John Gill's Exposition on Daniel 5:2

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, etc.] 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”f200, 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, (<150109>Ezra 1:911), these were put into the temple of Bel by Nebuchadnezzar, (<270102>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.

Read Daniel 5:2 →Read the full chapter →Jamieson, Fausset & Brown →Barnes' Notes →Wesley's Explanatory Notes →Tyndale Open Study Notes →Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge →

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