The Writing Is On the Wall

Daniel 5:1-31  King Belshazzar made a great festival for a thousand of his lords, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand.

² Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.  ³ So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver 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 the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

⁵ Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote.  ⁶ Then the king’s face turned pale, and his thoughts terrified him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.  ⁷ The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the diviners; and the king said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever can read this writing and tell me its interpretation shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around his neck, and rank third in the kingdom.”  ⁸ Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king the interpretation.  ⁹ Then King Belshazzar became greatly terrified and his face turned pale, and his lords were perplexed.

¹⁰ The queen, when she heard the discussion of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall. The queen said, “O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts terrify you or your face grow pale.  ¹¹ There is a man in your kingdom who is endowed with a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father he was found to have enlightenment, understanding, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and diviners,  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 give the interpretation.”

¹³ Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel, “So you are Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah?  ¹⁴ I have heard of you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and that enlightenment, 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 tell me its interpretation, but they were not able to give the interpretation of the matter.  ¹⁶ But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and tell me its interpretation, you shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around your neck, and rank third in the kingdom.”

¹⁷ Then Daniel answered in the presence of the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else! Nevertheless I will read the writing to the king and let him know the interpretation.  ¹⁸ O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar kingship, greatness, glory, and majesty.  ¹⁹ And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed those he wanted to kill, kept alive those he wanted to keep alive, honored those he wanted to honor, and degraded those he wanted to degrade.  ²⁰ But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he acted proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and his glory was stripped from him.  ²¹ He was driven from human society, and his mind was made like that of an animal. His dwelling was with the wild asses, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and sets over it whomever he will.  ²² And you, Belshazzar his son, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this!  ²³ You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. 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 power is your very breath, and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored.

²⁴ “So 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 on the scales 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 in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made concerning him that he should rank third 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.

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Today will be the final installment in our Spooky Sermons series, and our final Spooky Sermon is The Writing Is On the Wall.

We’ve all heard that saying before. It usually means something is about to happen, and whatever it is, we’re probably not going to like it. “Writing on the wall” is never a good thing.

The original story – where the saying comes from – is found in the book of Daniel, chapter five, which we heard just a few moments ago. The events in this chapter take place during the time when the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah have been living as captives in Babylon.

At this point in the history of God’s people, the Northern Kingdom of Israel is gone – they were invaded by the Assyrians around 150 years before. The Southern Kingdom, which included Jerusalem, hung on for a bit longer, but eventually they also were invaded, and taken into exile in Babylon – leaving behind only the very poorest of the people to keep the land from going completely wild.

For this story in Daniel to make any sense to us, I need to share a little about the city of Babylon itself. Babylon and the area surrounding it contains some of the oldest human settlements in the world. Civilization there dates back at least to 6,000BC. It’s probably even older than that. (Compare that to America’s 250 years, we have some catching up to do!)

The city of Babylon is located on the river Euphrates. We’ll remember from history class that the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates was called Mesopotamia (which literally means ‘between the rivers’) — the ‘cradle of civilization’. That’s where Babylon was. This gives us an idea of how old the place was!

Today, this part of the world is called Iran; the old-fashioned name for it is Persia. There are so many things that we have today that came from this ancient civilization – things like Persian rugs, Persian cats; the Persians invented algebra, backgammon, guitars, the very first postal system… and the very first Charter of Human Rights that was ever written, was written by Cyrus the Great – who will become the king of Babylon at the very end of our story today.

So the history of this part of the world is amazing… and what a place it would be to visit!  But back in the days of Daniel, the people of God were not so crazy about being there.  They wanted to go home to Jerusalem.

The prophet Daniel arrived in Babylon with the first wave of captives. He was a young leader, bright, capable, and he and his friends (Shadrack, Meschach, and Abednego – you may remember them from Sunday School) were noticed by King Nebuchadnezzar because they were so good at what they did. They were smart and they served well; but when they refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, the king threw Daniel’s friends into a fiery furnace – and God protected them, and they lived. As a result, King Nebuchadnezzar became a believer in the God of Israel. (I don’t know that he actually gave up his other gods, but he started to worship Israel’s God too.)

King Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years, then he passed away, and for the next few years, the government of Babylon was a mess. They had a string of three rulers in three years – relatives of the king – who either died or were killed. So the government was constantly changing hands and it became very unstable. Finally a king named Nabonidus came to the throne, and the country stabilized; but there was just one problem: King Nabonidus didn’t particularly like living in Babylon. He chose to live in Arabia instead.

So Nabonidus made his son Belshazzar the regent: he was in charge of Babylon while the King was away (and the King was away most of the time). So you might say Belshazzar was sort of the acting king. Belshazzar didn’t really care much about the people he ruled – he just enjoyed the perks of being king — and he would invite his rich friends to the palace to eat and drink and have parties, and he gave no thought to the people he was ruling.

Turning now to the book of Daniel and our reading for today: many decades have passed since Israel was taken captive. And – unknown to most of the people in the story – there was a prophecy, given by Jeremiah, that God’s people would be in exile for 70 years — and that 70 years was just about up. The time had come for the people of Israel to be liberated, and to be sent home to Jerusalem – but only Daniel and a few other of God’s people knew that.

Belshazzar did not know it – not that he would have been particularly interested anyway.

Right around the same time, two groups of people – the Medes and the Persians – captured a number of cities around Babylon, and they also captured Belshazzar’s father the King, who was still in Arabia.

Did Belshazzar try to rescue his dad? No. Belshazzar wasn’t afraid because he figured the city of Babylon was unconquerable. So why stick his neck out?

Here’s why Belshazzar thought that he was safe in Babylon. Check this out.

The ancient city of Babylon was fourteen square miles, surrounded by stone walls – so it was a walled city. And the city didn’t just have one wall. It had many walls – walls inside walls inside walls. Some of these walls were over 300 feet high – the size of a football field in height.  And some of the walls were 80 feet thick – you could put chariots up on the walls, in some places as many as four chariots wide.  And the river Euphrates ran through the city, which had the effect of creating moats in between the walls: you’d have wall-water-wall-water-wall-water. They also had massive storehouses on the walls with food and drink stored up, for all the people in the city, enough for years.

So Belshazzar figured he was safe. And to prove to his people that everyone was safe and everything was going to be fine – while the enemy was approaching the city, Belshazzar held a feast at the palace. He invited one thousand of his best friends – and their wives, and a few hangers-on – so 2000+ people – to a feast at the palace. Can you imagine how many animals they killed and roasted for a crowd this size? And how many servants were cooking and serving? And how many skins of wine they drank?

John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian church, once said that Belshazzar’s “carelessness was a sign of his stupidity, and also of God’s wrath.”

And if all this wasn’t bad enough – as a bad joke, Belshazzar ordered the servants to bring him the gold and silver vessels that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that he and his guests could drink out of them. (Those of you in our Wednesday night Bible study – we just read this past week about those gold and silver vessels. They were created by King Solomon, David’s son – created and dedicated to the service of God, for the glory of God.) These were the same vessels that Nebuchadnezzar took when he captured God’s people. And these are the same vessels that Belshazzar called for so he could party with them.

This was blasphemy – and the people knew it. Nebuchadnezzar had always treated these items with respect.  He took good care of them. But Belshazzar handed them out to his friends like they were nothing. And then they praised the gods of silver and the gods of gold – with all the sarcasm they could muster, while drinking from things that were dedicated to the one true and living God.

This act of blasphemy set in motion the deliverance of God’s people.  All of a sudden, Belshazzar and all his guests saw a hand – no body attached to it, no arm, just a hand – writing on the wall behind the king, where everyone could see it; and the hand was writing some kind of a message, but nobody could read it.

All of a sudden Belshazzar was not feeling so cocky.  He turned pale, and his knees literally started knocking – so that he couldn’t stand up but he couldn’t sit down either!

Immediately Belshazzar sent for the astrologers and the soothsayers and the magi (this is the country the Magi came from). And he said to them – “I will make you third in the kingdom (after my father and myself) if you can tell me what this writing says.”

But none of them could read it – probably because it was written in Aramaic. And Belshazzar was terrified.

All these events created a ruckus in the palace, and apparently the noise of it came to the ears of the Queen, because suddenly the Queen walks into the banquet hall unannounced. The Queen was the widow of Nebuchadnezzar, not the wife of Belshazzar – and she is one of the few people who had the right to walk into Belshazzar’s presence without being invited, and to speak to him without his permission. That’s exactly what she does. She greets him respectfully, and then she tells him – reminds him – that there’s a man in the kingdom named Daniel who is both a prophet and a man of learning, who will be able to figure out what this writing says. She tells him, “send for Daniel”.

At this point Daniel is probably in his 80s… he’s either retired or semi-retired… but he comes at the Queen’s request. And Belshazzar points to the handwriting on the wall and he says, “if you can tell me what this means I will give you…” all the things he promised to the other men.

Daniel answers that he doesn’t want any gifts, and he doesn’t want a reward; but he can and will read the words on the wall. But before he does, he reminds Belshazzar of the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom, and how Nebuchadnezzar once went insane when he refused to honor the real God, the God of Israel… that he was actually eating the grass of the fields like an animal… and that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was restored to him when he said that Israel’s God was the real God. Nebuchadnezzar became sane again when he put his trust in God, and he ended his reign as king with great honor.

This is not the first time Belshazzar had heard this story, but Daniel reminds him of it. Then Daniel says: “but you, Belshazzar – you have not humbled yourself, even though you knew all this! You and your lords and their wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from sacred vessels, and praising the gods of silver, gold, brass, iron, wood, and stone – which do not see and cannot hear. And the God in whose hand your breath is held – you have not glorified him.”

Then Daniel reads the writing on the wall. The words were:

“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN”

– which literally translated means “numbered, numbered, weighed, divided”. Daniel explains that this means Belshazzar’s days are numbered and they are now at an end; that he has been weighed in the scales and found wanting; and that the kingdom will be divided this very night between the Medes and the Persians. In fact, even as Daniel is speaking, the invading armies have found a way under the city walls and they are approaching the palace at that very moment.

Belshazzar knows Daniel is speaking the truth, and he gives him all the rewards, and within a matter of hours Belshazzar is dead. Darius, the leader of the Medes, became king temporarily until Cyrus the Great arrived, and Cyrus began the restoration of Jerusalem. Cyrus would order and finance the return of the people of Judah to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

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All these events focus on the rich and the powerful in Babylon – but what about the everyday people – the people who were not rich, the people who were not at the feast? The people who lived in the city? The actions of the great effected them. How did life change for them?

For the people of Judah, of course, it meant they were going home, if they chose to.  Following God is always a choice. Some of the people of Judah chose to stay in Babylon, and we don’t hear about them again. But most chose to return to Jerusalem, and the rest of the Old Testament tells us their story. Because of the decree of Cyrus the Great, around 50,000 people of Judah returned home to rebuild the temple and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

For the average Babylonian, life would improve, because Cyrus was a good leader. For years, the people of Babylon had suffered under a king who wanted to be somewhere else; and the son of a king – Belshazzar – who was not very bright. Cyrus was a man who wanted to see the country and its people prosper, and they did.

So the writing on the wall – which was spooky when it happened – turned out to be the beginning of God setting things right: God bringing God’s people home, and ending the reign of a king who wasn’t worthy of the title.

For us today, two things we can take home with us: (1) we always want to treat God, and the things of God, with respect – not taking them for granted or misusing them the way Belshazzar did. The things in a church – the plates, the cups, the crosses, and the bread and the wine, and things like this – these things don’t contain God, they’re just things, but they are dedicated to the service of the one true and living God. They are here to remind us that God cares about us and wants us to be with God. So we treat these things with respect because they are things that belong to God and are given to us by God.

And (2) whenever we take a look at the world and we see trouble – either trouble happening, or trouble coming – like that big banquet Belshazzar held with an invading army on the way – we can be confident that whatever is going wrong in the world, there is a limit to how long the times of trouble will last. God is in control; and one day, those who bring trouble on God’s people will be weighed in the scales and found wanting.

We can read this story of the writing on the wall either as a warning, or as a promise. Either way, we praise God for God’s faithfulness, from then till now, and into our future. AMEN.

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