God's accounting

 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.

He chooses the willing