v.
2c: “which Nebuchadnezzar his father…”
o
Nebuchadnezzar
had removed the sacred articles from King Solomon’s Temple during his first
incursion into the Promised Land (605 BC), when a young Daniel and other
promising youths representing the “cream” of Judahite society were carried off
into exile.
Dan. 1:1-2: In the
third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah
into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought
them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in
the treasury of his god.
o
Ezra
1, in describing the Restoration, reveals that the number of sacred
articles—the silver and golden goblets, dishes, basins, etc.—numbered some
5,400!
Ezra 1:7-11: Cyrus the king
also brought out the vessels of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had
carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. Cyrus king of
Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted
them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. And this was the number of them: 30
basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls
of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; all the vessels of gold and of silver were
5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from
Babylonia to Jerusalem.
“his father.”
o The use of this terminology
(cf., 5:2, 11, 18, 22) has been deemed fallacious by certain liberal scholars
due to the fact that Belshazzar was actually Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, as
opposed to his son; King Nabonidus was his father, and Queen Nitocris (a
daughter of Nebuchadnezzar) was his mother. That this merely constitutes
further evidence of the spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy of modern liberal
scholarship is demonstrated by the following considerations:
a)
The Semitic languages (e.g., Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.) have no
distinct words for “grandfather” or “grandson.”
b)
It is a conventional within all languages, including the
Semitic tongues, to refer to an ancestor—whether direct or remote—as
one’s “father.”
Matt. 1:1: The book of the
genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
c)
Another application of the terminology that is consistent with
ancient usage associates the word “father” with “successor” (i.e.,
Belshazzar now occupied the regnal office that was once held by
Nebuchadnezzar). For example, the Assyrian Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III refers
to Jehu, King of Israel, as the “son of Omri” (an earlier king of Israel)—despite
the fact that Jehu was not a blood descendent of Omri, and in fact founded
a new dynasty based upon the wholesale destruction of the House of Omri (cf., 2
Kings 10:1-17)!
c)
d)
Another example of the fluidity of the term is found in Gen.
45:8, in which Joseph is referred to as a “father” to Pharaoh, in the sense of
his exercising an advisory role. A paternal relationship is thus also
associated with the idea of mentorship, or is employed as a deferential term
indicating a deep respect for another (e.g., 2 Kings 6:21, Jehoram unto Elisha)
e)
Certainly it would have been both personally flattering and
politically advantageous for Belshazzar to be closely associated in some manner
with the great Nebuchadnezzar.
v.
2d: “…so that the king… and his concubines might drink from them.”
o
Note
the distinction between Nebuchadnezzar’s handling of the sacred articles and
that of Belshazzar…
o To be certain, in carrying
off the holy articles as trophies of victory, Nebuchadnezzar had attempted to
make a grand public display of the superiority of his own gods over the
“vanquished” God of Israel. However, in his efforts to avert full-scale Jewish
rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar had also exercised a judicious level of restraint by
taking only “some” (Dan. 1:2) of the sacred articles and leaving the
structure of the Temple-complex itself intact. Furthermore, he also carefully
deposited and retired the Jewish sacred relics to the decorous setting of the
treasury of Marduk, Babylon’s chiefest god.
o In marked contrast,
Belshazzar public scorns the sacred articles by withdrawing them from the
treasury and introducing them into his decadent and increasingly licentious
feast, employing them for base purposes—yet under the guise of religious
devotion (cf., v. 4)!
v.
3a: “Then they brought the gold vessels…”
o
As
the servants bring out the sacred vessels, the act of sacrilege is
reemphasized. The old commentator Robert Hawker notes the terseness of the
Sacred Narrative:
The
Prophet simply gives the relation of the history, but doth not enlarge upon it.
Indeed it needs no comment. Drunkenness leads to impiety and prophaneness: and
every evil follows. Was it not enough to deny God, but he must insult him also?
Would nothing do for an unholy feast, and strumpets; but the holy vessels of
the temple? Lord! to what a state of ruin is our whole nature reduced by the
fall!—Poor Man’s Commentary
v.
3b: “…that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God…”
o
The
unthinkable nature of the crime is magnified by the additional reminder that
these very articles were once employed within the Holy House—the very Sanctuary—of
God Almighty!
“…denotes
the holy place of the temple, the inner apartment of the temple”—Keil &
Delitzsch
o
Note
this observation from Tony Garland:
In
their previous dedication and service of God, some of these vessels were so
holy that, on penalty of death, they could not even be handled by Levites. They
were reserved for use by the Aaronic priesthood (Num. 18:1-4).—Daniel
Discovered
Num. 18:2-3: And with you bring
your brothers also, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may
join you and minister to you while you and your sons with you are before the
tent of the testimony. They shall keep guard over you and over the whole tent,
but shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary or to the altar lest
they, and you, die.
o Nebuchadnezzar had been
allowed to carry-off these Holy Vessels because God’s Nation of Judah was under
Divine Judgment, with the Babylonian king functioning as the chosen instrument
of that discipline—much the way the lords of the Philistines were permitted to
carry away the Ark of the Covenant in the Days of Eli (1 Sam. 4:11, 5:1-2) when
the anger of the Lord had formerly burned against Israel. The insolent Belshazzar,
however, will not be the beneficiary any such Divine forbearance and protection;
rather, he has signed his own death warrant (Dan. 5:23-24, 30).
o Ironically, Nebuchadnezzar’s
appropriation of the Sacred Articles during his first incursion into Judah (605
BC) providentially had the benefit of allowing them to escape the destruction
of Solomon’s Temple during Nebuchadnezzar’s third incursion (586 BC) and see
service during the Second Temple period.
o
v.
3c: “…and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them.”
o Another reminder of the
shocking and unseemly decadence of the event, serving as Belshazzar’s epitaph…
“Belshazzar, last King of Babylon:
Reveler… Polygamist… Blasphemer.”
v.
4: “They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze,
iron, wood and stone.”
o
Their
decadence takes the form of religious devotion, toasting their false gods and
their associated idols.
o
The
Prophet Habakkuk had foreseen that the Chaldeans, having fulfilled their
appointed mission in bringing disaster unto Israel, would ultimately bring
judgment upon themselves through their own blasphemy—falsely crediting their
ascendancy to their false deities and their own power and craft.
Hab. 1:11: Then he [i.e., the Chaldeans] sweeps on like
a wind; and he passes on and is guilty, crediting this power of his to his god.
o This deranged,
alcohol-fueled worship would have doubtless featured ceremonial toasts, as well
as the singing of songs, the shouting of praises, and the ascription of great
deeds unto lifeless idols.
o The vanity of such
idols is stressed through the emphasis upon their material construction—which,
we note, descends in value, from gold to stone. Note Daniel’s commentary in
verse 23 upon the futility of worshipping such lifeless and material idols “which
do not see, hear or understand.”
o Such an assessment of
the futility of idols is a common theme to the Old Testament prophets (cf.,
Isa. 44:9-20)…
Isa. 46:6-7: Those who lavish gold
from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he
makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! They lift it to their
shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot
move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from
his trouble.
Jer. 10:1-5: Hear the word that
the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the
way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the
nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree
from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.
They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so
that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and
they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be
afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”
o In the New Testament, Paul
observes that at best, false gods & their idols are nothing (i.e.,
unreal).
1 Cor. 8:4: Therefore concerning the eating of
things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in
the world, and that there is no God but one.
On the other hand, lying behind such false
deities—unreal entities—is the behind-the-scenes motivating spiritual reality
of demonic fallen angels.
1Cor. 10:19-21: What do I imply then? That food
offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that
what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to
be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup
of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Rev 9:20: The rest of mankind, who were not
killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up
worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood,
which cannot see or hear or walk…
