in.

3. =Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the
temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his
princes, his wives and his concubines=, drank =in them=.

4. =They drank wine=, and praised the gods of gold, =and of silver, of
brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone=.

5. In the same hour came forth fingers =of a man's hand=, and wrote =over
against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's
palace=; and the king saw =the part of the hand that wrote=.

The parts in smaller type have various degrees of subordinate value,
which the nicely appreciative reader would indicate by his reading; but
they all belong to the background of the description. Any of these
parts, if brought fully into the foreground, would be given an undue
importance, and would reduce somewhat the prominence and distinctness of
the other parts.

In the first verse, 'the king,' should be read with an abatement of
voice, being an understood appositive; 'to a thousand of his lords'
('thousand' being used for an indefinite large number), is sufficiently
implied in 'gave a great feast,' and the voice should be reduced upon
it, and should not descend upon 'lords,' as it is assumed that the feast
was given to the chief men of the kingdom; 'and drank wine _before the
thousand_:' the voice after descending upon 'wine,' should drift lightly
over 'before the thousand.'

In the second verse, 'whiles he tasted the wine' should, as it were,
say itself; and then the command of the king, in regard to the sacred
vessels of the temple, should be brought to the front; 'that the king,
and his princes, his wives, and his concubines,' should be thrown back
with a reduced and somewhat accelerated voice, and prominence given to
'might drink therein,' the purpose being to invite chief attention to
the sacrilegious act of making such use of the sacred vessels. A
distinct noting of the different kinds of people present at the feast is
not called for here. The voice has other business on hand, namely, the
bringing forward of the sacrilegious purpose to drink wine from the
sacred vessels of the temple. Further on in the chapter, in the speech
of Daniel to the king (v. 23), it is necessary to bring these people
fully to the front, the melodious movement of the voice being adapted to
the special emphasizing of 'thou' and 'concubines,' thus: 'and thou, and
thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines,' a somewhat increase