Daniel Chapter 5 Verses 1-4

1 King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in front of the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3 Then they brought in the golden and silver vessels which had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

It was bad enough when Nebuchadnezzar looted the temple and stole the gold and silver vessels, but now Belshazzar and his friends were using them in a drunken feast while they praised their false gods and idols.

What else was going on while the king was giving this feast? History tells us that this ‘great feast’ was occurring while the Persians and Medes were camped outside of the city!

Belshazzar was no doubt trying to drown his fears with this drunken feast, but as dark as things seemed they were about to get much worse.

The ‘Nabonidus Chronicle,’ which has recently been unearthed, says that Belshazzar’s father Nabonidus had abandoned the city and fled leaving his son (and, as we will see, perhaps his own wife) to face the enemy forces alone.

Looked at in this light, Belshazzar becomes a very pitiable and perhaps even sympathetic character.

The ‘Nabonidus Chronicle’ also says that the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without any battle, which as we will see is precisely the picture we get from Daniel 5.

Verse 1 says that Belshazzar “tasted the wine.”

Some feel that this phrase refers to a ritual that preceded the feast in which the king tasted the wine.

Others think that this is a euphemism for saying that the king was drunk – which seems to fit the context very well.

If alcohol did indeed play a part in the king’s fall, then Belshazzar would join the ranks of many kings and kingdoms that have fallen due to drunkenness – including Alexander the Great, Napoleon at Waterloo, and the French in World War II.

Notice how the vessels mentioned in the first chapter (written in Hebrew) play a prominent role in this story from the fifth chapter (written in Aramaic). It is this type of evidence that causes even liberal scholars to agree that Daniel was written by a single author even though two languages were used.

We might pause at this point and wonder why these temple vessels were so important. After all they themselves like the false gods of the Babylonians were just made of gold and silver.

They were important because they were God’s. They were important because God made them important – and neither Belshazzar nor we have any right to question their importance.

Here is an important lesson for us: No person is in a position to tell God what is important and what is not important.

Most religious division is caused by people who decide all by themselves that God couldn’t possibly think that BLANK is important, where they fill in the BLANK with some clear command of God they don’t want to do.

‘This is what Jesus said that is important and this is what Jesus said that is not important…’

‘This is the part of God’s pattern for proper worship that is important and this is the part that is not important…’

‘This is the part of God’s plan for salvation that is important and this is the part that is not…’

‘This is the part of what Paul said about Christian conduct that is important and this the part that is not…’

Good starting point: Everything that God has to say about anything is of the utmost importance and we should treat it that way.

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