Jeez, we have some smart readers:

Mr. Goldberg,
I just saw the Rembrandt painting “Belshazzar’s Feast” in London at the National Gallery on Tuesday. Unfortunately, being able to read the Aramaic (Daniel 2:5 – 7 is in Aramaic) made me aware that Rembrandt may have painted the last letter of the last word incorrectly. It looks like a zayin instead of a nun. The National Gallery’s caption points out this possible mistake as well. I hope this doesn’t lessen for you the powerful effects of this masterful painting. It was on my mind as well when studying the book of Daniel in seminary, and the parallels between that event and now are eerily similar in some very striking ways. One aspect of the end of Belshazzar’s rule (his father Nabonidus was actually the king, but was often away in Harran worshipping the moon god Sin) that will (hopefully) soon have a modern parallel was his death at the hands of the invading army of Cyrus the Great in the otherwise mostly peaceful takeover of Babylon. Apparently, the Babylonians weren’t too sorry to see Belshazzar go, a gross understatement when it comes to the Iraqi people and Saddam Hussein.