Читать толкование: , Глава , стих . Толкователь — Иероним Стридонский блаженный

DESCENDENT OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. JEROME: “Belshazzar the king made a great feast for his one thousand nobles; and each one drank in the order of his age.” It should be known that this man was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar, as readers commonly imagine; but according to Berosus, who wrote the history of the Chaldeans, and also Josephus, who follows Berosus, after Nebuchadnezzar’s reign of forty-three years, a son named Evil-merodach succeeded to his throne. It was concerning this king that Jeremiah wrote that in the first year of his reign he raised the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and took him out of his prison. Josephus likewise reports that after the death of Evil-merodach, his son Neriglissar succeeded to his father’s throne; after whom in turn came his son Labosordach. On the latter’s death, his son, Belshazzar, obtained the kingdom, and it is of him that the Scripture now makes mention. After he had been killed by Darius, king of the Medes, who was the maternal uncle of Cyrus, king of the Persians, the empire of the Chaldeans was destroyed by Cyrus the Persian. It was these two kingdoms that Isaiah in chapter 21 addresses as a charioteer of a vehicle drawn by a camel and an ass. Indeed, Xenophon also writes the same thing in connection with the childhood of Cyrus the Great; likewise Pompeius Trogus and many others who have written up the history of the barbarians. Some authorities think that this Darius was the Astyages mentioned in the Greek writings, while others think it was Astyages’ son, and that he was called by the other name among the barbarians. “And each one of the princes who had been invited drank in the order of his own age.” Or else, as other translators have rendered it, “The king himself was drinking in the presence of all the princes whom he had invited.” COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.1.

MOCKING GOD’S PROMISE. JEROME: The Hebrews hand down some such story as this: that up until the seventieth year, on which Jeremiah had said that the captivity of the Jewish people would be released, Belshazzar had esteemed God’s promise to be of no effect; therefore he turned the failure of the promise into an occasion of joy and arranged a great banquet, scoffing somewhat at the expectation of the Jews and at the vessels of the temple of God. Punishment, however, immediately ensued. And as to the fact that the author calls Nebuchadnezzar the father of Belshazzar, he does not make any mistake in the eyes of those who are acquainted with the holy Scripture’s manner of speaking, for in the Scripture all progenitors and ancestors are called fathers. This factor also should be borne in mind, that he was not sober when he did these things, but rather when he was intoxicated and forgetful of the punishment that had come on his progenitor, Nebuchadnezzar. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.2.

UNCHASTE EYES. JEROME: Therefore I summon you before God and Jesus Christ and his elect angels to guard that which you have received, not readily exposing to the public gaze the vessels of the Lord’s temple. . . . Unchaste eyes see nothing correctly. They fail to appreciate the beauty of the soul and only value that of the body. Hezekiah showed God’s treasure to the Assyrians, who ought never to have seen what they were sure to covet. The consequence was that Judea was torn by continual wars and that the very first things carried away to Babylon were these vessels of the Lord. We find Belshazzar at his feast and among his concubines (vice always glories in defiling what is noble) drinking out of these sacred cups. LETTER 22.23.

MISUSE OF GOD’S PROPERTY. JEROME: As they drank from golden vessels, they were praising gods of wood and of stone. As long as the vessels had been in the idol temple of Babylon, God was not moved to wrath, for they had evidently consecrated the property of God to divine worship, even though they did so in accordance with their own depraved views of religion. But after they defiled holy things for the use of people, their punishment followed on the heels of their sacrilege. Moreover, they were praising their own gods and scoffing at the God of the Jews, on the ground that they were drinking from his vessels because of the victory their own gods had bestowed on them. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.4.

HE FOLLOWED THE ANCIENT ERROR OF HIS FAMILY. JEROME: Forgetting about the experiences of Nebuchadnezzar, he was following after the ancient and ingrained error of his family, so that instead of summoning a prophet of God he summons the magicians and Chaldeans and soothsayers. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.7.

THIRD IN RANK. JEROME: That means either that he is to be third in rank after the king, or else one of the three princes of the realm—for we elsewhere read of the tristatai. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.7.

THE QUEEN KNOWS MORE THAN THE KING. JEROME: Josephus says she was Belshazzar’s grandmother, whereas Origen says she was his mother. She therefore knew about previous events of which the king was ignorant. So much for Porphyry’s far-fetched interpretation, who fancies that she was the king’s wife and makes fun of the fact that she knows more than her husband does. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.10.

DANIEL’S EXAMPLE. JEROME: We should follow the example of a man like Daniel, who despised the honor and gifts of a king and who without any reward even in that early day followed the Gospel injunction: “Freely have you received, freely give.” And besides, when one is announcing sad tidings, it is unbecoming for him willingly to accept gifts. COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5.11 17.