Strange Story: Daniel 5 A Hand Wrote on the Wall Part 1

The Historical Context of Daniel 5

The great king Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind and lived outside like a wild animal, just like God predicted through Daniel. (Nebuchadnezzar is the spelling shown in the Bible, but not the spelling found in other historical documents. The difference in meaning caused by the change in spelling is most interesting; to read about that go The Name Nebuchadnezzar ) While king Nebuchadnezzar was “gone” the kingdom was probably ruled by Labashi-Marduk (you will also see the name written as Evil Merodach), whom we know from extrabiblical sources to have been his successor and presume to have been his son. But king Nebuchadnezzar repented and came back to sanity and to his throne. We can safely assume that when he came back, he reigned the rest of his life in a coregency arrangement with his son. We are not told in the Bible or in any other sources how long he ruled after he returned to sanity or when he died.

Even when the Babylonian empire was strong, the Median and Persian Kingdoms were already in existence. The Median kingdom was located to the North and Northeast of Babylonia, and the Persian kingdom was to its East. Of course, the Babylonian empire had taken some land from both of those other kingdoms, as well as many others, and later they took it back.

It appears that, after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Labashi-Marduk ruled for a short time and was dethroned by Nabonidus (also written as Nabuna’id) who was probably not his son or even a relative, but a usurper. This Nabonidus reigned for 17 years. He tried to change the primary deity of the Babylonians from Marduk to the moon god, Sin, and that is the main reason he fell out of favor with the common people. Nabuna’id had a son named Belshazzar who was a coregent with him for most of those 17 years and is said to have run the kingdom for 10 years while his father was away on strange personal projects. Belshazzar was the one who usually led the military campaigns and sometimes ran the entire kingdom. The reign of Nabonidus was marked by unhappy subjects and a weakening of the empire.

As the Babylonian empire had grown weaker, the kingdoms of Media and Persia had grown stronger. King Cyrus of Persia defeated the empire of the Medes in 550 BC, establishing a new empire called the Achaemenid Empire, or the First Persian Empire. There had been a Persian kingdom before him, but he was the one that made it into a true empire. The reason we hear about a Medo-Persian empire is that king Cyrus often listened, learned, and borrowed from others. He was not afraid to use customs and practices that others were already accustomed to and he allowed the people groups within his kingdom to keep doing things the way they were used to doing them. For this reason Cyrus was generally well liked by his subjects. When he conquered and absorbed the Median empire into his own empire, he gave certain aspects of the Medes considerable prominence in his own kingdom, enough that the term Medo-Persian Empire was coined, even though such an empire never existed in a truly political sense.

The Biblical Context

The name Nebuchadnezzar was actually a Jewish mockery of his real name, which was Nebuchadrezzar. They look similar, but changing the r to an n made a big difference in the meaning. You can read about the meanings of both of them in my story called The Name Nebuchadnezzar. What follows utilizes the name given in the Bible even though it was not his real name.

Chapter 4 of Daniel relates the consequences of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride, and the consequences of his repentance. The incident recorded in chapter 5 involving King Belshazzar follows chapter 4 in a direct line of thought because the spiritual truth being taught is the same. The reader is asked to ignore the fact that approximately 25 years separated the two events; the important thing was the spiritual lesson we can take away from both narratives.

Why Were the Nobles Afraid?

Babylonia was the last major power that had not yet fallen to the control of king Cyrus the Persian. The army of Cyrus, under the leadership of General Gobyras, won a decisive victory at Opis in late September of 539 BC. Opis was a strategically located city about 100 miles north of the city of Babylon. Not too many days later the city of Sippar (37 miles North of Babylon) surrendered to Gobyras and from there it was an open road to Babylon, the capital city of Babylonia.

On the night of this feast, the army of Cyrus was approaching and we can be confident that the Babylonian leaders were given reports that the army was getting close. The atmosphere at this feast had to have been tense. Some of them were drinking in an attempt to forget their looming problems; most of them were drinking because they were following orders; but very few believed everything Belshazzar was telling them.

It is generally accepted that Babylon surrendered on what we would call October 12^th 539 BC, to the Persian general Gobyras, who was going ahead of King Cyrus, who arrived 17 days later on October 29^th.

The Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder say the city was taken without a battle, but two Greek historians say that the city was besieged. The two Greek sources were written a long time later and have been largely discredited. Besides being more believable, the two extant Mesopotamian accounts fit better with the biblical record as found in Daniel 5 because they don’t allow for a siege of the city. Some think the king (Nabonidus) was captured and deported, but regarding his coregent (Belshazzar) the biblical record is clear that he was killed that very night, presumably by the Persians.

This Was a Targeted Dishonoring of YHVH

By drinking from the articles brought back from the temple in Jerusalem they were celebrating “their victory” over the God of Israel, even though none of them present that night had been involved in the conquest of Jerusalem. This type of celebration of victory can be interpreted on more than one level.

1. The people of ancient times always had a religious aspect to celebrations. Even the most basic level went beyond saying “we did not get defeated but rather we defeated our enemies” to saying something like this: “By our gods we defeated our enemies, therefore, our gods are more powerful than their gods.”

2. Depending on the level of arrogance of the people involved, they could take things a step further and make the statement, “We are more powerful than our enemies are.”

The inclusion of the women in this celebration is most remarkable and the fact that the text mentions them more than once shows it was an important part of the story. In ancient times, it was very rare for women to be invited to these types of banquets, although there is some evidence that it may have been practiced some in Babylon. Even if the Babylonians did invite their women to such events, one would expect the important men to the be the ones who drank from these captured vessels, while the women drank from normal Babylonian style drinking bowls. So this statement appears to indicate a blatant declaration that “we are more powerful than the Israelites because our gods help us, but their god does not help them.” By having his wives and concubines drink from these captured vessels the king was declaring, “My women are stronger than your best warriors; even the least important people associated with my kingdom (concubines) are more powerful than all of you.”

Why was this directed at Israel’s God? The nation of Israel had been defeated decades earlier, so why this emphasis on Israel? Well, King Belshazzar was in a tight spot. The army of King Cyrus was advancing toward the capital at that very moment. Belshazzar’s feast that night was not an ordinary feast of celebration; it was a desperate attempt to show that he was not afraid because he trusted in Bel, as his name indicated, BEL PROTECT THE KING. There is irony here because his father had tried to persuade the people to stop putting so much priority on Bel (formerly called Marduk) and make the moon god called Sin be their most important god. It seems to me that this feast had the purpose of proving to the people that Belshazzar was indeed loyal to Bel, unlike his father. He had Bel in his name, and he threw this feast to prove to them that he confided in Bel to protect them from the Persians.

But what did Israel have to do with the army of King Cyrus? Well, many years earlier, before Cyrus was even born, God used Isaiah to predict that a ruler named Cyrus would liberate the captive Jews and even rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Chapter 45 of Isaiah is dedicated to this topic. There the name Cyrus is used twice, and two other times God says, “I have summoned you by name.” Twice Isaiah 45 mentions the freeing of the Jews and two more times it is implied, although those last two times may have more of a spiritual implication than a physical and political one. In one final, powerful blow, God says in Is 46:1 “Bel bows down, Nebo hunches over” and 46:2 says, “They are hunched over and bowed down together, unable to deliver…”

Here Is How I Envision This Taking Place

After the fall of Opis and Sapper, the nobles and government officials were freaking out because there was nothing to stop the Persians from arriving at their city; the situation was desperate and everyone was in a state of panic. King Belshazzar told them it was going to be okay because their god, Bel, would protect them. But even the nobles and government officials struggled to believe he was serious and struggled to trust that Bel would indeed save them. He had to do something to prove it to them. So he planned a feast for 1,000 of his top officials (Dan 5:1) and commanded his administers to put it together and serve this banquet in very short order. Whether that was 24, 36 or 48 hours we do not know, but it was a feat of administrative organization to pull this off.

The government officials/nobles dutifully came to the feast even if they preferred to be fleeing for their lives. The atmosphere was tense.

Belshazzar did all he could to convince them that he was indeed loyal to Bel (formerly called Marduk) despite his father’s actions to the contrary. He also wanted his nobles to get drunk or at least loosen up a bit, so he led them in drinking time and time again to the various gods of their culture, but especially to Bel.

However, there was an elephant in the room. There was something besides the approaching army that was creating a cloud over the event.

The people of ancient times seem to have known quite a bit about the religious writings of the cultures around them. I think these Babylonians knew about the prophecy of Isaiah which foretold the victory of Cyrus and the humiliation of the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo. So, after Belshazzar had drunk quite a bit and his tongue and his brain got loosened up, he decided to do something which he had possibly contemplated before but never chosen to do. He decided to address that elephant in the room head on. He ordered the priests of Bel to go to the temple of Bel where we presume the treasures taken from Jerusalem were being kept and bring those vessels from Jerusalem to his feast. The priests obeyed.

Then the king poured wine into one of the sacred bowls and drank from it. (They usually drank from bowls back then, not cups, glasses or mugs). This was an obvious defilement of that vessel. Everyone knew that articles that had been devoted to a certain god could not be used for common purposes such as eating or drinking. It was an obvious slap in the face to the god the Jews worshipped. With his actions he was saying, “Not only did we conquer the Jewish people and destroy their temple, but we can also defile their sacred vessels and suffer no consequence. Therefore the god of the Jews must not be a very powerful god.”

Then he ordered that more of the bowls be passed out to others present and he ordered them to drink from the sacred bowls also. With each new person that drank from a sacred bowl, it seemed to prove Belshazzar’s statement true – they were claiming that even ordinary men were more powerful than the god of the Jews, because that god did nothing to stop them. We know there were at least 100 such bowls because II Chron 4:8 tells us that Solomon had 100 golden sprinkling bowls made, and we know from other passages (such as II Sam 8:10) that there were silver articles as well.

The passage specifically states that they praised the gods who were represented by idols made of gold and silver (expensive materials), bronze and wood (strong materials) and wood and stone (common materials). In this way they were saying “Any of our gods, even our weakest god, can defeat the god of the Jews.”

In a greater act of defiance, Belshazzar had the bowls filled with wine one final time and taken to his wives and concubines for them to drink from them. In this way he seems to have been saying, “Not only are our gods stronger than this god who predicted our defeat, even our women are more powerful than that god. See, he does nothing to defend his reputation. That must mean that he is incapable of defending his reputation. So where are his predictions now? If he is so powerful, why doesn’t he show his power?”