5:18-31 Daniel reads Belshazzar's doom. He had not taken warning by the judgments upon Nebuchadnezzar. And he had insulted God. Sinners are pleased with gods that neither see, nor hear, nor know; but they will be judged by One to whom all things are open. Daniel reads the sentence written on the wall. All this may well be applied to the doom of every sinner. At death, the sinner's days are numbered and finished; after death is the judgment, when he will be weighed in the balance, and found wanting; and after judgment the sinner will be cut asunder, and given as a prey to the devil and his angels. While these things were passing in the palace, it is considered that the army of Cyrus entered the city; and when Belshazzar was slain, a general submission followed. Soon will every impenitent sinner find the writing of God's word brought to pass upon him, whether he is weighed in the balance of the law as a self-righteous Pharisee, or in that of the gospel as a painted hypocrite.This is the interpretation of the thing,.... Or, "word" (z); for they might all seem as one word; or this is the sense of the whole:

MENE; as for this word, it signifies,

God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; God had fixed the number of years, how long that monarchy should last, which he was now at the head of, and which was foretold, Jeremiah 25:1, and also the number of years that he should reign over it; and both these numbers were now completed; for that very night Belshazzar was slain, and the kingdom translated to another people: and a dreadful thing it is to be numbered to the sword, famine, and pestilence, or any sore judgment of God for sin, as sometimes men are; so more especially to be appointed to everlasting wrath, and to be numbered among transgressors, among the devils and damned in hell.

(z) "sermonis", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "verborum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Broughtonus; "verbi", Cocceius; "illius verbi", Michaelis.