\\INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL 5\\

This chapter gives an account of a feast made by King Belshazzar,
attended with drunkenness, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels
taken out of the temple at Jerusalem, \\#Da 5:1-4\\, and of the displeasure
of God, signified by a handwriting on the wall, which terrified the
king, and caused him to send in haste for the astrologers to read
and interpret it, but they could not, \\#Da 5:5-8\\, in this distress, which
appeared in the countenances of him and his nobles, the queen mother
advises him to send for Daniel, of whom she gives a great encomium,
\\#Da 5:9-12\\, upon which he was brought in to the king, and promised a
great reward to read and interpret the writing; the reward he slighted,
but promised to read and interpret the writing, \\#Da 5:13-17\\ and after
putting him in mind of what had befallen his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar,
and charging him with pride, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels of
the Lord, \\#Da 5:18-23\\ reads and interprets the writing to him
\\#Da 5:24-28\\, when he had honour done him, and was preferred in the
government, \\#Da 5:29\\ and the chapter is concluded with an account of the
immediate accomplishment of ancient prophecies, and of this handwriting,
in the slaying of the king of Babylon, in the dissolution of the Babylonish
monarchy, and the possession of it by Darius the Mede, \\#Da 5:30,31\\.