Daniel 5:5

In the same hour in the midst of their godless revelry (Daniel 5:4). Cf. for the expression Daniel 3:6; Daniel 3:15; Daniel 4:33.

over against in front of, or opposite to, the candlestick; and hence a part of the wall where the light was particularly bright.

the plaister lit. the chalk. The place was consequently white: and any dark object moving upon it would be immediately visible. In the great halls of Babylonian palaces the brick walls were probably, as in the palaces of Assyria, lined to a height of 10 12 ft. above the ground with slabs of a kind of alabaster, ornamented with elaborate bas-reliefs, and often brilliantly coloured (cf. Ezekiel 23:4): in their upper part, also, the walls seem to have been usually painted, but the plaster may sometimes have been left white. Comp. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains5, i. 254 7, 262 f., Nineveh and Babylon, p. 651, Rawl., Anc. Mon. 4 ii. 283.

the part the palm or hollow; the word (in the fem.) is used in the Targums and in Syriac in this sense (e.g. 1 Kings 18:44). "We must suppose the hand to have appeared above the place where the king was reclining" (Bevan).