The Handwriting on the Wall

Daniel Chapter 5

I remember being a little bit upset in college when professors would talk about the old testament as literature. Mark Twain is literature, this is God's word! But as I have read more and more, these stories really are genius literature. The images are as vivid as a J.R.R. Tolkien novel and the stories as bizarre and varied as any movie. God is wildly creative, and though church may do its best to convince us otherwise, the Lord is anything but boring.

Daniel is so incredibly rich with imagery. This short book of the old testament, buried in the bible, filled with stories known to everyone: the lion's den, the fiery furnace, king Nebuchadnezzar losing his mind and acting like a cow. And the story of king Belshazzar's downfall, from which comes the commonly quoted phrase: "the writing is on the wall."

Belshazzar is the king of Babylon, which his predecessors Xerxes and Nebuchadnezzar had turned into one of the greatest nations on earth (from now on I'll refer to him by the modern translation of his name by the linguist Snoop D. Dogg). They conquered widely, and the kings lived the good life. Belshizzy woke up one day and decided to have a feast for his best friends, all thousand of them! He invites all the lords, their wives, his wives, and his harem, and he proceeds to get drunk. Every drunk king knows that his wine tastes better in a fancy goblet, and he remembers some cups plundered from the temple in Jerusalem which his dad pillaged.

The temple, the story reminds us, was God's house. . .even though it is now destroyed. And these are cups made special for the temple, according to God's instruction to Moses. God may have permitted the destruction of Jerusalem, the pillaging of the temple, and even the carrying of plunder back to Babylon. But God has his limits, and they're about to be reached.

Belshizzy and his cohorts drink up, quite happily apparently, happy enough that they start toasting fake gods. Apparently there are a bunch of gods - of gold, bronze, iron, and stone, and they praise them all, presumably for the alcohol. "dear stone goblet maker god, thank you for making this liquor 80 proof. . .and you wood table-making God, this table is amazing. For real. I'm drunk, but all you gods who make stuff, y'all are so cool!"

The real God, Jesus' dad, gets way ticked when people worship idols rather than himself. For good reason too. Say you have birth to a child. And the child grew bigger, and decided its real mom was a fire hydrant. Your child thanks the fire hydrant for dinner, for taking her to the mall, for buying her clothes, etc. (all things that you, real mom did). Your child celebrates my-mom-is-a-fire hydrant day rather than real mother's day. Your child totally ignores you and loves this fire hydrant instead. . . would you not be a bit ticked?

God has a zero-tolerance policy for idol worship, and he acts swiftly and accordingly, sending a scary apparition to Belshizzy.

"Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together."

Blame it on the a a-a-a a a-alcohol, but everyone in the palace saw it. Big ole' fingers with no body attached to them, writing on the palace wall. Belshizzy couldn't understand the writing, but he had a hunch it was bad. He turned white, his knees knocked, and he fainted. You might heckle him, but if you see a body-less hand scurrying around your house tonight, you would freak out too!

*Illustration by Amberlee Passmore

Belshizzy splashes some cold water on his face, composes himself, and creates a plan. I'll give a purple coat, a blingin' necklace, and make him the vice-vice president if any man can tell me what the fingers wrote!

All the fortune tellers come in, one by one, and no one has a clue what is on the wall. Eventually the queen speaks up about Daniel, the exiled Jew from Jerusalem who worshipped God and prophesied to the former king. "In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him".

So the king calls Daniel and promises him the purple robe, gold necklace, and third in charge of the kingdom. Daniel responds, "Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another," and give a lecture to the king about Nebuchadnezzar's greatness as a gift of the most high God (inferring that God is not a manmade idol) and downfall due to pride, and his humility (wandering around like an ox, eating grass) "until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will". God made Nebuchadnezzar, Belshizzy, Caesar, Napoleon, even Bush and Obama, and God gave them the power and right to rule for a time that he appointed. The president or king is not in control, God is!

Next Daniel, like he is playing God's prosecutor, condemns Belshizzy for drinking from the cups, and more than that, for praising false gods. "And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored". Not just Belshizzy's breath, but yours and mine, our very existence is in the hands of God. He has the whole world in his hands is not just a kids song, it is a straight-from-the-bible key to understanding God!

The fingers wrote four words on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin . "This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

I don't know how I could possibly add any more impact, what a brutal condemnation: "you have been weighed in the balances and been found wanting".

Belshizzy heard Daniel, gave him the purple robe and gold chain, promoted him to third in command of the kingdom, and promptly died that night.

Takeaway Thoughts:

1. I wonder what would have happened if Belshazzar had repented. What if upon hearing that he was worshipping false gods, he fell to his knees and asked Daniel how he might be forgiven? God saved Ninevah when the people repented and turned to him, would he have done the same for Belshizzy?

2. The balance scales are not just for Belshazzar, they are for us. Romans says "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Jesus died for us because we all "have been measured and found wanting" - his death and on the cross balanced the scales of God's justice in our favor.