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The queen - came - This is generally allowed to have been the widow of Nebuchadnezzar; if so, she was the queen Amiyt, daughter of Astyages, sister of Darius the Mede, and aunt of Cyrus, according to Polyhistor, cited by Cedrenus. See Calmet. Others think that Nitocris was the person who is said to be queen when Cyrus took the city; and is stated to have been a lady of eminent wisdom and discretion, and to have had the chief direction of the public affairs. She was the mother of Labynithus; and, if this be the same as Belshazzar, she must be the person here introduced.
Verse 10
It appears from the circumstance here narrated, that the fact that Daniel was a prophet of God, had by some means been lost sight of at the court and palace. This was doubtless owing to his having been absent at Shushan in the province of Elam, as narrated in chapter 8:1, 2, 27, whither he had been sent to attend to the business of the kingdom there. The country being swept by the Persian army would compel his return to Babylon at this time. The queen who came in and made known to the king that there was such a person to whom appeal could be made for knowledge in supernatural things, is supposed to have been the queen mother, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, in whose memory the wonderful part Daniel had acted in her father’s reign would still be fresh and vivid. Nebuchadnezzar is here called Belshazzar’s father, according to the then common custom of calling any paternal ancestor, father, and any male descendant, son. Nebuchadnezzar was in reality his grandfather. The king inquired of Daniel when he came in, if he was of the children of the captivity of Judah. Thus it seems to have been ordered, that while they were holding impious revelry in honor of their false gods, a servant of the true God, and one whom they were holding in captivity, was called in to pronounce the merited judgment upon their wicked course.DAR 96.2