Daniel 5

Use 1. Here is thunder and lightning to the wicked; God is eternal, therefore the torments of the wicked are eternal. God lives forever, and as long as God lives, he will be punishing the damned — this, one would think, should be as that handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5:5), it…

Moses, a man learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22) — there was the wisdom of the serpent: and the meekest man alive (Numbers 12:3): Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men upon the face of the earth — there was the innocency of the dove. Daniel was an…

The Lord struck Jehoram in his bowels with an incurable disease. God can raise an army against a man out of his own bowels: He can set one humor of the body against another, the heat to dry up the moisture, and the moisture to drown the heat; the Lord needs not go far for instru…

God registers the speeches of his people that they may not be lost. 7. A righteous man is of a more excellent spirit (Daniel 5:12). An excellent spirit was found in Daniel.

Thus was the foolish boasting of the Assyrian (Isaiah 10:13-14): By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent, for I have removed the bounds of the people, etc. Belshazzar's offence also (Daniel 5:23): you have lifted up yourself against the Lo…

And therefore undoubtedly, when it is said, The sixth Angel poured out his Vial on the River Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared; by the River Euphrates is meant something some way appertaining to this mystical B…

Quest. Some may demand whether this defeat was so cruel as Isaiah here describes it, for histories witness otherwise: and Daniel himself (who was there present) says, that the city was taken only (Daniel 5:30). This is the cause why some expositors have been driven to refer ever…

So as they shall not know in the morning, what shall befall them before night. Now it appears sufficiently out of (Daniel 5:30) how certainly these things came to pass. Vers. 12. Stand now among your enchanters, and in the multitude of your soothsayers (with whom you have wearie…

He had before asserted, that he had of one blood made all nations (v. 26), that is, all men of one, whom he first created; to which he adds, that we may know that he has not so left us, to stand by ourselves on that first foundation, or that we have any power or ability being ma…

So David expresses it (Psalm 66:9), "You hold my soul in life"; though the soul continue, life may not continue, there is the soul, when there is not life, life is that which is the union of soul and body, "You hold my soul in life," that is, you hold soul and body together. So…

3. The next particular I would mention is, the destruction of Babylon, and the overthrow of the Chaldean empire by Cyrus. The destruction of Babylon was in that night in which Belshazzar the king, and the city in general, was drowned in a drunken festival, which they kept to the…

REFLECTIONS. THis Meditation may be to me what the hand-writing upon the wall was to that profane Prince,Dan. 5. 5, 6. and a like effect it should have upon me; for if all the actions of this life be seed sown for the next, Lord, what a crop, what a dreadful harvest am I like to…

I say, to observe what the Lord says to us in all these, this is a part of our walking with him. Lastly, so consider what he does, and what the mercies are, which he shows to you: what corrections, what judgments, what turnings of his providence, what he does to those that are n…

And another prophet found it so, whose serious word of the necessity, of precept upon precept was turned into an idle song (as Grotius understands it, Isaiah 28:13): the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept — very likely it was done by the drunkards of Ephraim, spok…

Consid. 1. An Heathen will do more for a dung-hil-Deity, than you, that callest your self a Christian, will do for the true God, that made Heaven and Earth, Daniel 5:4. They praised the Gods of Silver, and of Gold, and of Brass, of Iron, Wood, and Stone. When the Philistines wer…

Indeed, Lord, and if ever my Conscience, which by rebellion is now grown silent, should be in judgment awakened in this life, Oh what an Hell should I have within me! how would it thunder and roar upon me, and surround me with terrors! Your word assures me, that no length of tim…

They consider not in their Heart, that I remember all their wickedness. King Belshazzer was carousing and drinking wine in bowls, and praising his Gods of Gold and Silver; but while he was sinning, God was writing, Daniel 5:6. In the same hour came forth fingers of a mans hand,…

All that is in the world it is but a semblance, and an appearance, that which tickles the senses, it does not go to the heart. You would have thought Belshazzar was merry at the heart when he was quaffing and carousing in the cups of the Temple, but how soon is the edge of his b…

- 3 Without intermission. 1 They will be exceeding great and terrible, such as will make the stoutest hearts to quake and tremble: If the writing of Mene, Mene, Tekel, etc. made a change in Belshazzar's countenance, and trouble in his thoughts, so that the joints of his loins we…

If the ravens of the valley shall pick out the eyes of them that curse father and mother (Proverbs 30:17), what is likely to come on them that make nothing of cursing God himself! It is against God in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways, on which account we shou…

God gives our lives, God keeps our lives, and this is His revealed, His preceptive will concerning our lives; Man, I suffer your life, yes, I support your life, that I may be praised, loved, admired by you as long as you live. It was a heavy dismal charge against Belshazzar, in…

Or like Jonah's gourd, that springs up in a night and withers in a night, they have no root in the heart, and therefore quickly perish; now then if a man may desire grace but not for grace's sake, if desires may be without endeavors; if a man may desire grace when it is too late…

While the sinner is fearing the evil that is deserved, behold the feet of the officer now approaching to see present execution, and therefore the Lord in the third place puts a commission into the hand of Conscience, really to attach and arrest the soul of a sinner, to fasten al…

Ezekiel 7:19: They shall cast their silver in the streets; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. King Belshazzar was carousing; he drank wine in the golden vessels of the temple (Daniel 5:3), but when the fingers of a…

And the like do we see in Laish (Judges 18:27): they were a people at quiet, and secure, and now were the Danites at hand, to smite with the edge of the sword, and to burn the city with fire. So in Babylon; we read (Daniel 5:1) that Belshazzar the King made a great feast to a th…

If we neglect his dealings, he takes it badly and gives us over to our lusts more and more. Daniel 5:22: a judgment had been brought upon Nebuchadnezzar in the sight of his son Belshazzar, which should have been a means to turn him. But God says: 'You, Belshazzar his son, have n…

The guilty conscience makes a man like him who lies on a bed that is too narrow and the covering too short, who would with all his heart sleep but cannot. Belshazzar, when he was in the midst of his mirth, seeing the handwriting on the wall, was struck with great fear, so that h…

It is sin to another man that does not know it; but to him that knows it, it is a greater sin; this Christ refers to and speaks of Judas that would betray him; and yet knew that he was the Son of God: What, my Disciples to betray me! his sin was the greater, Conscience is Gods O…

Section 3: The Second Act of Christ's Power, in Working Compunction or Sense of Sin. Compunction — pricking at the heart or sense and feeling of sin — is different from conviction of sin; the latter is the work of the understanding, and seated in that principally; the other is i…

2. Vanity is taken for lightness. Lighter than vanity is a phrase used, Psalm 62:9 — and of whom is it spoken? of men, and if anything in them be lighter than other, it is their thoughts which swim in the uppermost parts, float at the top, is as the scum of the heart; when all t…

My times are in your hands (Psalm 31:5). (Daniel 5:23) You have not honored your God, in whose hand your breath is, and all your ways, it was the sin of the profane King not to regard it; All his ways and turnings, his sickness and health, and all his changes, they are all in Go…

Many stout victorious monarchs have been overthrown, because after a conquest they feared no fresh assault, and so have been suddenly surprised. It should seem that Belshazzar was so overtaken, because the same day that he made his royal feast, himself was slain, and his kingdom…

As for such as think to repent at their death, how know they what warning they shall have of their death? May they not suddenly be taken away as Belshazzar (Daniel 5:30), and the rich fool (Luke 12:20)? But what if some sickness come before as death's harbinger?

If the heart of a King who has an inward natural liberty equal with others, and an outward liberty belonging to his state and condition above them, be yet so in the hand of the Lord, as that he always turns it, to what he pleases in particular, then certainly other men, are not…