Bible Strands
Daniel 5:5
At that moment the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. As the king watched the hand that was writing,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — During a royal banquet where idols are praised, a hand materializes and writes on the palace wall near the lampstand while the king observes.
The words — The Aramaic אֶצְבְּעָן ('etz.be.'An) specifies the digits of the hand, and שַׁעֲתָה (sha.'a.Tah) marks the exact instant the writing begins.
The thread — The sudden appearance mirrors the immediate heavenly decree in Daniel 4:31, points forward to the explicit identification of the writer in Daniel 5:24, and parallels Job 20:5 on the fleeting nature of wicked success.
Why it lands — The text presents a direct, observable divine intervention that interrupts human arrogance at a precise historical moment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
Cross-references
- Daniel 4:31 While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven: “It is decreed to you, King Nebuchadnezzar, that the kingdom has departed from you.
- Daniel 5:24 Therefore He sent the hand that wrote the inscription.
- Job 20:5 the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?
- Colossians 2:14 having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
- 1 Thessalonians 5:2 For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
- Psalms 78:30 Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,
- Proverbs 29:1 A man who remains stiff-necked after much reproof will suddenly be shattered beyond recovery.
- Daniel 4:33 At that moment the sentence against Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from mankind. He ate grass like an ox, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.
- Daniel 5:8 So all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription or interpret it for him.
- Daniel 5:15 Now the wise men and enchanters were brought before me to read this inscription and interpret it for me, but they could not give its interpretation.