Old Testament - Daniel 5 - November 4, 2022

11/4/2022 – Daniel 5

Belshazzar is the reigning king in Babylon now. He has created “a great feast to a thousand of his lords” (v 1) This feast included the king, his princes, his wives, and his concubines. As he drank the wine, he ordered his servants to bring in all the golden and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple that they destroyed in Jerusalem. The people drank the wine from the temple vessels, “praising their gods of gold, and of silver, or brass, or iron, of wood and of stone.” (v 4) 

Within an hour, fingers of a man’s hand wrote on the plaster of the wall. This scared the king. His “countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against the other.” (v 6) He called all the astrologers and soothsayers and promised that whoever could interpret the writing on the wall, would be made a king. The queen went to the king, trying to sooth him saying “There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him…” (v 11) She explained that this man had “an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts…” (v 12) She was describing Daniel.

Once more, in v 14 Daniel is described: “the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee.”

The soothsayers and magicians had not been able to interpret the writing on the wall. But if Daniel could do this, he would be made a third ruler in Babylon. David said he would interpret the writing, but he did not need to gifts from the king to do so. 

Daniel began his work of interpretation with a prayer “O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty, and glory, and honour. And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from. His kingly throne, and they took his glory from him…and he was driven from the sons or men” and he lived with the beasts until he was humbled. 

Daniel then tells the king, Nebuchadnezzar’s ruling son that he “hast not humbled thin heart, though thou knewest all this” (v22) Instead Daniel point out that Belshazzare had merely been puffed up, he had thought only of himself, he had treated the sacred items of the temple with contempt, and he had lived in wicked ways and had worshiped false gods.

I liked this comment from the student manual: “Those who function under the influence of the Spirit of God have increased capabilities, not because of their own qualifications, but because of the power of God which they are privileged to use. They are servants in the Lord’s hands who are to bless others and carry out the Lord’s will. Daniel knew this and neither deserved nor sought for earthly rewards for his role as an instrument in the hands of God.”

After this, Daniel gave him the interpretation of the writing on the wall: “God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians” (v’s 26-28)

The amazing thing to me is how this puffed-up Belshazzar reacted to the frightening interpretation that Daniel had given him. Instead, the king commanded that Daniel be clothed in scarlet, a chain of pure gold was to be hung on his neck, and that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.” (v 29)

And in the final verses we are told that Belshazzar, the king, was slain that night, And Darius, the Median took the kingdom.

But there is a most interesting report that we can find, not in the Bible, but in the history of this time: “Babylon was surrounded by a massive wall over one hundred feet thick and three hundred feet high. To breach such a wall, even with constant sieging, would take months, and yet there is no hint in Daniel’s record that the city was under siege at this time. Could a city of Babylon’s size and fortifications be taken in one night? Historical sources other than the Bible indicate that that is exactly what happened, supporting Daniel’s record exactly. The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, recorded that “Cyrus had previously caused the Pallacopas, a canal which ran west of the city, and carried off the superfluous water of the Euphrates into the lake of Nitocris, to be cleared out, in order to turn the river into it; which, by this means, was rendered so shallow that his soldiers were able to penetrate along its bed into the city.” (In Samuel Fallows, ed., The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia and Scriptural Dictionary, s.v. “Babylon,” p. 207.) Thus the Persians marched under the massive walls. Harry Thomas Frank discussed the reasons why the city, even then, surrendered so easily: “Cyrus’ orders preceded him to the city. No revenge was to be taken. The city was to have its normal life restored as quickly as possible. The gods which Nabonidus had taken from the equally well-treated provincial cities were to be restored at once. There was, above all, to be no terrorizing of the population. Indeed, Cyrus intended to change some of the policies of Nabonidus which had made him objectionable to his subjects. One can imagine the reception Cyrus received when he made his appearance in the capital a few weeks after its capture. He was not a conqueror. He was a liberator! And far from installing a foreign rule over the people, Cyrus personally took the role of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, in the New Year Festival, thereby claiming for himself and his heirs the right to rule the Babylonian Empire by divine designation.” (Discovering the Biblical World, p. 140.)