Daniel5:4

By drinking from the articles brought back from the temple in Jerusalem they were celebrating “their victory” over the God of Israel, even though none of them present that night had been involved in the conquest of Jerusalem. This type of celebration of victory can be interpreted on more than one level.

1. The people of ancient times always had a religious aspect to celebrations. Even the most basic level went beyond saying “we did not get defeated but rather we defeated our enemies” to saying something like this: “By our gods we defeated our enemies, therefore, our gods are more powerful than their gods.”
2. Depending on the level of arrogance of the people involved, they could take things a step further and make the statement, “We are more powerful than our enemies are.”

The inclusion of the women in this celebration is most remarkable and the fact that the text mentions them more than once shows it was an important part of the story. In ancient times, it was very rare for women to be invited to these types of banquets, although there is some evidence that it may have been practiced some in Babylon. Even if the Babylonians did invite their women to such events, one would expect the important men to the be the ones who drank from these captured vessels, while the women drank from normal Babylonian style drinking bowls. So this statement appears to indicate a blatant declaration that “we are more powerful than the Israelites because our gods help us, but their god does not help them.” By having his wives and concubines drink from these captured vessels the king was declaring, “My women are stronger than your best warriors; even the least important people associated with my kingdom (concubines) are more powerful than all of you.”

Why was this directed at Israel’s God? The nation of Israel had been defeated decades earlier, so why this emphasis on Israel? Well, King Belshazzar was in a tight spot. The army of King Cyrus was advancing toward the capital at that very moment. Belshazzar’s feast that night was not an ordinary feast of celebration; it was a desperate attempt to show that he was not afraid because he trusted in Bel, as his name indicated, BEL PROTECT THE KING. There is irony here because his father had tried to persuade the people to stop putting so much priority on Bel (formerly called Marduk) and make the moon god called Sin be their most important god. It seems to me that this feast had the purpose of proving to the people that Belshazzar was indeed loyal to Bel, unlike his father. He had Bel in his name, and he threw this feast to prove to them that he confided in Bel to protect them from the Persians.

But what did Israel have to do with the army of King Cyrus? Well, many years earlier, before Cyrus was even born, God used Isaiah to predict that a ruler named Cyrus would liberate the captive Jews and even rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Chapter 45 of Isaiah is dedicated to this topic. There the name Cyrus is used twice, and two other times God says, “I have summoned you by name.” Twice Isaiah 45 mentions the freeing of the Jews and two more times it is implied, although those last two times may have more of a spiritual implication than a physical and political one. In one final, powerful blow, God says in Is 46:1 “Bel bows down, Nebo hunches over” and 46:2 says, “They are hunched over and bowed down together, unable to deliver…”

Here is how I envision this taking place.

After the fall of Opis and Sapper, the nobles and government officials were freaking out because there was nothing to stop the Persians from arriving at their city; the situation was desperate and everyone was in a state of panic. King Belshazzar told them it was going to be okay because their god, Bel, would protect them. But even the nobles and government officials struggled to believe he was serious and struggled to trust that Bel would indeed save them. He had to do something to prove it to them. So he planned a feast for 1,000 of his top officials (Dan 5:1) and commanded his administers to put it together and serve this banquet in very short order. Whether that was 24, 36 or 48 hours we do not know, but it was a feat of administrative organization to pull this off.

The government officials/nobles dutifully came to the feast even if they preferred to be fleeing for their lives. The atmosphere was tense.

Belshazzar did all he could to convince them that he was indeed loyal to Bel (formerly called Marduk) despite his father’s actions to the contrary. He also wanted his nobles to get drunk or at least loosen up a bit, so he led them in drinking time and time again to the various gods of their culture, but especially to Bel.

However, there was an elephant in the room. There was something besides the approaching army that was creating a cloud over the event.

The people of ancient times seem to have known quite a bit about the religious writings of the cultures around them. I think these Babylonians knew about the prophecy of Isaiah which foretold the victory of Cyrus and the humiliation of the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo. So, after Belshazzar had drunk quite a bit and his tongue and his brain got loosened up, he decided to do something which he had possibly contemplated before but never chosen to do. He decided to address that elephant in the room head on. He ordered the priests of Bel to go to the temple of Bel where we presume the treasures taken from Jerusalem were being kept and bring those vessels from Jerusalem to his feast. The priests obeyed.

Then the king poured wine into one of the sacred bowls and drank from it. (They usually drank from bowls back then, not cups, glasses or mugs). This was an obvious defilement of that vessel. Everyone knew that articles that had been devoted to a certain god could not be used for common purposes such as eating or drinking. It was an obvious slap in the face to the god the Jews worshipped. With his actions he was saying, “Not only did we conquer the Jewish people and destroy their temple, but we can also defile their sacred vessels and suffer no consequence. Therefore the god of the Jews must not be a very powerful god.”

Then he ordered that more of the bowls be passed out to others present and he ordered them to drink from the sacred bowls also. When they were in the temple in Jerusalem, most of these bowls had been either sprinkling bowls or mixing bowls, with the mixing bowls being much larger. With each new person that drank from a sacred bowl, it seemed to prove Belshazzar’s statement true – they were claiming that even ordinary men were more powerful than the god of the Jews, because that god did nothing to stop them. We know there were at least 100 such bowls because II Chron 4:8 tells us that Solomon had 100 golden sprinkling bowls made, and we know from other passages (such as II Sam 8:10) that there were silver articles as well.

The passage specifically states that they praised the gods who were represented by idols made of gold and silver (expensive materials), bronze and wood (strong materials) and wood and stone (common materials). In this way they were saying “Any of our gods, even our weakest god, can defeat the god of the Jews.”

In a greater act of defiance, Belshazzar had the bowls filled with wine one final time and taken to his wives and concubines for them to drink from them. In this way he seems to have been saying, “Not only are our gods stronger than this god who predicted our defeat, even our women are more powerful than that god. See, he does nothing to defend his reputation. That must mean that he is incapable of defending his reputation. So where are his predictions now? If he is so powerful, why doesn’t he show his power?”