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Passage Research

Daniel 5 — Sermon Preparation

A mysterious hand writes on the wall at Belshazzar's feast; Daniel reads the divine verdict, and the king dies that very night. Below is a research summary for Daniel 5, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.

30
verses
524 / 176
Hebrew words / lemmas
29
classic sermon excerpts
5
preachers & commentators

Daniel 5 in the Hebrew

Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.

HebrewTransliterationStrong'sCountGlosses
פְּשַׁרpᵉsharH659011interpretation
הָוָאhâvâʼH193411exist
אֱלָהּʼĕlâhhH42610God
מַלְכוּmalkûwH44379dominion
קְרָאqᵉrâʼH71237call, cry, read.
כְּתָבkᵉthâbH37927prescribing, writing(-ten).
דְּהַבdᵉhabH17227gold

How preachers through history handled this text

29 public-domain excerpts on Daniel 5, from the church fathers to the Puritans.

Calvin25Matthew Henry1Alexander MacLaren1Spurgeon1John Wesley1

“Calvin doubts whether this was the wife or grandmother of Belshazzar. But there is another possible solution. Prideaux supposes she was the mother of the king, following the narrative of Herodotus, though Grotius and Josephus represent her as the widow of Nebuchadnezzar. The author of "The Times of Daniel" differs from the received view of the times of Nitocris; …”

— Calvin, Commentary on Daniel - Volume 1, on Daniel 5:10–24 (Public Domain)

Places in the text

Based on ancient-geography data

  • Babylon 1— Dan 5:11
  • Chaldea— Dan 5:11
  • Jerusalem— Dan 5:2

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