Daniel 5, Part 1

Transition in leadership - Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar.

563-562 Nebuchadnezzar goes insane.

Death comes shortly after. (Second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned for 43 years (605–562 BC).)

Now, King Belshazzar is on the throne, and seems to have been there for about 13 years,and his reign would come to a sudden end.

Mockery

Daniel 5:1–4 ESV

1 King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3 Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

Best estimates are Belshazzar was co-regent with his father Nabonidus who started reign at 556 BC. He would reign until 539 BC, so this is about 20 years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar and three other rulers before Nabonidus and Belshazzar. We can take from these opening verses that Belshazzar was following suit of other Babylonian kings of NOT paying any attention to or following the God of Israel. Another sign would be given by God, another king would be troubled, and Daniel would once again give explanation to what God’s sign. While he was fully enjoying the partying and feasting…he would not enjoy it for long. Not learning from Nebuchadnezzar’s mistakes and then desecrating the temple vessels would lead to a sudden and quick ending to his reign as king.

It’s easy to see how a young ruler would want to flaunt what he had. No doubt he had grown comfortable and may have had a false sense of safety and security in a nation as big and strong as Babylon. As a result, he wanted to flaunt all the “goodies” they had, showing off some of the spoils of war. He calls for the gold and silver vessels to be brought out and used by the royalty present. His gross flaunting of his godlessness, and disregard to what is holy would lead to him being the seventh and last king of Babylon. Some commentaries relate this feast as being nothing but a large drunken orgy to give you an idea of what all was going on here. It was blatant, flagrant, and willful sin and disregard for God.

Completely ignoring the true God, they worshipped everything BUT Him. Gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Now, think back to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue dream…what were the components???

Knowingly, they were partying as Darius the Mede was circling the city about to invade Babylon and end the Babylonian reign. Dr. Danny Akin, in the CCE on Daniel states “The spiritual and theological significance of all of this cannot be overstated. The act is intended to mock the God of Judah and to celebrate the gods of Babylon as being superior. Appearing in public and drinking with his guests was not traditional protocol for a Babylonian king. No doubt Belshazzar wanted to make this banquet special, and one way to do that was to make a spectacle of Judah’s God. Belshazzar takes holy vessels and treats them as nothing more than common utensils. He then goes further and uses them in the worship of false gods. His royal guests, his many wives, and his concubines all joined in the frivolity and raunchiness of the evening. Perhaps Belshazzar was attempting to win the favor and protection of his false gods with the enemy at his doorstep. In trusting in those gods who are no gods, he is making the biggest mistake of his life.”

God Confronts Sin

Daniel 5:5–9 ESV

5 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. 6 Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. 7 The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” 8 Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. 9 Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.

As they all are partying it up, and thinking nothing about their depravity, completely out of touch with reality, senses completely dulled, something happens that will sober them immediately. Notice the first word of verse 5 “Immediately”. Immediately the king is snapped out of the craze of the party and sobered back to reality. A human hand appears and starts writing on the wall. I don’t know about you all, but I think even the drunkest of drunks could sober pretty quickly if a human hand appeared out of thin air and started writing on the wall...

Note that it was not someone else who saw the hand, it was not someone else who came and told him what was going on, the king witnessed this event himself. It scared him to the point scripture says his color changed. No doubt, all the blood left his face and he turned pale. He couldn’t put his thoughts together, and all he could think of was bad things. His own body about gave out on him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. You would have thought he had just seen a ghost… He turned white as a sheet, he about went out, his knees were knocking together, and his mind went a thousand different direction. What he had just seen certainly caught his attention and he came unglued.

The only think he knew to do was to call for all the “wise” men of the area. He calls for them to give an interpretation to what is written. He even goes as far as saying anyone who could give the interpretation would be placed third ruler of the kingdom, clothed in purple and gold. Opposite of the threats Nebuchadnezzar had given. Like those wise men of Nebuchadnezzar’s time, there was none who could give an interpretation.

Stephen Miller in the New American Commentary states “One might wonder why these counselors, or for that matter the king and his nobles, could not read the writing. The message was written in Aramaic, as vv. 25–28 make clear, and that language was well-known in Babylon. According to Jewish tradition, the letters were not comprehensible because they were written vertically instead of horizontally. Wood suggests that these were unusually shaped characters. Of course, vowels were not written with the consonants in Aramaic so that even if the letters were understood the meaning of the terms could still have been ambiguous. Most likely the words were understood, but they “simply did not convey any intelligible meaning.””

Whether the interpretation was hidden from them by God, or they could not understand or comprehend what was written is not fully understood, but whatever the reason all these wise men could not give the meaning of what had been written. When the best of his best could not give the interpretation it caused greater turmoil with the king. We see the color being drained from his face again, and those around him were confused because they could not interpret what was written.

Now, notice the same pattern as Nebuchadnezzar happened with Belshazzar… Daniel was not present initially. We are not told why, again, but Daniel will definitely play a integral part in the interpretation.

Daniel Remembered

Daniel 5:10–12 ESV

10 The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall, and the queen declared, “O king, live forever! Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change. 11 There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him, and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers, 12 because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”

The queen apparently overhears the commotion from the banquet room or got word of the handwriting on the wall and enters the banquet hall. In modern language we would immediately conclude that this was the wife of Belshazzar, but we know that his wives and his concubines were already in the banquet hall. Three reasonable possibilities arise at this point. She might have been the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and/or the wife of Nabonidus. Archer assumes she was “the king’s mother, who was in all probability a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar”. That strikes me as the best choice, which would identify her as Nitocris, known in secular history as an ambitious and resourceful queen. Clearly she had unusual authority and esteem at court because she came into the banquet hall on her own initiative. After the traditional greeting, she spoke like any mother might: Don’t be alarmed! Don’t look so pale! Likely this is why we see the wording “your father” used three times in the following verse. The last time telling Belshazzar that Nebuchadnezzar was your father the king, perhaps suggesting that Nebuchadnezzar acted like one and Belshazzar did not.

How interesting that the queen should first use Daniel’s Hebrew name and then recall his Chaldean name. She attributed to him quite a bag of tricks and had complete confidence that he could handle this matter of words on a wall that brought such terror to so many: Call for Daniel, and he will tell you what the writing means. Belshazzar did not seem to be personally acquainted with Daniel. One reason is that it had been twenty-three years since Nebuchadnezzar’s death, and Daniel did not have the exalted position in the new regime that he had enjoyed earlier. Leupold remarks that “especially when usurpers arose, wholesale dismissal of the men in office was the rule.” Daniel probably had semiretired from public life after Nebuchadnezzar’s death (he was almost sixty years of age), and now he was about eighty. Belshazzar certainly had a different circle of friends. Furthermore, Babylon was a large city, and the king might not have known the old man, Daniel.

While Daniel had been overlooked in the initial uproar, he had not been totally forgotten after all. The queen remembered Daniel as being a man of God, and who could give an interpretation.

What happened while the people were feasting?

How did the king react to the handwriting on the wall

What happened when the wise men came to the king?

WORDsearch. n.d. Adult Questions for LESSONmaker. WORDsearch.