Situation in Babylon
The situation in Babylon has changed since the last chapter and the last of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar has died and there have been several coups as various different people have seized the throne only to be overthrown. The latest occupant on the throne, Nabodinius has kept the throne for a while but he is currently out of town on extended leave. This may been due to illness or he may be out leading his armies against the Medes and the Persians, but we’re not really sure. In his place his son, Belshazzar is serving as his regent. Thus, when the passage talks about Nebuchadnezzar as a father, it is in the sense of predecessor, which is also a legitimate interpretation of the word. However, he does not appear to be greatly in favour with the people. We know that when Babylon fell, the attackers were mostly welcomed by the people, so Belshazzar can’t have been doing a great job.
We are perhaps given a hint of his incompetence as we begin the story. Belshazzar is having a party with his nobles and government officials. No there’s nothing wrong with parties, Jesus attended quite a few during his life time and even provided the wine for one wedding banquet. But the general picture of this party is that it was more of orgy. Anyway, Belshazzar orders some of the cups that were part of temple treasures from Jerusalem that were captured by Nebuchadnezzar to be brought to the party, where they are used to drink from and toast the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. As this was going on there appeared a mysterious hand who wrote 4 words on the wall. Belshazzar and all his officials are scared witless. So Belshazzar gets all his magicians and astrologers in and tries to get them to read the writing on the wall. We don’t know whether it was written in a foreign alphabet so that they could read it or whether they just didn’t know what it meant. But in any event the magicians and astrologers were unable to provide what Belshazzar wanted.
At this point someone new comes on the scene. The queen or the queen mother. It is not certain but it is also not unlikely that this may have been the queen of Nebuchadnezzar. Typically, women married younger than men and since Nebuchadnezzar was very highly regarded it is not at all unlikely that if Nebuchadnezzar’s wife was still alive she may have had a place in the palace. Anyway whoever she was, she reminded the Belshazzar about Daniel one of the Jews who had helped Nebuchadnezzar understand visions and dreams. So Daniel is called before Belshazzar and asked to make sense of the writing. Daniel at this time would have been in his 80s or 90s.
Daniel is offered a great reward, to be made third in the Kingdom. An interesting point that acknowledges Belshazzar himself was only second and could therefore only appoint a third. Daniel however refused the reward but he does provides the interpretation. Babylon has been judged and found wanting. Belshazzar knew the stories of Nebuchadnezzar but he did not learn from them and has dishonoured God by using the temple cups in this way. Babylon is to be conquered by the Medes and the Persians. While Belshazzar does reward Daniel, he obviously doesn’t believe him or repent. There is no acknowledgement of God. Maybe he thought Babylon could never fall. It had walls 30 feet high wide enough for chariots to ride along the top. There was a half mile of farmland between the walls and the city. There was supposed to be enough food to survive a 20 year siege. Water was provided by the Euphrates which ran under the walls and through the city.
But Daniel’s word are fulfilled, that very night the Medes and Persians invade. History tells us that they spent two years building a canal to divert the Euphrates. When they completed this they crept under the wall where the river level had dropped. They probably had inside help and it was certainly true that Belshazzar was murdered by his own officials the same night. The Medes and the Persians were welcomed.
Writing is on the wall
It surprises most people when they learn about how many of our common phrases come from the Bible. The story we read this morning is the origin of one of those phrases “The writing is on the wall”. But like so many phrases we don’t use it in precisely the same way as the original story. Normally we use the phrase to mean that disaster or failure is imminent and that it is obvious to everyone, it is plain to see, the writing is on the wall. However, it seems that it was not obvious to Belshazzar. Now to some extent this may have been self deception. We know that Babylon was losing it’s power and Persia was gaining. There had been skirmishes between Persia and Babylon for a while. Babylon itself may have been under siege at the time. We know that the Babylonians welcomed the Persian army. How could the ruler be oblivious to all of this. Even when the writing on the wall appears, the fact that it cannot be read just points to the fact that Belshazzar cannot see the obvious. It does kind of remind you of another ruler from the region, only this one more recent, Sadam Hussein. Who day after day while his nation and power crumbles around him still gets his press guy to go out and say that everything is fine and they are still in control. Completely oblivious to the truth. But for Belshazzar this time the truth was not just about an invading army but it was also the judgement of God.
Sometimes we can be the same. OK, so we’re probably not going to have an army encircling our house that we can deny, but sometimes humans are very good at ignoring what they don’t want to acknowledge. On of the famous examples of this is in the X-Files. For those of you that don’t know the story, it is about FBI agents who investigate paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena. They encounter all kinds of weird and wonderful things, including aliens. Yet no matter what happens and no matter what Scully sees she refuses to believe in the paranormal. Or for those of you that don’t like the X-Files there are plenty of other examples. The first reaction of many villains who hold positions of power in books, TV and movies is “you can’t do that” or “you can’t do this”. Despite the firm evidence to the contrary that they are in fact doing it. In other crime dramas it is the person who has committed the murder that refuses to admit even to themselves that they are a murderer, that there was somehow something special about there case. In Belshazzar’s case he refused to see the reality of the situation he found himself in. He refused to see that his kingdom was about to fall and carried on as if by denying it, it would not happen.
Sometimes we can be like this. We can deny the reality of the situation we are in. The message that God wrote on the wall, can be applied to us as well, the question is do we accept that message and use it as an opportunity to change or do we reject it and let the judgement fall. The message that was given to Belshazzar was that his days were numbered, he had been weighed and found wanting and that judgement was to fall. That message is ours as well.
The message that is given is somewhat cryptic. The message consists of 3 words, one repeated, that were the names of coins, diminishing in value. We would call them a mina, a shekel and a half. Now I couldn’t download pictures of ancient Babylonian coins, although I tried, so we are going to represent them with a £2 coin, a £1 coin and a 50p. It’s quite a bizarre message when you think about it. It’s the kind of thing a merchant would shout out when he was haggeling. Only a mina, a shekel and a half and a bargain at that. Not exactly the kind of message you would usually expect as a Divine revelation, particularly one which God goes to the trouble of writing on the wall. However, Daniel interprets the message by going to the root meaning of the words used to describe those coins.
Days are numbered
Firstly, there is mene . The root of the word mene is numbered. Daniel tells Belshazzar that his days are numbered . Yes, this means exactly what it means now. He has a limited time to live. In fact as we have seen that very night he was killed.
Although we don’t like to think about it, our lives are limited, our days are numbered. We are all mortal and there will come a time when we will die. Like Belshazzar we do not know when that will be, some of us may have many years left, others could walk out that door and be hit by a bus. We do not know how long we have left. What we do know is that when we die we will have to face God. The book of Daniel is the first in the Bible to explicitly make this claim that all will be resurrected to stand before God to face his judgement . This is first area we can seek to deny the truth of. We can live our lives as if this is not the case. We can pretend that this life is all that there is and there is no coming judgement.
Jesus tells us to store up our treasures in heaven rather than on earth. He tells us to live like there is an afterlife. If this was the only life then we should live to get the most out of it. We can make arguments about helping those in need because it is the right thing to do or because we hope that if we ever find ourselves in that situation that people would help us. We can make arguments about what is right and what is wrong on the grounds that if we keep to them, others will have to keep to them and this is beneficial for us. However, the essential idea is to get as much out of this life as possible. To avoid pain and suffering to get all we can. To live in light of the future life turns things round a bit. Now it doesn’t matter so much what happens in this life if we compare it to eternity. Suddenly our focus is not on doing all we can to amass stuff for this life but to prepare for the life to come.
The message of Mene is that we never know when the line will drawn under the ledger. We have no way of knowing when the time will come that it is too late to do anything about it. When the judgement has come. There is nothing we can do to get a bit more time. We cannot say, I’ll get round to it tomorrow or sometime. The time is now and the opportunity has passed. We never know when that time will be so we need to live like it may be today.
Weighed and found wanting
Then we have the second coin, the Tekel . The root meaning of this word is weighed. Daniel tells Belshazzar that he has been weighed and found wanting . It is like a merchant who has been selling dodgy goods, only half filling his sacks or cutting the edge of his coins. When the merchandise is weighed, it is found to be to light. It is wanting. It doesn’t meet the grade.
So the trial has been announced. The second word, Tekel, means that the verdict has been rendered, guilty . There can only be one verdict, guilty. We have been weighed and found wanting. This imagery can give rise to a wrong idea where we think that if we take all our good deeds and balance them against our bad deeds then if the good outweighs the bad we will be alright. That somehow if we are good enough we will get away with the bad stuff. But is not our good deeds against our bad deeds that are being weighed. We are being weighed against Jesus Christ. And in that weigh in we will always come up short, we will always be found wanting. If you compare your life to Christ’s it’s like comparing a half empty sack against a full one. No matter how many good deeds you do you can never erase the bad ones or the missed opportunities. We will always come up short. We will always be found wanting. The Bible teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of the God. That is just another way to say the same thing. We are guilty.
Kingdom is divided and given to others
Finally, we have the last coin, the Parsin . The root meaning of this word is divided. Daniel tells the king that his kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and the Persians . The meaning is not so much that his kingdom will be divided between the Medes and the Persians but that his Kingdom will be given to others. He will loose his Kingdom.
The trial has been announced, the verdict has been rendered and now the sentence is announced . Belshazzar is to have his kingdom taken from him and given to the Medes and the Persians. Now we might not have a Kingdom to be given away but what we do have by way of earthly goods will do us no good after we die. Jesus told a parable about a rich man who had a great harvest. He demolished his barns and built bigger ones. But that very night he died and was taken to heaven. It all availed him nothing. What he had was taken away. Of course the sentence that awaits us is far worse than just loosing our possessions. We miss out on the greatest gift of all, the presence of God. To C. S. Lewis this was the ultimate description of hell, the place where God was not, where God completely withdrew his Spirit. Now we can question whether that is the best description of hell or not but the reality is that God tells us that hell awaits those found guilty.
Escape
But is that it. Is that all there is to it. The trial announced, the verdict given and the sentence pronounced. Is that it. Is there no hope? Is there no escape?
This is where we should not the difference between this story and the others in the book, the difference between Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar. All the stories up to now have followed the same pattern. First there is the crisis, eating the food offered to idols, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, there were two of these and the fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar tried to sort things out on his own or with the aid of his magicians. He fails. Then God steps in and provides the answer either through giving Daniel the interpretation or protecting Daniel and his friends. Then Nebuchadnezzar recognises God, or at least the impact of God in the lives of Daniel and his friends. In the very last story, Nebuchadnezzar apparently repents and worships God. But this story is different. Belshazzar does not acknowledge God, repentant or otherwise. This is the solution to avoiding the judgement, the punishment. The one that Nebuchadnezzar found and Belshazzar did not.
I’m not sure if I’ve told this story before but I like it so here goes. A man was painting his house. He only bought 5 gallons of paint. He knew he couldn’t finish the job with 5 gallons, so he started to thin it with water. He thinned and thinned and finally the job was done. Then a big black cloud showed up over the house. It rained and rained and of course washed all the paint off the house. A voice was heard from the cloud. "Repaint and thin no more."
Repent and sin no more. The thing that Nebuchadnezzar did and Belshazzar didn’t. The difference in fates, is entirely down to this action. Repentance and acknowledging God for who he is. It is the only way. Jesus died to take our punishment. He died so that if we repent, if we turn from sins and acknowledge him as Lord then we will avoid this fate. We gain heaven.
Conclusion
So what can we say in conclusion. One day we will have to stand before God. We don’t know when but we will stand before God. If we have not accepted Christ as our saviour then the verdict is guilty and the sentence is an eternity without God, hell. But the good news is that we can escape. If we come to God and trust in Christ and repent, we can have life.
