{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-3748","native_reference":{"book_number":340,"chapter_from":5,"chapter_to":5,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":5,"verse_to":5},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: Accordingly after this happened, fingers of a man's hand came forth, and they wrote before the lamp upon the plaster of the wall of the house of the king.</p><p>In the case of Nebuchadnezzar it said, \"A holy one descended from heaven,\" [Daniel 4:13] here it says, \"fingers of a hand came forth,\" [Daniel 5:5] Scripture signaling that this is the same Word which was about to be embodied in the end and to assume the figure of a man, so that he may never be looked at as through a form, but having become a man in the flesh and the will of the Father having dwelt with men, he is perfected.</p><p>And so when the hand wrote writing on the wall, Scripture, in this, indicates this to be the law of God which was engraved on the mountain in tablets. As Scripture says, \"and the tablets were written by the finger of God\" [Exodus 31:18] and \"the writing was the writing of God which was engraved on the tablets.\" [Exodus 32:16] And so in this way also here, the fingers of a hand were shown to the king alone, which flashed before the lamp, so that what was written there may be considered to be the writing of God. For the light of the hand, after dazzling the light of the lamp, dimmed the light of the lamp, so that the fingers which wrote on the wall might be seen.<br/><i>— Commentary on Daniel 3.14.5-9</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: Verse 5. \"At that same hour some fingers appeared as if they were of a human hand, writing something over against the lampstand upon the surface of the wall of the king's palace. And the king watched the joints of the hand as it wrote.\" He puts it nicely when he says, \"At that same hour,\" just as we earlier read concerning Nebuchadnezzar, \"While the saying was yet in the king's mouth.\" This was in order that the offender might recognize that his punishment was not inflicted upon him for any other reason but his blasphemy.</p><p>But as for the circumstance that the fingers seemed to be writing on the wall over against the lampstand, this was to avoid having the hand and the written matter appear at too great a distance from the light (to be clearly visible). And the fingers wrote upon the wall of the royal palace in order that the king might understand that the inscription concerned himself.<br/><i>— St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER FIVE</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: Since, you see, he had sung the praises of the idols, deprived as they were of any power to move, and had scorned the God of all, the Lord of all gives him a lesson in his invisible and incorporeal nature by letting him see only fingers writing, the purpose being to instruct him that he would not even see them were it not that he personally had provided the occasion of need.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Daniel 5:5</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"ab2c50bcc338c7727e25c647e2466b9f52762f53b1d559f6f3d6e86801496780","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":3748,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"24151b21c1b9cd810d3865a6ccc48e625d580cfe0308b146f68f686d3a0846c9","translator":null,"work":null}