T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S secure and make the heart of the stout est sinner to tremble. He only needs to let loose his own thoughts upon him and they will soon play the tyrant and give him trouble enough.—Henry. v. 7. Bring in the astrologers. He calls for the magicians who more than once had been detected in Imposture. He does not turn to God nor to Daniel, whose fame as an interpreter was then well established. The world wishes to be deceived and shuts its eyes against the light."—Calvin. v. 8. They could not read. As usual they failed as in every instance in which they are introduced in the Old Testamentfe-Exp. Bible. v. 13. Daniel was brought in. Daniel was now an old man. Many years had passed since he interpreted Nebuchad nezzar’s dream and sat in the gate of the king, but Belshazzar had no knowl edge of him. Patiently .he must have waited in seclusion for other service his God might give him. The fact that Daniel was no longer remembered is a witness of the degeneracy of Babylon.— Gaebelein. v. 17. Bet thy gifts be to thyself. The Christian who knows the world’s fate should despise its rewards.— C. H. M. I will read the writing. Daniel recognized his Father’s handwriting and read it as the instructed may decipher a scroll which is illegible to the ordinary gaze. What to him were the gewgaws of -the palace? With the wings of the angel of death overshadowing that awe struck throng, it is of small importance that Belshazzar promised him the pur ple robe and chain of gold. It seems sometimes as though those fingers were still busy writing their awful sentence on the walls of national revelry. There may be gold and glitter, revelry and mirth, splendors of state and profusion of rich viands, but what of these if people are ignorant of God, and impure? Then indeed dry rot has set in.— Devo. Com. v. 18. God gave thy father the king dom. It was not his own birth or tal ents which gave him the vast empire, as he thought. To make him unlearn his proud thought was the object of God’s visitation of him.— J. F. & B. v. 22. Hast not humbled thine heart. To be untrue to knowledge is the begin ning of all defection. To act as though God had never spoken and as though we had never heard His voice, is simply to court disaster. Every day is a judg ment day when we are weighed in in visible balances— our attainments meas- •
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v. 1. Belshazzar. The name hai been deciphered in inscriptions found at Babylon, from which it is inferred that he was associated with his father in the kingdom COMMENTS FROM and was left to MANY SOURCES defend Babylon. Keith jL. Brooks He was therefore the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, the word “ father” (v. 11) being used in thè sense of ancestor. —Meyer. v. 4. They drank. From drunken ness they proceeded to sacrilege. Had they been sober they might have re frained from this excess, but strong drink blunts the conscience and stulti fies the mind. There is a fable of a man to whom was given the choice of committing three sins, drunkenness, adultery or murder. He chose drunk enness as being apparently the least, and as soon as he became intoxicated he committed both the others. Who can estimate the crimes for which strong drink has been responsible?— Farr. v. 5. Came forth fingers. God ad monishes him, not by a dream as Nebuchadnezzar had been warned, or by a voice, but by fingers coming forth, the invisibility of Him who moved them heightening the awful impressiveness of the scene^ the hand of the Unseen One attesting his doom before the eyes of himself and his guilty fellow-revellers. —Jamieson. Upon the wall of the king’s palace. It is significant that on the same wall on which the king was ac customed to read the flattering legends of his own magnificence he beholds the mysterious inscription which tells his fall (Prov. 16:18; Acts 12:21-23).— Brown. It is fitting that the divine retribution should overtake the king on the same night and that the same lips which thus profaned with this wine the holiest things, should sip the wine of the divine poison cup. Even such sinners, drinking, as it were, over_ the pit of hell, must still at the last moment be warned by a suitable sign that it may be known whether they will honor the truth.— Farrar. v. 6. His knees smote one against another. Why is he in such a fright? He perceives not what is written and how does he know but it might be some happy presage of deliverance to him and to his kingdom? His guilty conscience flew in his face and told him that he had no reason to expect any good news from heaven, and that the hand of an angel could write nothing but terror to him. God can soon awaken the most
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