Unsung Heroines-Belshazzar's Grandmother; Daniel 5

Introduction: My late uncle preached a sermon on Daniel 5 many years ago. He began by saying, “When the little shot gets about half shot, he really thinks he’s a big shot!”

That was certainly true for Belshazzar, who had the honor (??) of being Babylon’s last king. In the context, Belshazzar had given a great feast for 1000 of his lords and apparently they were all having a great time. That is, they did until Belshazzar and maybe others saw “the writing on the wall.” He couldn’t read the message, so what was he going to do?

Text, Daniel 5:10-12, KJV: 10 Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: 11 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; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; 12 Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.

Thoughts: Belshazzar had no idea how the message came, who wrote it, or what it was supposed to mean. He had even called just about everybody he could think of to interpret the message on the wall but nobody could.

Now came the unsung heroine of this story. To be sure, we know nothing about her such as her name, her husband/s, or even if she had ever become a believer in the God of Daniel. What we do know is that she was aware of, if not actually knew, Daniel and what Daniel could do with interpreting dreams, visions, and the like.

Had she, possibly, heard from Nebuchadnezzar himself directly about Daniel’s ability to explain dreams and visions?

She also gave Belshazzar some sound advice. Put simply, she said “Get Daniel now!”

To his credit, the king did call Daniel and Daniel translated the writing into something Belshazzar could understand; Daniel also gave the king a rebuke he needed to hear. Sadly, there is no record Belshazzar paid any attention to Daniel’s message and he died with the city. None of this reflects on the queen, though: she knew there was a problem, and she knew who could interpret or solve the problem. Truly, she was an unsung heroine and worthy of mention.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).