Daniel 5:17 Commentary and Bible Study

Daniel's answer is extraordinary. It is so courageous. ‘Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another.’ He serves God for the truth’s sake and not a pagan king for earthly honours. He speaks to Belshazzar as he never spoke to Nebuchadnezzar. To Nebuchadnezzar he was very respectful, and treated him as a man worthy of honour in spite of his sin. But to this Belshazzar, although he is king, and Daniel addresses him as king, he gives the bare minimum of deference, and then proceeds to rebuke him publicly. Daniel has lost all fear of the man, and boldly says what God tells him to say, regardless of the consequences. He contemptuously rejects the rewards offered for interpreting the writing, and says he does not want them. He makes it clear he is not like the wise men and the astrologers. They did it all for pay. They did it all for advantage and promotion and lands and estates and special treatment. He doesn't speak for those things at all, so he starts by declining the rewards. Belshazzar has deliberately insulted the God of glory, and attempted to bring contempt on the holy vessels and all the worship of the Jews. Daniel is therefore contemptuous of his rewards. Wisdom knows how to answer each one according to his state.‘Yet I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation.’ Then follows a tremendous sermon which everybody hears, the thousand lords, everybody in the banqueting chamber. It is public; it is out, and it is a tremendous diatribe against the king, and he will be compelled by circumstances simply to accept it. How can Daniel do it? What courage this is! Imagine what Daniel thinks. He can see the writing; he is a prophet anyway and knows the future. This Belshazzar will die tonight and is he promising the third place in the kingdom? There is a distancing of himself from this pagan kingdom in his statement. ‘O thou king’ – that’s the address; now the message starts. ‘The most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour.’ He was respected by all nations and all peoples trembled before him, and he had absolute power to dispose of men or promote them as he thought fit. All knew what had happened to Nebuchadnezzar. This was God’s lesson to that generation and the one that followed. But it had been ignored in a calculating way. Nebuchadnezzar was not always a good and godly man, but he was man of irresistible power.