1. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.
According to the Almagesta of Ptolemy, Nabonadios the father of Belshazzar ruled Babylon for 17 years. During the last 3 years of his reign the court and the army were under the control of his son who became acting king. The three tablets of Belshazzar fully establish his identity and the annalistic tablet of Cyrus throws much light on the affairs of the Chaldean court during the last years of the joint-reign. It reads like a nice piece of detective work.
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.
Belshazzar’s mother was a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and the word Father is used in the sense of grandfather, exactly as in II Samuel 19. 24. Mephibosheth is spoken of as the son of Saul, when in fact he was the grandson of Saul.
3. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.
4. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
5. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
6. Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.
7. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple,
R.V.