Daniel 5:5,25
Suddenly
the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near
the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. 25.
“This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel, parsin
The background to the above verses is the great feast
which Belshazzar, King of Babylon, gave to 1000 of his high-ranking officials.
During the proceedings he commanded that the holy gold and silver vessels,
which Nebuchadnezzar had stolen out of the Temple in Jerusalem, be brought out
so that they could drink wine from them. As they did so, they praised the gods
of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, but not the immortal,
living God of Israel! Immediately the hand appeared….
The inscription on the wall is a brilliant play of
words! The three root words (mene, tekel peres) are, if read on the surface, a
list of weights or money – a mina; a shekel (tekel is the Aramaic form); and a
peres, which is a half-mina.
So most probably, to all the wise Babylonian men who were
first called to interpret the words, it might have looked like a meaningless
list of currency, which is why they could not make head or tail of it. So how
did Daniel understand what the words conveyed?
We find the most important reason in the words of the
mother of the king written in verse 11 There is a man in your kingdom who
has the spirit of the holy gods in him. We know that Holy Spirit dwelt
in Daniel. He prompted Daniel to take into account the fact that each of those
weight-words were also the root of a verb word of judgement.
Mene sounds like menah, the verb “to number”. Tekel sounds like teqal, the verb “to
weigh”. Peres sounds like peras, the verb “to divide”. This is what Daniel therefore laid out to the
King: God has numbered the days of your
kingship and brought them to an end. You are weighed in the balances and are
found wanting. Your kingdom and your kingship are divided and given to the
Medes and the Persians.
But how did he know about the Medes and the Persians?
Well, Peres (the dividing) also sounds like Paras, the Aramaic name for
Persia. The very word that announces the kingdom’s division also names the
people who will receive it.
This inscription has a divine double meaning, which only
God could have brought about. On the surface, weights and coins. Underneath, a
sentence of doom. The God Who numbers, weighs, and divides has done His
accounting on Belshazzar’s reign, and the books have been closed!
Pearls to ponder:
It matters to God that a nation should glorify and praise
Him, not just individuals in that nation. Daniel’s faith and faithfulness could
not save Belshazzar’s kingdom. Ponder on how you can contribute to our nation
turning around to serve the God of Israel. Perhaps you could organize prayer
groups that specifically pray for the leaders of our nation to come to Christ.
Perhaps you could use legal avenues to resist any and every godless decision
Parliament makes or debates about. Perhaps you could get involved in politics
as a Christian. Do you feel unqualified to bring about change in our nation?
Remember that He qualifies the willing! Ask Holy Spirit to make avenues of
action open to you.
