Daniel 5

what you need to know

(Daniel 5)

Jason Procopio

Daniel chapter 5:

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. 

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. 

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.” 

13 Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king answered and said to Daniel, “You are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king my father brought from Judah. 14 I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. 15 Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter. 16 But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” 

17 Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. 18 O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. 19 And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. 20 But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him. 21 He was driven from among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like that of a beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. 22 And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. 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. 

24 “Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. 25 And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. 26 This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28 Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” 

29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. 

30 That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. 31  And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. 

There are stories in the Bible in which the point the author is trying to make is absolutely clear: there is a clear lesson, a clear message he’s trying to communicate. Then there are others where the point of the story is a bit harder to decipher. 

When we read the Bible it’s important to remember that not all stories have a direct lesson to tell—a direct line you can trace from Here’s what happens in this story to Here’s what it means for me. Many books of the Bible are attempting to record historical events; they say, “Here’s what happened,” and not necessarily, “Here’s what it means.”

But at the same time, every story we find in the Bible—particularly in the Old Testament, where we are right now—either looks forward to or builds toward the coming and work of Jesus Christ. 

The challenge of reading the Old Testament is figuring out where we are—what the author is trying to communicate, and how it builds toward or looks forward to Jesus Christ.

This is the first story we see after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (the king we’ve seen from chapter 1 through to chapter 4). On the surface, this passage tells a somewhat enigmatic but mostly straightforward story. But as is often the case in the Bible (particularly in the Old Testament), things are rarely as they seem. This straightforward story—which closely resembles stories we’ve already seen with Nebuchadnezzar—actually has strong echoes in the New Testament, and thus helps us understand the center of the Bible story. So although it might seem like a story of little consequence, there’s a lot more here than we might think.

The Writing on the Wall (v. 1-12)

It begins with a feast. 

King Nebuchadnezzar has presumably died. After his death, the throne went to his son Nabonidus, who actually shared the throne with his son Belshazzar. This is a strange situation, but Nabonidus was a strange and eccentric ruler. According to historians, for many years of his reign Nabonidus didn’t even live in Babylon. According to Herodotus, Nabonidus left the kingdom to fight against Darius, the king of Medes (whom we’ll meet next week). He was defeated, and fled, leaving Darius a wide-open path to conquer Babylon.

While Nabonidus was absent, his son Belshazzar was entrusted the kingship in Babylon.

And he took every liberty his early kingship afforded him.

On this fateful night, he decides to throw a feast “for a thousand of his lords” (v. 1). Daniel tells us that when he tasted the wine, he decided that ordinary cups wouldn’t do. So he ordered new cups to be brought—and not just any cups, but the vessels of gold and silver that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem (v. 2). 

We need to understand what a big deal this would have been for the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and for their God. These were no ordinary drinking cups. They were “consecrated” vessels, set apart for holy use in the temple. An ordinary member of the people of Israel—anyone not a priest—didn’t even have the right to touch them. And here was this pagan king who, for his own amusement, was drinking out of them and sharing them with his drunk dinner guests.

And that’s when the fun begins. V. 5:  

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.

I’ve seen this scene depicted in movies and Christian cartoons. Most of the time, the letters merely appear on the wall, as if they were being written by an invisible hand—simply because it’s hard for us to imagine what this might have looked like: human fingers, detached from a body, hovering in the air and writing on the wall. 

Can you imagine what a sight this would have been for the king and his guests (especially since they were drunk)? Daniel tells us (v. 6):  

6 Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. 

So yeah, he’s freaked out.

And at this point, events play out in ways we’ve already seen.

Just like Nebuchadnezzar, when he had his dreams, Belshazzar calls the enchanters, the Chaldeans (the wise men) and the astrologers to tell him what the writing on the wall means, promising them riches and power in return. They come in, they look, but they can’t figure it out. (The only thing I can think of when I imagine these guys is a group of men looking at each other and shrugging.) So the king keeps freaking out. 

Fortunately, someone is there who remembers how all this went down in the past. 

The queen (probably Belshazzar’s mother) tells him about Daniel—how he has knowledge other men don’t have, and how he was able to interpret dreams for Nebuchadnezzar. She says Daniel has “the spirit of the holy gods”, v. 11, and can interpret the writing. This is a strange way to phrase it, given the remarkable statements Nebuchadnezzar made about the God of Israel in chapter 4. Maybe she didn’t quite grasp the distinction, or refused to accept God for who he is, or maybe her son is the one who refused to accept God, and she didn’t want him to reject Daniel outright.

At any rate, the king, desperate for an answer, Belshazzar calls for Daniel.

Daniel’s History Lesson (v. 13-21)

Daniel comes in, and the king explains the situation. Just like with the other wise men, he offers to give Daniel gifts and a place of power in the kingdom if he can interpret the writing on the wall. Daniel of course refuses the gifts, and accepts to interpret the writing.

But he doesn’t do it right away.

Instead, he takes Belshazzar through a history lesson—a reminder of things he had clearly heard, but apparently ignored. 

In v. 18-21 he gives Belshazzar a summary of what happened in chapter 4 (which you’ll know if you were with us last week). He wants to remind Belshazzar of what his grandfather had lived through, and where he had ended up.

Nebuchadnezzar was a powerful man, to whom God had given greatness and authority and strength. And yet (v. 20) his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly—he didn’t recognize that everything he had came from God, and rather attributed his greatness to himself. So God brought him low, causing him to lose his sanity for a time, making him wander in the fields like an animal, so that when his reason finally returned to him, he would know (v. 21) that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. 

Belshazzar had surely heard this story; Nebuchadnezzar was his grandfather, and most granddads love to tell their stories. But this story would have been legendary, because Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful king in the history of the empire, and had sent an open letter to all his people telling them what had happened to him, and calling them to recognize the power and the strength and the goodness of God. 

There is simply no way Belshazzar wouldn’t have known everything Daniel was telling him, and more. And that fact is extremely important, because despite everything Belshazzar knew about the God of Israel, despite everything he had heard about what had happened between God and Nebuchadnezzar, he had chosen to reject it.

There are a million reasons people give as to why they reject God, even once they’ve come to know a lot about him. Some people might reject him because his existence conflicts with their own way of thinking, with their own way of seeing their place in the world. Some people might reject him because they have a hard time reconciling their own logic with the idea of him.

But ultimately, for all the reasons people give for rejecting God, one reason unites them all. At the bottom of every act of sin, every act of rebellion against God, there is one ultimate motivation.

We reject God because we want to. 

Because as our Creator, he makes claims on our lives that we don’t want anyone to have but ourselves.

Because we don’t like the idea that there is an objective right and an objective wrong; because we want to make our own decisions about that, based on our own desires.

Because we don’t want to take orders from anyone but ourselves—we want to be our own kings and queens, our own gods and goddesses.

So you see, Daniel is not being merely repetitive here. He brings up Nebuchadnezzar’s story because he wants to remind Belshazzar that there is a right way to respond to God, and he has chosen another way.

The Verdict (v. 22-28)

He says (v. 22):  

22 And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. 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.

Now just so we’re clear, Belshazzar has committed a terrible offense in taking the vessels from the temple and using them for a dinner party—none of us have done that (at least I don’t see how). But what he did isn’t the main problem. At the core of his sin is this awful reality: the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.  

And every single one of us have done that. 

Daniel says that God holds our every breath in his hand—if he decides to stop the in-and-out of our lungs, we stop breathing. He says that all our ways are his—God is sovereign over every moment of our lives.

And we have not honored him as he deserves. 

The apostle Paul says it this way in Romans 1.18-23:  

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 

Now of course I don’t know many people today, in our society, who actually worship images of men or birds or animals or lizards. But take those images and replace them with other things, and you see his point quite well. We worship at the altar of career. We worship at the altar of family. We worship at the altar of entertainment. We worship at the altar of personal fulfillment. We exchange the glory of God for our own pursuits, our own desires, our own ideas, our own opinions. Claiming to be wise, we become fools.

Paul says that even if we didn’t grow up in church, even if we haven’t heard the gospel a thousand times, we still have enough in the world around us to convince us that there is a God who is worthy of our worship—so we are all without excuse.

And you...have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. 

And as a result, in his message on the wall, God describes the verdict the king has received from him. And this verdict is the same verdict every human being who has ever lived receives, if left on our own.

MENE means counted—v. 26: God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.

TEKEL means weighed—v. 27: you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

PERES sounds like the Aramaic for divided and for Persia—v. 28: your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

So this is a specific judgment for Belshazzar, but at the same time it is representative of the judgment of all humanity, in our rebellion against God.

Left to our own devices, we are all weighed in the balances and found wanting. We cannot be the people we must be; we can never even come close to the holiness of God, which we’d need if we are to be counted righteous by him. And as a result, our days are numbered: if we persist in our sin, everything we have, the whole life we try to build for ourselves, will be taken from us.

Naturally, we all hate this idea: we hate the idea that there is a God who can judge us and who will judge us for our sin. But that truth is unmistakable and inevitable if we are to make any sense of the Bible. There will come a day when God will judge every single one of us for the lives we have lived, and apart from something outside of us, we will all receive the same verdict as the king.

This story ends in tragedy: that very night, Belshazzar is killed, and a ruler from a foreign nation, Darius the Mede, receives the kingdom of Babylon. The king is informed of his guilty verdict, but no second chance is held out: numbered, weighed, divided...and then death. It’s a heavy reminder that all of us reach a point where our time will run out, and repentance (like Nebuchadnezzar’s) will no longer be an option. 

This is how the story goes for every human being on our own.

It ends badly for the king—that really is the end of the story: he gets the message, he’s killed that night, and his kingdom goes to another nation. So this is kind of a depressing text. But at the same time, it is one of those texts that helps us feel the weight of the good news of the gospel. All of us, without exception, live our lives like the king: his story is our story…at least up until v. 25.

The verdict of another

But now, when it comes time for the verdict and punishment to be given to God’s people—when it comes time for v. 26—everything shifts. Rather than leave this verdict hanging over our heads, God moves it, and places it on Christ. 

This is the glorious news of the gospel—God himself took on a human nature, so he could take our place. 

Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, lived the perfect life we should have lived. He never rebelled against his Father; he humbled himself and honored the God in whose hand is our breath, and whose are all our ways. He obeyed the law of God’s people perfectly, to the very end. 

Now the way this should have gone (logically speaking) is that when it came time for Christ to receive his verdict, he should have received a perfectly clean verdict. When Jesus Christ is weighed in the balance, nothing is lacking. 

But instead, Christ took our sin on himself, and weighed himself down with it. He was counted, and God numbered his days and brought them to an end. He was weighed, and found lacking, because he had become our sin (cf. 2 Cor. 5.21). His kingdom is taken from him. He dies on the cross, and suffers our punishment, in our place.

And in exchange, he gives us his perfect life—his life which was entirely free from sin—and puts his life on us so completely that when God judges us, his people, he declares us as perfect as his only Son. When our days are counted, we find they never end. When we are weighed, we find that we lack nothing (because Christ has given us what we lacked). And as a result, rather than dividing our “kingdom” and giving it to another—rather than taking life from us—he gives us his kingdom, and promises we’ll live there for all eternity with him.

This is the good news of the gospel—a startling reverse image of the king’s guilty verdict and the king’s tragic end. 

We never know what it will take to bring us to a full understanding of this reality. More than likely, God’s hand won’t appear out of nowhere to write us a message on the wall. Many of us wish God would miraculously show himself like that, but even if we did see something like that, we wouldn’t necessarily be convinced. Look at the king—he saw this hand, he was terrified, but he never came to faith in God.

The good news is that this kind of spectacular intervention isn’t necessary. God’s Spirit can use anything to make us realize that we need Christ. 

For me, it was a song. I worked at a print shop in college, silk-screening t-shirts. We needed a lot of room for the machines, and there wasn’t enough room in the shop itself. So my boss had refurbished a barn on his father’s property to fit the silk-screening equipment. I worked alone, for hours on end, in this barn—for an introvert like me, it was a great job. I’d do my work, and I’d listen to music or audiobooks, and I’d just think about stuff.

On one particular day in the summer of 2001, I was listening to one of the few Christian musicians I liked. To this day, I can’t remember which band it was, or which song was playing. I just remember that on this particular day, the gospel I’d grown up hearing became real for me. I realized that no matter what I wanted to think, I could no longer say that I believed the gospel was a lie.

I ran from that realization for a good while, until just a couple months before I met my wife; but that moment of realization—that thought which said, This is REAL!—never left me, and hasn’t left me since.

For every person, it’s a different experience, but there are a few things these experiences always have in common. 

Firstly, they always include hearing the truth of the gospel. We hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, they always include conviction—the Holy Spirit takes the gospel we have heard and makes us believe it, sometimes despite ourselves. 

Thirdly, they always include repentance. Repentance means turning away from our sin and placing our trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. 

This doesn’t always happen all at once—in the time between the day when I believed the gospel,  and the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin, and the day when I finally repented of my sin, two years went by. But if God saves us, all three of these things will always happen.

Now I don’t know who is watching this. I know some of you, sure—and I know you’ve experienced these things I just described. But there may be some out there who are listening to me and who have never experienced these things. 

If that’s you, I want you to think about something for a minute.

There are three steps in the beginning of our experience of salvation—gospel, conviction and repentance—and today, perhaps for the first time, you’ve gone through the first. You have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ—what we deserve for our rebellion against God, and what Christ did to save us and reconcile us to God. There’s a lot more we could say about it, but you’ve heard what you need to hear.

Like the king, you know these things now. And it’s quite possible that the Spirit is doing something in you now, without you even realizing it. Often we don’t realize until afterwards everything that he was doing in us to bring us to Christ. We don’t need to wait for lightning to fall from the sky to benefit from the work of Christ.

So what must you do? What must you do to benefit from Christ’s work? to not end up like the king?

Look again at what Daniel says about why the king has received his guilty verdict. V. 22-23 again:  

22 And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. 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. 

We’ve already talked about how this applies to us—how all of us have acted like the king. So now take all that, and reverse it.

Rather than rejecting the warning of a guilty verdict, recognize the gift of the NOT GUILTY verdict which Christ offers you.

Rather than continuing to reject your Creator and Sustainer, repent of that rejection—turn away from it, and ask for God to forgive you for your rebellion against him.

Rather than submitting yourself to a false god—perhaps even yourself—submit yourself to God alone, for his glory alone.

Rather than refusing to humble yourself, though you know these things, humble your heart and thankfully receive the free gift of salvation Christ offers you, because you know these things.

Don’t ignore what you’ve heard. The king knew what God had done for his grandfather, and rejected it, blinded by his own selfish desires. And when he finally found himself confronted with God, terrified by the encounter, he had nowhere left to stand. He had chosen his lot, and now held it entirely.

Now, today, you have heard the gospel. So now that you know these things—now that you know what God has done for you in Christ, God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways—now that you know these things…honor him as God.