Daniel 5:4 Commentary and Bible Study

The public contempt was enacted and carried through. It is a reversal of the formal declaration that Nebuchadnezzar had made in the past, years earlier: ‘Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort’ (Daniel 3:29). There is something rather similar, though not so explicit in Daniel 4:37, ‘Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase’ (Daniel 4:37). He officially appointed once again, the God of Israel to be respected, and recognised throughout the empire. That was the effect of those proclamations. But what's going on under Belshazzar is that they are worshipping the gods of fertility, and of war, and of crafts of different kinds, and industry. The ignorance shown by Nebuchadnezzar about the one true God and the Jews in chapter 2, and the pride exhibited in chapter 4 has now been replaced by something else. With Belshazzar it is insolence against God and renewed antagonism, and it shouldn't be underestimated. In place of the God of Israel, they honoured gods made of those celebrated materials. Gold and silver were materials out of which the finest objects were made. They were also promoted by art and culture – we are far superior to other nations. Brass was the metal of technology, iron was used in warfare, and stone was about the construction of great buildings. They worshipped art, wealth, prowess in warfare and human achievement.