Four times the ruling head of Babylon was made to feel the hand of God--very gently the first time (Nebuchadnezzar's dream); a bit more severely the second time (the episode of the fiery furnace); the third time with a much harder stroke, which sent Babylon's great king to company with beasts for "seven times." But we now come to the fourth lesson which was catastrophic and final.

      After Nebuchadnezzar's death Evil-Merodach, his son, ascended the throne (2 Kings 25:27f). The next ruler of Babylon mentioned in the scriptures is Belshazzar. The "critics" once contended that such a person as "Belshazzar" never lived. However (as has happened more than once) archaeological research uncovered facts which decisively showed that the critics were wrong and the Bible was right. This Belshazzar was not the king of Babylon, but co-regent with (and under) his father, Nabonidus--a fact which also is duly indicated in Daniel.

      The narrative of Belshazzar's feast and the handwriting on the wall, is one of the most familiar, as it is also one of the most dramatic and thrilling of all the stories of the Bible. The great feast which Belshazzar made to a thousand of his lords; the wine-drinking (referred to five times in the first four verses, [38] which explains to some extent the recklessness of the occasion); the daring blasphemy which Belshazzar's wine-inflamed brain conceived and executed--to prostitute the sacred vessels of Jehovah's Temple (brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar) not only to purposes of drunken revelry, but to the praise of Babylon's idols (v. 4); these make up the setting of the scene. In the height of the feast their drunken gaiety was suddenly interrupted. The shouting and the laughter died. At his elevated table the king sat as one transfixed, staring at a spot over against the candlestick. There he saw the fingers of a man's hand writing mysterious words upon the plaster of the wall. The hand vanished; the writing remained. The king's countenance was distorted with fright, and he was trembling in every part of his body: "the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Then he called out for his enchanters, Chaldaeans, and soothsayers and promised that whichever one of them would decipher the handwriting on the wall should be arrayed with the royal insignia (a robe of purple, and a chain of gold about his neck) and proclaimed as third ruler of the kingdom (for as we have seen, Belshazzar himself was holding the rank of second ruler).

      In vain the alluring reward: the wise-men of Babylon could not read the writing. Then the queen (the queen-mother, no doubt, and probably the wife of Nabonidus, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar) who remembered (perhaps herself revered) Daniel, came in to comfort the terror-stricken Belshazzar and to tell him in well-chosen words of Daniel, who at this [39] time seems to have been generally forgotten. (Read her splendid little speech in verses 10-12.) So Daniel was brought in. He must have been quite an old man by this time--in his eighties, near to ninety. But God was not yet done with His servant by any means; and, as is often the case, God made him to bring forth fruit in his old age. The king greeted Daniel, told him the reason why he was called, and repeated to him the offer of the reward he had held out to the "Chaldaeans." (Dan. 5:13-16.) Now came Daniel's turn. With lofty scorn he waved aside the king's promises; but nevertheless he would make known to him the interpretation of the writing. First, however, he had a personal word to say to the king, who, against better light, had gone out of his way to insult the God of heaven.

      O thou king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty: and because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, 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 raised up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts', and his dwelling was with the wild asses; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; until he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine from them; and thou [40] hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed.

      Brave words and boldly spoken were these. We note quite a difference in Daniel's manner toward this wicked and worthless descendant of Nebuchadnezzar, as compared with what had been his attitude toward the old king himself. (Dan. 4:19-27.) And now comes the interpretation of the mysterious handwriting:

      And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end. TEKEL; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES;¹ thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

      Belshazzar was as good as his word: Daniel was arrayed in the purple robe, the gold chain placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed third ruler of the kingdom. The fact that Belshazzar did this after such a speech from Daniel indicates a spirit of repentance. And that is a thing God never overlooks (Ps. 51:17). Although it came too late to avert his fate and the fate of his kingdom, it will yet make a difference when he comes to stand before the judgment throne of the God he had defied.

      But it was too late--later than Belshazzar or anyone else in Babylon thought it was. Already the besieging armies of the Medes and Persians--yea, while the godless revel was going on in Belshazzar's royal [41] festal hall--they were entering the impregnable city through the open gates in the bed of the Euphrates. "In that night, Belshazzar the Chaldaean king was slain; and Darius the Mede received the kingdom." Babylon had filled up her cup, and the God of heaven had placed the world-power into the hands of another Gentile Nation. The kingdom of the head of gold had passed to that of the arms and breast of silver.

[LOD2 38-44]