the summoning of all the wise men in Babylon by proclamation, and the finding out of Daniel and bringing him to the court, taking place in one night, and that in that very night was Belshazzar slain. On the other hand, the Septuagint makes no such demand on our belief. According to it, the prophecy was not so closely connected with its fulfilment. The feast recorded here may have taken place six, eight, or ten )ears before the actual fall of Babylon. We know that from his seventh year till some time between his eleventh and seventeenth year Nahunahid was in Tema. This feast might be the inauguration of Belshazzar's viceroyalty; in that case it would be nearly ten years before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. If that is so, the supposed contradiction between this verse and Daniel 8:1 vanishes. We need only look at the various theories of who Belshazzar was. Niebuhr assumes it as a second name for Evil-Merodach - a view for which Keil has some sympathy. Niebuhr ingeniously combines the statement from Berosus, that his reign was ἀνόμως καὶ ἀσελγῶς. This, however, might mean a favour for the Jews, shown by the special honour given to Jehoiachin - a thing which would be readily regarded by the Babylonians as "lawless and outrageous." lie maintains that the change of dynasty implied in Babylon was the assumption of the supremacy by Astyages the Mede, who, according to Niebuhr, is Darius the Mede. After one year's personal reign, he placed Neriglissar on the throne. This view is definitely contradicted by the contract tables, which have no reference to a reign between Evil-Merodach and Neriglissar. The other theory is that he is Labasi-Marduk. This view is maintained by Delitzsch and Ebrard. All of them assume the murder of the king the very night of the feast - a thing which is in the teeth of probability, and not supported by the Septuagint reading.

5:18-31 Daniel reads Belshazzar's doom. He had not taken warning by the judgments upon Nebuchadnezzar. And he had insulted God. Sinners are pleased with gods that neither see, nor hear, nor know; but they will be judged by One to whom all things are open. Daniel reads the sentence written on the wall. All this may well be applied to the doom of every sinner. At death, the sinner's days are numbered and finished; after death is the judgment, when he will be weighed in the balance, and found wanting; and after judgment the sinner will be cut asunder, and given as a prey to the devil and his angels. While these things were passing in the palace, it is considered that the army of Cyrus entered the city; and when Belshazzar was slain, a general submission followed. Soon will every impenitent sinner find the writing of God's word brought to pass upon him, whether he is weighed in the balance of the law as a self-righteous Pharisee, or in that of the gospel as a painted hypocrite.In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. Not by a servant of his own, as Jacchiades; or by an eunuch, one of his guards, as Saadiah and Joseph ben Gorion (b); but by Gadales and Gobryas, who led Cyrus's army up the river Euphrates into the city of Babylon, its course being turned; the inhabitants of which being revelling and rioting, and the gates open, these men went up to the king's palace; the doors of which being opened by the king's orders to know what was the matter, they rushed in, and finding him standing up with his sword drawn in his own defence, they fell upon him, and slew him, and all about him, as Xenophon (c) relates; and this was the same night the feast was, and the handwriting was seen, read, and interpreted. This was after a reign of seventeen years; for so Josephus says (d), that Baltasar or Belshazzar, in whose reign Babylon was taken, reigned seventeen years; and so many years are assigned to him in Ptolemy's canon; though the Jewish chronicle (e) allows him but three years, very wrongly, no more of his reign being mentioned in Scripture: see Daniel 7:1. His death, according to Bishop Usher (f), Mr. Whiston (g), and Mr. Bedford (h), was in the year of the world 3466 A.M., and 538 B.C. Dean Prideaux (i) places it in 539 B.C.

(b) Hist. Heb. l. 1. c. 6. p. 26. (c) Cyropaedia, l. 7. sect. 22, 23. (d) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 4. (e) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 28. p. 81. (f) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3466. (g) Chronological Tables, cent. 10. (h) Scripture Chronology, p. 711. (i) Connexion, &c. par. 1. p. 120.