The Handwriting Is on the Wall

c) Magicians are summoned; failure of magicians to interpret the writing (5:7-9)

d) TURNING POINT: Daniel is remembered (5:10-12)

c´) Daniel is summoned; failure of magicians recounted (5:13-16)

b´) Handwriting on the wall interpreted by Daniel (5:17-28)

a´) Conclusion: Daniel is honored, and Belshazzar’s kingdom is overthrown (5:29-31 [5:29–6:1])

Dorsey notes, “Structured repetition is used throughout Daniel to emphasize the book’s two main themes: Yahweh’s supremacy over all earthly powers and the importance for Jews to remain loyal to their God even in exile.” These two themes are emphasized again, Dorsey says, “by the matching stories about Yahweh’s supremacy over the two powerful and proud Babylonian monarchs: Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar (chaps. 4, 5)” (Literary Structure of the Old Testament, 261–62).

Hearing the loud cry of the king and his lords, the queen, probably Belshazzar’s mother, “came to the banquet hall” (5:10). She respectfully addresses the king in a traditional manner (“May the king live forever”) and tells him to get a grip on himself because

there is a man in your kingdom who has a spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your predecessor he was found to have insight, intelligence, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, mediums, Chaldeans, and diviners. . . . [He] did this because Daniel, the one the king named Belteshazzar, was found to have an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and intelligence, and the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems. (5:11-12)

Therefore she advises that Daniel be called out of obscurity and retirement “and he will give the interpretation.”

Daniel, the man of God, is brought before the king. There may be a subtle insult directed at the old man, now likely in his eighties, as he is referred to as “one of the Judean exiles” (v. 13). Interestingly, the king calls him by his Jewish name. Still, Belshazzar repeats the queen mother’s praise of Daniel, revealing that his reputation precedes him (v. 14). The king recounts the failure of his impotent soothsayers (v. 15) and reaffirms his promise of purple, gold, and promotion to third ruler in the kingdom if Daniel can interpret the handwriting on the wall (v. 16).

Daniel’s response is not disrespectful, but it is direct. The king can keep his gifts or give them to someone else; Daniel neither needs nor wants them. Yet he “will read the inscription for the king and make the interpretation known to him” (v. 17). (As an aside, that is a pretty good summary of faithful, biblical exposition!) But before Daniel interprets the handwriting, he does a little preaching and schools Belshazzar in recent history and biblical theology. Note that God is referenced five times in verses 18-28. He is called “the Most High God” (vv. 18, 21), “the Lord of the heavens” (v. 23), and “the God who holds your life-breath in his hand” (v. 23). Here is a summary of his message in outline form:

Verses 24-28 need further attention if we are to understand what had been written on the wall. The writing on the wall was inscribed in Aramaic as “Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin” (5:26). There would have been no vowel markings, and the letters would have run consecutively. Daniel’s first step is to rightly separate the letters into the appropriate word divisions. This yields four words to the inscription that reads, “numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.” Daniel then provides the devastating interpretation in verses 26-28:

God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. . . . You have been weighed on the balance and found deficient. . . . Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

God is closing the books on Belshazzar’s kingdom. God’s measuring standard proves the king to be a lightweight, a loser. He challenged the Most High God and lost. He crossed the line, and the gig is up. God saw his sin just as he sees everyone’s sin, and the time of reckoning has come, as it will for all who refuse to bow and humbly submit to “the Most High God.” Remember, a day is coming when

every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:10-11)

Daniel 5:29-31

Turn out the lights, the party’s over. Tell the band they can all go home, and they don’t need to come back. Ever! “The Most High God” is taking Belshazzar out and setting up a new world monarch named Cyrus, here identified as Darius the Mede (5:30-31).

Dale Davis points out that “chapters 2, 3, and 4 all end with some ‘confession’ by Nebuchadnezzar (2:46-47; 3:28-29; 4:34-37), but there is none of that at the end of chapter 5” (Message of Daniel, 71). Belshazzar showed no signs of repentance for his arrogance, blasphemies, idolatry, pride, and sensualities. He did however, and probably reluctantly, keep his word to Daniel. Like wicked King Herod who murdered John the Baptist, he no doubt was “exceedingly sorry” because of his oath (Mark 6:26 ESV). But to save face, he had to keep his word. How often our words come back to bite us!

“Belshazzar gave an order,” and Daniel was clothed in purple, got his gold chain, and was raised up to “be the third ruler in the kingdom” (5:29). Once again God has honored his faithful servant in this hostile and pagan world. Daniel had been sent to the retirement home by men of power. God brought him out of retirement and made him “third ruler in the kingdom.” After Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, no one was more powerful than the Judean exile (cf. v. 13).

Daniel’s ascendancy in the Babylonian Empire was short-lived. It was like getting a promotion the day before the company goes bankrupt. It was like getting a medal on the day your side lost the war. His title lasted only a night. However, Darius will wisely recognize the value of this man of God in the days that follow (cf. 6:3). “That very night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was killed” (5:30)—not exactly the way he expected his party to end.

According to the Greek historians Herodotus (fifth century BC) and Xenophon (ca. 434–355 BC), the Medo-Persian army did not attempt to storm the impregnable Babylonian walls, which were at least forty feet high and twenty-five feet in width. It has to be noted that Herodotus exclaimed, “Babylon surpasses in wonder any city in the known world,” and he said the walls were fifty-six miles long, eighty feet thick, and three hundred twenty feet high! While this may have been an exaggeration (thirty stories high!?), no one denies their magnificence. So how did the Medo-Persians get into the city?

They diverted water from the Euphrates River (which ran under the walls of Babylon) into a marsh. With the level of the water lowered, the soldiers were able to wade the river under the walls and enter the city. Xenophon added that the city was invaded while the Babylonians were feasting in a time of drunken revelry. . . . As a matter of fact, Xenophon cited the festival as the reason the Persians chose to attack Babylon on that particular night. (Miller, Daniel, 167)

The dates were October 11–12, 539 BC (ibid.).

Belshazzar bites the dust “and Darius the Mede received the kingdom [from God!] at the age of sixty-two” (v. 31). The Babylonian king had challenged and mocked the Most High God, and it was no contest. He had been confronted with his sin and showed no repentance. So God took him out. On this occasion God’s judgment did not come gradually, like a frog being boiled in a kettle. It struck like a lightning bolt from heaven.

To those who knew their Scriptures, this was no surprise. God’s prophets had already laid out Babylon’s destiny—this kingdom was a passing fad, here today and gone tomorrow (see Isa 21:1-10; Jer 50–51). Sinclair Ferguson directs us to the wisdom of Proverbs (Daniel, 114):

One who becomes stiff-necked, after many reprimands will be shattered instantly—beyond recovery. (Prov 29:1)

How long, inexperienced ones, will you love ignorance? How long will you mockers enjoy mocking and you fools hate knowledge? If you respond to my warning, then I will pour out my spirit on you and teach you my words. Since I called out and you refused, extended my hand and no one paid attention, since you neglected all my counsel and did not accept my correction, I, in turn, will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you. (Prov 1:22-26)

In Revelation 18 we read of the destruction of Babylon, that evil and wicked world system that stands against the kingdom of God economically, morally, politically, and spiritually. In Daniel 5, we have received a preview of that eschatological day. Here we find words of wisdom, words of warning.

In the story of God’s handwriting on the wall, a Hebrew exile comes out of nowhere to confront the powers of this world with their sins of blasphemy, mockery, arrogance, pride, and idolatry. Given that Daniel has been off the historical scene for many years, it is almost as if he has risen from the dead. He is a man of impeccable character who cannot be bought or seduced by the idols of this world. Why? Because in this man of unsurpassed wisdom is the Spirit of the Holy God. In fact, even the pagans acknowledge his good testimony (5:11; cf. 3 John 11-12), acknowledging he has “an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and intelligence, and the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems” (5:12; cf. 6:3).

This sounds rather familiar with respect to another exile from Judah, one who comes on the scene in the first century, a man by the name of Jesus who said of himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18). Later we are not surprised to hear even his enemies admit, “No man ever spoke like this!” (John 7:46). That Daniel typifies in our text the coming Messiah is hard to deny. This servant of the Lord foreshadows the Servant of the Lord on whom rests

the Spirit of the Lord . . . a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. (Isa 11:2)

Daniel’s wisdom and abilities and position are similar in many ways to those of the patriarch Joseph (Gen 37–50), and thus his life reflects backward. However, as the mediator of God’s wisdom to sinful humanity, his life looks forward to the ultimate mediator between God and humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5), the one Paul calls “the wisdom of God” in 1 Corinthians 1:24, the one in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3).