Daniel 5:1

And so after the death of Nebuchadnezzar his son Evil Merodoch succeeded to his kingdom, of whom the Scripture does not mention, surely because he lived reverently, surely because there was nothing monstrous in him. He reigned twelve years and after him his brother Belshazzar reigned, concerning whom Scripture now makes a narrative. He made a great supper for his thousand magistrates in the fourth year of his kingdom.

This man was the son of Nebuchadnezzar but did not directly succeed him.… After Nebuchadnezzar, then, Evil-merodach ruled, and after him Belshazzar. The most divine Daniel, however, omitted mention of the former man, since he was composing not history pure and simple but prophecy—hence his not recording everything done by Nebuchadnezzar, either, but only those things of which mention was required with a view to bringing benefit. So since also in the time of Belshazzar God gave evidence of a wonderful miracle capable of instilling reverence and dread not only in the people of that time but also in those of any later time and of leading them to the true religion, he did not think it right to conceal in silence such a great act of kindness, judging it instead a holy thing to put it in writing and leave for everyone a record of the teaching.

Verse 1. "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 Evilmerodach 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 (Jeremiah 52:31). Josephus likewise reports that after the death of Evilmerodach, his son Neriglissar succeeded to his father's throne; after whom in turn came his son Labosordach. Upon 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 which Isaiah in chap. 21 (Isaiah 21:7) 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."