Daniel VII Chapter 5

Who feels like a big party?  Our study opens today with just that. However, this is a party to which you don’t want to be invited! 

Turn in your copy of the Scriptures to Daniel 5.  We are still in the historical section of this great book.  When we get to chapter 7, we will be moving into the prophetic section, which gives us good, strong clues as to the events of the end times. 

When we open this chapter, Nebuchadnezzar is dead, having been succeeded by his son, Evil Murdoch.  “Wait a minute,” you say! “I don’t see anything here about any dude named Evil Murdoch.”  That’s true.  He is not mentioned here because he is not key to THIS story.  However, let’s look at some other scriptures.  Turn with me for a moment to II Kings 25:27. 

27 Now it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, that King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the year he became king, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from Prison. 

And, also, turn please to Jeremiah 52:31. 

31 Now it came to pass on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, that King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, and released him out of prison. 

That’s not a lot of info about this son of Nebuchadnezzar.  But, it is enough to let us know that he DID succeed his father and rule for several years.  More about that in a moment.  The passage in Jeremiah goes on to say that after he released Jehoiachin from prison, after 37 years, he honored him by elevating him to a high position in his kingdom, giving him royal clothes to wear, allowing him to eat at the king’s table all the days of his life and even giving him “an allowance”!  It sounds to me like no regent has ever treated a conquered king, a former enemy of the state, better! 

By other scriptural clues, the sages have deduced that Evil reigned for 23 years, and that he was a better king than his father, as far as his treatment of the Jews was concerned.  Now then, despite verses 18 and 22 of this chapter calling Belshazzar Nebuchadnezzar’s “son”, in actuality he was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. Theologians base this on a verse in Jeremiah 27:7 which refers to Nebuchadnezzar.  Here are verses 6 and 7: 

6 So now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, My servant. I have even given the beasts of the field to serve him. 7 All the nations will serve him—and his son, and his grandson—until the time of his own land comes, and then many nations and great kings will make him their slave.’ 

There is no contradiction between these verses and verses 18 and 22 of Daniel 5, because there is no actual word for “grandfather” or “grandmother” in Hebrew.  The ancestors are all called “fathers” or “mothers”.  Numbers 10:19 bears this out.  Hence the song “Father Abraham had many sons...” The principle really is the same, despite my humorous example.  So, while there is some disagreement about who Belshazzar was, most agree that he was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. You may see relationships described similarly later in the chapter and elsewhere in the Bible.  So, remember this key principle. 

Now, let’s take a moment to read the first few verses of this chapter. We are still reading a translation from the original Aramaic.  Remember, this section of Daniel was not written in Hebrew!  So, I’m using The Scriptures 1998 ISR version.  Let’s look at verses 1-4: 

1Bĕlshatstsar the sovereign made a great feast for a thousand of his great men, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. 

2While tasting the wine, Bĕlshatstsar gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar had taken from the Hĕḵal which had been in Yerushalayim, that the sovereign and his great men, his wives, and his concubines could drink from them. 

3Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the Hĕḵal of the House of Elah which had been in Yerushalayim. And the sovereign and his great men, his wives, and his concubines drank out of them. 

4They drank wine, and praised the elahin of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood and of stone. 

Amir Tsarfati refers to this scene as “a wild bacchanalia of epic proportions.”  We don’t know the specific reason for Belshazzar’s massive feast, which sages and historians say took place in the third year of his reign, his final year.  Some have theorized that since he was at war with Cyrus and the Persians, he had scored a victory against them in battle.  Furthermore, historians have marveled at the impenetrability of the city of Babylon.  The residents had stored up food for 20 years, according to historians.  So, Belshazzar felt like he had nothing to worry about.  He was trusting in his own strength, never a good idea.  So, if Belshazzar WAS celebrating some big military victory, it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory, a false victory.  Some have theorized that Cyrus tricked Belshazzar into thinking he had won, when in reality Cyrus had planned that his main attack would be the night of the feast, when he and his armies would sneak into Babylon via a diverted Euphrates River.  Cyrus the Persian carried out his plan, in that he DID sneak into Babylon by that watery route, through bronze gates that normally secured the entrance into the city by river. When the water level became low enough, the invading army just “waded in”! 

This overthrow of the Babylonians was prophesied over 100 years earlier, by the prophet Isaiah.  Let’s look at Isaiah 45:1-3 (this time from the ESV, since this was originally in the Hebrew) 

1Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, 
whose right hand I have grasped, 
to subdue nations before him 
and to loose the belts of kings, 
to open doors before him 
that gates may not be closed: 
2“I will go before you 
and level the exalted places,a 
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze 
and cut through the bars of iron, 
3I will give you the treasures of darkness 
and the hoards in secret places, 
that you may know that it is I, the LORD, 
the God of Israel, who call you by your name. 

 

What a celebration this was!  Belshazzar had invited 1000 of his noblemen and generals.  Everyone was drinking, heavily, it sems.  The phrase in verse 2 “while tasting the wine” actually means that he was greatly feeling the effects of the wine, i.e. he was drunk.  So, in that inebriated state, he ordered that a tremendous breach of conduct occur.  But, before we get to that...notice in verse 2 that there were “wives and concubines” present at this feast.  This is unusual, according to usual ANE practices.  If you will recall from our Esther study, Queen Vashti held a separate banquet for the women.  They did not in polite society “party” with the men at such occasions.  The presence of the women at Belshazzar’s feast lends credence to what a debauched affair this feast actually was.  Some have even suggested that it was a drunken orgy.   

Let’s get back to those gold and silver vessels which Belshazzar, in his highly inebriated state, ordered brought from the store houses, where they had been safely stored for decades.  The scripture translation we read today uses a Hebrew word “hekal” to describe where they came from.  The Hekal was what we would in English call The Holy Place in the Temple.  The Holy Place was an anteroom adjacent to, in front of, the entrance to the Holy of Holies, the latter being the most holy part of the Temple.  The Holy Place contained the Table of Shewbread, the large Golden Candlestick (menorah) and the Altar of Incense.  Apparently, there were also gold and silver serving pieces housed there for other purposes, or at least near the Hekal/Holy Place.  The point is, these were highly sacred objects.  Why did Belshazzar choose to breach several decades of protocol and pull these objects out now? 

The prophet Jeremiah made two 70-years prophecies, both similar, decades earlier (Jeremiah 25:12 and Jeremiah 29:10) that the Babylonian captivity for the Jews would last for 70 years.  Let’s look at each of them, with a translation from the original Hebrew of course. 

12 Then it will come to pass, when 70 years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” declares Adonai, “the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, and I will make it ruins forever. 

10 For thus says Adonai: “After 70 years for Babylon are complete, I will visit you, and fulfill My good word toward you—to bring you back to this place. 

Theologians say that the first prophecy of 70 years refers to the duration of the Babylonian kingships, the reign of the Babylonian royal line, which began with Nebuchadnezzar’s ascension to the throne.  70 years later, Belshazzar’s kingdom came crashing down, fulfilling that prophecy. 

The second 70-years prophecy (29:10) concerned a period of 70 years of Judah’s captivity, which began in the second year of Neb’s reign, when he conquered Jerusalem.    That fulfillment occurred during the reign of King Cyrus, who took over after Darius the Mede’s one-year reign (522-521 BCE) and issued the decree to begin the return. According to the Eternal Torah Calendar, on the 9th of Av or July 11th, 596 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple and the people returned to a rebuilt Temple in 516 BCE.   

These were highly public prophecies, which the Babylonian monarchs knew about. The sages say that Belshazzar had added up the years (incorrectly) and determined that 70 years had already passed and the Jews were still in Babylon.  So, in essence, it is believed he committed this sacrilege as a way of “thumbing his nose” at the God of the Jews.  The sages say that Belshazzar calculated the 70-year time period from Neb’s ascension to the throne, and by that calculation, in his third year of reign it was the 71st year.   

When you shoot to kill the king, you had better not miss.... 

Verse 4 tells us that, not only were the revelers drinking wine out of the holy vessels, as the party progressed, they also began to praise false gods while doing so.  

The Lord God had had enough. 

5At that moment the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the sovereign’s palace. And the sovereign saw the part of the hand that wrote. 

6Then the sovereign’s colour changed, and his thoughts alarmed him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other. 

7The sovereign called loudly to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners. The sovereign spoke and said to the wise ones of Baḇel, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, is robed in purple and has a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the reign.” 

Don’t you love this exquisite timing by the Lord?  “At that moment” or “Just then” in some translations. 

If you have ever watched the 1960s sitcom The Addams Family, you are familiar with “Thing”, the disembodied hand that would appear and creep around.  I don’t know about you, but Thing was always super-creepy, to me.  I’m sure the drunken revelers in Bel’s banquet hall were at least that much creeped out, if not more so, when they saw a disembodied hand appear and write along the plaster wall of the room.  The sages say that the physical manifestation was necessary to avoid someone saying that a prankster had crept in and written on the wall when no one was looking.  That would have been difficult, though, to escape notice, because the hand wrote on a section of wall that was brightly lit by a large lampstand. 

I will add that the better translation here, according to some Hebrew scholars is that a whole arm appeared, that there is a different Hebrew (and it’s Aramaic counterpart) that means merely “hand”.  But, that’s a minor point, in my opinion. 

Belshazzar was certainly unnerved, to say the least, at the sight of this disembodied hand or arm writing on the wall of his banquet hall.  Some sages say that Bel was the only one who could see the actual writing, the actual words, that the rest of the party participants could see the hand only. In this way, Bel would have known the message was directed to him alone.  That’s merely conjecture, however. 

Did Belshazzar make the connection between his defilement of the Temple serving ware, his praise to the false gods and the appearance of the hand?  We can’t know for sure.  However, although he was unable to decipher the meaning of the supernatural words, he instinctively knew they did NOT bode well for him.  He had a visceral physical reaction.  The scriptures say that not only did he turn pale, his hip joints were loosened, causing his knees to knock together. The sages say that his shaking was so violent that it caused the belts he wore to shake loose.  (thereby fulfilling Isaiah 45:1).  On with our story.... 

7The sovereign called loudly to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners. The sovereign spoke and said to the wise ones of Baḇel, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, is robed in purple and has a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the reign.” 

8So all the sovereign’s wise ones came, but they were unable to read the writing, or to make known its interpretation to the sovereign. 

9Then Sovereign Bĕlshatstsar was greatly alarmed, and his colour changed, and his great men were puzzled. 

Belshazzar acted on this startling occurrence as had his Babylonian kingly ancestors before him.  This kingdom had learned nothing.  The lessons learned by Nebuchadnezzar had, over the years, been forgotten.  He sent for the gaggle of geese, those soothsayers astrologers, diviners, etc.  Predictably, they were worthless to solve the mystery, in spite of the fact that Belshazzar bribed them with the promise of great riches and honor.  I supposed that he felt that was more conducive to getting an answer than threatening to kill them, as his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar had done.  But, it did not work.  And, his fear increased exponentially.  Then, next, a fascinating thing happened! 

Are you familiar with the Babylonian queen who comes to the rescue in this sordid tale?  You are about to be. 

10The sovereigness, because of the words of the sovereign and his great men, came to the banquet hall. And the sovereigness spoke and said, “O sovereign, live forever! Do not let your thoughts alarm you, nor let your colour change. 

11“There is a man in your reign in whom is the Spirit of the Set-apart Elah. And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the elahin, were found in him. And Sovereign Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar your father, your father the sovereign, made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and diviners, 

12because an excellent spirit, knowledge and understanding, interpreting dreams, and explaining riddles, and solving difficult problems were found in this Dani’ĕl, whom the sovereign named Bĕlteshatstsar. Now let Dani’ĕl be called, and let him show the interpretation.” 

There is some confusion as to who this “queen” was.  Whomever she was, it is believed she was not at the epic event, because she was the queen.  Belshazzar had several wives and concubines who WERE at the event, but not the queen mentioned in these verses.  Was this Belshazzar’s queen?  Some think so.  Others think she was the wife of Nabonidus, who some believe was Belshazzar’s father, which would have meant she was Bel’s mother.  Still others say she was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, which would have meant she was Bel’s grandmother.  At any rate, she was a woman who commanded Bel’s respect, because he listened to her. 

I’m inclined to believe that she was the grandmother, because she was old enough to have remembered the mighty works of Daniel.  Apparently, in the years since Neb’s death, Daniel had been forgotten.  By this time, he would have been in his 80s.  It would have most likely taken an older member of the queen’s court to remember him and his marvelous deeds. She had either seen Daniel succeed where the other “wise men” had failed in the past.  Or, she had certainly heard about it. 

At any rate, it is interesting that she referred to “the set-apart Elah”.  Remember that Elah is the Aramaic equivalent of El in the Hebrew, which is the singular of Elohim.  She referred to him as “set-apart”, which means “holy”, separated from false gods.  It almost sounds as though she knew this Elah well, doesn’t it?   

Maybe you are in a place in your life where, as happened with Daniel, you feel like you have faded from the scene of the action.  It is sometimes hard to trust, when you aren’t seeing the results you wish to see.  What did Daniel do?  He continued to faithfully obey and serve His God, who is always working behind the scenes, even when we don’t see His hands in action.  Do you suppose Daniel thought God might be “finished with him”?  Perhaps.  As we shall soon see, God was not! 

13So Dani’ĕl was brought in before the sovereign. The sovereign spoke and said to Dani’ĕl, “Are you that Dani’ĕl who is one of the sons of the exile from Yehuḏah, whom my father the sovereign brought from Yehuḏah? 

14“I have heard of you, that the Spirit of Elah is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. 

15“And the wise ones, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they were unable to show the interpretation of the word. 

16“And I myself have heard of you, that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and make known its interpretation to me, you are to be robed in purple and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be the third ruler in the reign.” 

 

The theologians say that being of the first group of exiles brought from Judea was a mark of honor, since Nebuchadnezzar first took the noble class, that is, “the cream of the crop”.  So, some say the king was complimenting Daniel here with sweet words. 

Verses 14 and 15 contrast the life of one who has walked in the power of the spirit of God versus those who worship and serve false gods.  Light, understanding and excellent wisdom are always the inheritance of the people of the one, true God.  Our reputation as people of the light SHOULD precede us, as it did Daniel.  By contrast, the godless are weak, ineffective imitators of the truth.   

Verse 16  leads off with the king continuing his obsequious flattery, as he says he has heard of Daniel, which is comical, because he certainly did not think of him immediately when this supernatural problem presented itself.  He goes on to tell Daniel, as he told the gaggle of soothsayers, incorporated, what the reward would be for interpreting the writing on the wall. 

I just love Daniel’s response.  It’s a smack-down. Verse 17. 

17Then Dani’ĕl answered and said before the sovereign, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another. Yet I shall read the writing to the sovereign, and make known the interpretation to him. 

If you will recall, in a similar scene between a much younger Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel did not disparage the king’s promised gifts.  Why not?  Well, for one thing, in the case of Belshazzar, the gifts were meaningless.  Daniel knew Belshazzar’s kingdom would fall that very night.  He then agrees to interpret the mysterious message, but first, like a grandpa lecturing his errant grandson, he gives an uninvited verbal spanking. 

18“O sovereign, the Most High Elah gave Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar your father a reign and greatness, and preciousness and esteem. 

19“And because of the greatness which He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished he executed, and whomever he wished he kept alive, and whomever he wished he raised up, and whomever he wished he made low. 

20“But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was so strong as to act proudly, he was put down from his throne of reign, and they took his preciousness from him. 

21“Then he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the heavens, till he knew that the Most High Elah is ruler in the reign of men, and He sets up over it whomever He wishes. 

22“And you his son, Bĕlshatstsar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. 

 23“And you have lifted yourself up against the Master of the heavens. And they brought before you the vessels of His house, and you and your great men, your wives and your concubines, have been drinking wine from them. And you have praised the elahin of silver, and of gold, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone, which neither see nor hear nor know. But the Elah who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not made great. 

Daniel begins by extoling the fineness of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule and reviewed the story of how Neb learned the lesson of humility.  Then, he hammers home the point that, although Belshazzar knew this, he had still hardened his heart with pride.  In His written word, God always condemns more harshly intentional sin.  In fact, there was no Tabernacle or Temple sacrifice prescribed to mitigate intentional sin, only unintentional sins.  In verse 20, the phrase “act proudly” in this translation is translated elsewhere as “to rebel”.  That Hebrew phrase usually means to sin intentionally.  Although it was descriptive of his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar likewise was unable to claim “I didn’t know...” Because Belshazzar DID know his ancestor’s history and still haughtily disregarded it, his guilt was compounded.  His punishment would be even more severe. 

In verse 23 Daniel calls Belshazzar upon the carpet, holds him to account, for his desecration of the sacred items from the Temple, as well as his idolatrous worship of false gods while using them. As this translation so poignantly framed his guilt, “the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified!”  The Hebrew word for “soul”, “spirit” and “breath” is the same.  Soul or spirit would be more appropriate a translation here. 

Continuing on...verses 24-28 

24“Then the part of the hand was sent from Him, and this writing was inscribed. 

25“And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENĚ, MENĚ, TEQĚL, UPHARSIN. 

26“This is the interpretation of each word: MENĚ – Elah has numbered your reign, and put an end to it. 

27“TEQĚL – You have been weighed on the scales, and found lacking. 

28“PERES – Your reign has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” 

Whether the writing was still visible on the wall as Daniel was in the banquet hall with the king we cannot tell.  Regardless, Daniel knew what had been written and began to interpret it. 

Have you ever wondered why the Babylonian magicians could not interpret the writing?  Even if it had been written in Hebrew, as opposed to the native Aramaic, they still should have been able to read it.  The sages have put forth various reasons why they could not interpret the words.  Here are some of them: 

One school of thought says it was written in a more modern Hebrew script, one which had not been invented or implemented in the days of Daniel.  Another school of thought postulates that the words were written in code, for example, with each letter of the alphabet substituted for a counterpart from the other end of the alphabet.  A variation of this last theory has the letters not written in their normal arrangement, that is instead of them being read left to right, they were arranged so that the meaning could be derived reading them from top to bottom.  Regardless, all these theories are conjecture. 

Vs. 26. God has counted the years of your reign, and your time is up, buster!  Why are there two Mene words?  One sage says this indicated that Belshazzar had counted, but that God had also counted. And, it was God’s count that was going to “rule”, if you’ll pardon the pun.  

Vs. 27 The word “tekel” indicates that Belshazzar had been evaluated and found to be quite lacking.  The sages say... Had Belshazzar’s reign been more meritorious, his reign would have extended an additional year, and there would have been no rule of King Darius the Mede, no break between the end of Belshazzar’s reign and the onset of the reign of King Cyrus the Great. 

Vs. 28 We are going to parse the Aramaic here for a moment.  The plural of “Peres” is “upharsin”, which is listed in some English translations.  So, the message starts with two “mene” and ends with two “peres”.  The word Peres means to divide or to break.  As there are two of this word, via the plural, the indication is that the kingdom would be divided into two parts, one part to the Medes and one part to the Persians. 

Let’s finish this chapter up now. 

29Then Bĕlshatstsar gave orders, and they robed Dani’ĕl in purple and put a chain of gold around his neck, and they proclaimed concerning him that he is the third ruler in the reign. 

30In that night Bĕlshatstsar, sovereign of the Chaldeans, was slain. 

31And Dareyawesh the Mede took over the reign, being about sixty-two years old. 

To his credit, Belshazzar kept his word and promoted Daniel to a position similar to the one he had held during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.  This must have had implications once Darius assumed the throne, because we will read that Daniel kept his prominent position once the kingdom changed hands. 

Verse 30, the phrase “in that night” indicates that the Lord God ensures that no nation infringes upon the time allotted to another nation, not by so much as even a day.  He is a God of accuracy and of precision, a God who always, always fulfills His prophecies and keeps His promises.  In that, we can rest, while we trust!