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Daniel 5: The Writing on the Wall

About This Episode

King Belshazzar has taken the throne, but Babylon falls under his leadership. Instead of learning humility from his father, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar is a proud man, and God humbles him for it. Seth and David talk about the inevitable fall of proud leaders and the good news that Jesus is coming to number, weigh, and divide.

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Why God Weighs the Proud and What It Means for Us

Show Notes

David and Seth, hosts of the Spoken Gospel Podcast, walk through Daniel chapter 5, the famous story behind the English phrase "the writing is on the wall." This episode unpacks the downfall of King Belshazzar, the mysterious divine hand, and a wordplay-rich riddle that reveals God's judgment on pride — and ultimately points to the good news of Jesus, the humble King who balances the scales on our behalf.

A Tale of Two Kings at the Center of Daniel

Daniel chapter 5 sits at the center of the book's literary structure, or chiasm, paired with chapter 4 as twin stories about twin rulers. In chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar was a proud king who was humbled but then restored by God. In chapter 5, his descendant Belshazzar is a proud king who refuses to humble himself and is destroyed. Together, these two stories make one of the central claims of Daniel: God is sovereign over every kingdom, and he is able to humble even the most powerful ruler on earth. For the people of Israel living in exile under foreign powers, wondering whether God could actually bring these godlike kings low, the answer at the heart of Daniel is yes — he can and he will.

Belshazzar is identified as Nebuchadnezzar's "son," which in Aramaic usage likely means grandson or descendant. What matters most is that, as a member of the royal family, Belshazzar would have known the story of Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation — how the great king was driven from his throne and lived like an animal until he acknowledged that God rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he wills. Nebuchadnezzar even wrote that story down and circulated it throughout Babylon as a decree to all peoples, nations, and languages. Belshazzar grew up with this testimony, but he failed to learn its lesson.

Belshazzar's Feast and the Desecration of the Temple

The story opens with Belshazzar throwing a lavish banquet for a thousand of his lords. After tasting the wine, he commands that the gold and silver vessels — the ones Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem back in Daniel 1 — be brought out so that his guests could drink from them. This is the moment the "shotgun over the mantle" from the opening chapter finally fires. Belshazzar not only drinks from the sacred vessels but uses them to toast the gods of gold, silver, bronze, and iron — the same sequence of metals from the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream in chapter 2. He is essentially toasting to the sovereignty of earthly kingdoms while using the holy things of the God who actually holds universal sovereignty.

For a Jewish audience, this would have been the most offensive act imaginable. These vessels were so sacred that entire sections of the law governed their handling. Not even Nebuchadnezzar, who built a golden statue demanding worship, ever desecrated the temple in this way. Belshazzar has set up a kind of anti-temple — bringing in the vessels, perhaps even the golden lampstand from the temple — all to glorify himself and his false gods. And it is precisely in the light of that stolen lampstand that the finger of God appears.

The Finger of God and the Anti-Temple

Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appear and begin writing on the plaster wall of the palace. This echoes the only other time in Scripture when God's finger wrote something on a surface: the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Just as the law inscribed on stone tablets served as the covenant between God and his people — the measure by which they would be judged — this new inscription serves as a judgment against Belshazzar. He has set up a false temple, and the true God has shown up uninvited.

The king's reaction is described in language that mirrors the statue from chapter 2. His face changes color (the golden head turns pale), his heart is alarmed, his limbs give way, and his knees knock together — a top-to-bottom collapse that symbolically enacts the crumbling of the very statue Belshazzar just toasted. He summons all his wise men, astrologers, and enchanters, but none of them can read or interpret the writing. It is the queen who remembers Daniel, the man from Judah in whom "the spirit of the holy God" dwells. That Daniel is twice identified as being "from Judah" underscores the irony: the vessels came from Judah's temple, the God of Judah is writing on the wall, and now a man of Judah must come interpret the message.

Daniel's Rebuke and the One Law of Babylon

When Daniel arrives, he behaves very differently toward Belshazzar than he ever did toward Nebuchadnezzar. Where he once spoke with deference, even expressing hope that bad dreams would fall on the king's enemies, here Daniel flatly refuses Belshazzar's rewards: "Let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another." He wants nothing to do with this king's doomed regime.

Before Daniel ever interprets the writing, he delivers a covenant-style rebuke. He recounts how Nebuchadnezzar wielded godlike power but was brought low when his heart became proud — driven from humanity to live like a beast until he acknowledged that God rules the kingdom of men. Then comes the indictment: "And you, his son, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this." This is the language of a covenant curse. God, through Nebuchadnezzar's testimony, had given Babylon a kind of one-law covenant — humble yourself before the Most High. Nebuchadnezzar even wrote it down and distributed it to every nation. Belshazzar broke the only law God had clearly given to Babylon, and just as God judged Israel for breaking the written law of Moses, he now judges Babylon for breaking this lived parable of humility.

This carries implications far beyond one ancient king. Romans 1 and 2 argue that God has made his nature plain to all people through creation and through lived parables in history. No nation is exempt. Every autocrat, every tyrant, every empire that sets itself above God is under this same accountability. And that is good news for every person who has ever suffered under arrogant power — because it means no proud ruler will last forever.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin — The Riddle Decoded

The writing on the wall consists of four words: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin. In Aramaic, a consonantal language written without vowels, these letters could mean several different things, which is why the wise men of Babylon could not solve the riddle. Daniel provides the vowels and unlocks at least three layers of meaning. On the first level, these are units of weight: a mina (60 shekels), a shekel, and two half-shekels. On the second level, Daniel turns these nouns into verbs: "numbered," "weighed," and "divided." On the third level, he provides interpretive synonyms: God has numbered the days of Belshazzar's kingdom and brought it to an end, he has weighed Belshazzar on the scales and found him wanting (literally "too light"), and his kingdom is being divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

When Daniel speaks, the interpretation is so self-evident that even Belshazzar recognizes its truth and honors Daniel with the promised rewards. But honoring the prophet does not change the verdict. That very night, Belshazzar is killed and Darius the Mede receives the kingdom. One striking detail: the text tells us Darius was about 62 years old — a seemingly odd inclusion until you add a mina (60), a shekel (1), and two half-shekels (1). The sum is 62, as if Daniel is embedding one final confirmation that his interpretation was accurate down to the number. Some commentators even note that the constellation Libra — the scales — would have been visible in the sky the month Babylon fell, a detail that would have made the astrologers' failure to solve the riddle all the more ironic.

The Gospel in the Scales — Jesus, the Perfectly Weighted King

The story of Daniel 5 challenges every reader to consider the scales. But unlike the common conception of Judgment Day — where good deeds are weighed against bad deeds — this passage puts something very different on the scale: humility and pride. God does not condemn Belshazzar for failing to conquer enough kingdoms or accomplish enough. He condemns him for refusing to be humble. As one biblical counselor has framed it, pride is being "the wrong size" — too big before God. Shame is also the wrong size — too small to matter. Humility is being the right size under God.

Jesus is the only human being who was ever the perfectly right size. He held all the power of the universe and chose to lay it down. He died on a cross — the ultimate act of a gentle and lowly King. The writing is on the wall in Jesus: he is coming to number, weigh, and divide the kingdoms of the proud. Revelation 19 and Matthew 25 both depict this final reckoning. But the good news is that the Kingdom is not being given to another tyrant. It is being divided to the meek, the humble, the lowly — those who trust in the King who used his power not to colonize but to serve, not to oppress but to save.

The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 tracks closely with Daniel 5. A master entrusts servants with "weights" (talents were units of weight) and returns to see how they were stewarded. Those who used them faithfully were told "well done," and the unfaithful servant's portion was redistributed — divided among the faithful. Jesus takes a story about proud kings and applies it to ordinary people, reminding us that all of us will be weighed and that what God is measuring is not our accomplishments but our posture before him. For those who feel they could never match the weight of Jesus on the scales, the good news is that Jesus himself steps onto the scale for us. As God in human flesh — humble, lowly, and perfectly weighted — he balances the scales that no empire and no human effort ever could. And because we are found in him, his humility becomes ours.

Transcript

David: Pride is measured and weighed and judged. God is a measurer and a weigher. He puts you on the scales and will find you wanting. And it's not based on how much you've done. It's, you know, he's not like, oh, you didn't conquer enough kingdoms, Belshazzar. He's like, you weren't humble. You weren't humble.

Seth: Yeah, he judges our pride.

David: He judges our pride, and our pride might be too heavy.

Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of Scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of Scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.

David: Welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are continuing our walk through the book of Daniel, now in Daniel chapter 5. Seth, how you feeling today about Daniel chapter 5?

Seth: I'm feeling good.

David: Yeah, I'm feeling good. The writing is on the wall.

Seth: The writing's on the wall. I was just looking this up right as we were going on air. Um, that phrase, the writing is on the wall, is from the story. Yeah, the reason we have that phrase in English, yeah, like as like an inevitable outcome, uh-huh, is because of the story of Daniel chapter 5.

David: Two basketball teams are playing each other and there's a minute left in the fourth quarter and one team is up by 40 points. The writing's on the wall.

Seth: The writing's on the wall, right? That phrase is from the Book of Daniel. So like, there's a couple phrases like that in the Bible, mostly because of the King James Version. They just got so like attached to our common vernacular, like the skin of our teeth, right?

David: Uh, oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Seth: They're all biblical phrases. And I'm just— it's just fun to like, man, this is like shaped our vocabulary. Yeah, like this story is so famous that it's changed— like, and nobody knows— most people don't know that the phrase "the writing is on the wall" is from Daniel chapter 5 during the king of Belteshazzar, or Belshazzar. Yeah. Uh, anyway, so it's just— I'm excited to talk about this story.

David: Okay, so we have just wrapped up the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. Um, kind of paint that picture again, because as we talked about in the intros, to, um, the Book of Daniel. We talked about a chiasm forming, um, the Book of Daniel, and this is the center of the chiasm, this little hinge.

Seth: Yep.

David: And chapter 4 and chapter 5 are inverted mirrors of one another. Kind of walk us through that.

Seth: The whole chiasm?

David: No, really just the center here.

Seth: Yeah, so these center two stories are twin stories about twin rulers, one who is a proud ruler who is humbled but given back his authority by God.

David: That's Nebuchadnezzar.

Seth: King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar ends his rule by saying this, by saying this: I praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just, and he— those who walk in pride, he is able to humble. That's the point of his story.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But as we move into Daniel chapter 5, we get the opposite story: a proud ruler who's unwilling to humble himself, and so he is humiliated to death.

David: So God is still able to humble. Yes, he's doing it in a very different way.

Seth: Yeah. One, you have a humble man raised up, and here you have a proud man torn down. And it kind of proves one of the central points of the books of Daniel. God is in control of the kingdoms, and in particular, he is in control of even the most proud and brutal and godless kingdoms. And he will, he will bring them down by his power.

David: Yeah. And I guess if you zoom out, I'm like, I was just like, why is that the central point in a sense of the book of Daniel? Why is it such good news in the book of Daniel?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Like, if you zoom out, you have the people of Israel in exile under proud kings wondering if God can actually bring them low and set up his universal rule again.

Seth: Yeah.

David: You know, who's in charge? We've been asking that question. Whose God is the real Most High God? But also like, who, uh, like, can God actually lower these godlike kings? And the center of the book of Daniel is saying yes, he can. He's able to humble even the proudest king.

Seth: Yeah. And it's like, it gives you two different ways to pray for your leaders. One, you can pray that like King Nebuchadnezzar, they would humble themselves and they would rule the kingdom with justice and equity and fairness and humility. That's one hope. Yeah. The other hope is Will God tear them down?

David: Right.

Seth: Like, absolutely eviscerate their kingdom, tear it from them. They don't deserve it.

David: Right.

Seth: And that's the story we get in Daniel chapter 5.

David: Okay. So what's the best way to set up this new king? And so all of chapter 5 happens basically in one night.

Seth: Yes, that's right. Yeah, we do know that Belshazzar reigns for about 3 years, I believe. Okay. Or at least we have 3 years of his writings because one of Daniel's later visions is written during the reign of King Belshazzar.

David: Oh, in the third year.

Seth: In the third year, but not coterminous with this event.

David: Right. So at least 3 years.

Seth: At least 3 years. He is the descendant of King Nebuchadnezzar. He's called his son throughout this passage. But most scholars recognize that Belshazzar was not the direct son, but more likely the grandson of King Nebuchadnezzar. And that's just a biblical way to talk about a descendant and an ancestor's father and son language. And that's not For us, it's like, it has to be, uh-huh, my progeny, right? That's the son. But yeah, it's a little more fluid in Hebrew and Aramaic.

David: That makes sense.

Seth: And what's most important about King Belshazzar then is that he, as a member of the royal court and the royal family, would have known the story of King Nebuchadnezzar.

David: Totally.

Seth: He would have known it. He would have seen it. He would have seen his own, his own father or grandfather's character arc. And you would have assumed that he would have learned from it.

David: You would hope so.

Seth: You— and Daniel, and when he confronts him, seems to suggest that part of the reason why he's receiving so little mercy from God, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, is because he's seen God act in his own family's line consistently over and over again in mercy and grace, and he's failed to learn the lesson of his fathers.

David: Yeah, it's interesting too to think about how in the last episode we talked about how Nebuchadnezzar wrote most of chapter 4.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And it's interesting to think that those writings maybe originally circulated in Babylon.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And maybe were held in the courts of the king. And it's possible that, that Belshazzar grew up reading his granddad's writings. Yeah. About his time of being humbled by God. And like, that was his— those were his bedtime stories.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And he did not learn the lesson.

Seth: Right.

David: It reminds me of also of like Hebrews that talks about, hey, remember in, in the Torah when the people of Israel just kept being obstinate and kept not having faith in God and then didn't enter the Promised Land? Don't be like them. You— they— their writings and us knowing their story is here to warn us so we won't do the same thing.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And this is a biblical principle, like, right, God shows long, long mercy and records it. So that we can read that story.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And learn the lesson so that we don't have to go through the same thing that person went through because we can just learn the lesson as a bedtime story.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And Belshazzar has not learned the bedtime story, right, of his granddad's pride, humiliation, and worship of God.

Seth: Yes. Okay. So that's kind of who Belshazzar is in the story, and that's probably all the information you need to know.

David: Okay. So it starts off and he's throwing a party.

Seth: Made a great feast for 1,000 of his lords and drank wine in front of them. The thousand. So he's giant, a giant feast. Okay, he's a partying king. Yeah, nothing too odd here, I guess.

David: Yeah, but it does remind me of Esther. It does. I remember when we were in Esther, we talked about how the king would have these huge shows of wealth and extravagance in a way to kind of exert the fact that he was like God, that he had plentiful, boundless wine and provision. And it's this picture that he is God.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so I don't know if Belshazzar, walking in the steps of his father, is again trying to show in a different way that he's like God.

Seth: Well, verse 2 proves that.

David: Oh, good.

Seth: Belshazzar, when he tastes the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords and his wives and his concubines might drink from them.

David: Right. So we talked about this right at the beginning of our walkthrough Daniel, that Daniel opens with Nebuchadnezzar devastating the temple and taking the vessels out of the temple. And we don't hear about those vessels again until right here.

Seth: Right. So you're like, well, why, why bring it up in chapter 1? Well, because of chapter 5.

David: Yeah. We called it the shotgun over the mantle.

Seth: Yes. The shotgun. It's, oh, the shotgun's back. Yeah. Someone picked up the shotgun. They cocked the, the thing, the thing.

David: I don't know enough about guns.

Seth: They cocked the shotgun and it's, it's something's about to happen. Someone's about to get shot. That's, That's what you— my ignorance is showing.

David: So yes, so okay, so interesting. Then he throws this big feast, tastes the wine, gets a little taste of the wine and gets kind of drunk on power and says, you know what, I am God, so bring me God's cup, because who drinks from the cup but God? Bring me the vessels and let's pour the wine in there, and I'm gonna drink wine from God's vessels because that's who I am, right? Is that what's happening here?

Seth: It could be that, or a claim of superiority over the gods of Israel. So it's like, I don't have to be that god, but I'll be a better god.

David: It's— it could be an act of humiliation. Yeah. Where he's like, you know, give me the vessels that were from his temple, and I'm gonna use them as my wine glass.

Seth: It could also be less about Nebuchadnezzar— Belshazzar's, like, pride, and maybe more about the audience of the book. Belshazzar's pride is so great that he's just diminishing the Jewish peoples. It's like he would— he doesn't care. That it's— who, which, which vessels they are.

David: It's just common to him.

Seth: They're common to him. But what does that prove to the people of God? That he's one of the more monstrous rulers, right? Not even Nebuchadnezzar, when he built the statue, was desecrating the temple.

David: It's true. In this way, it's hard for us to be scandalized by this text as a Jewish reader would be at the time. This, I mean, this is high treason. This is the most offensive thing you could possibly do. Yeah, I mean, you are taking the cups from the temple that were so sacred, so set apart, so holy, that there were all these laws and rules surrounding how they're treated, how they're handled, what to do with them. They are so sacred, and then the king just uses them as a wine glass at a, at a rumpus.

Seth: Yeah, he drinks the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver and bronze and iron.

David: Oh, so he then uses them for idol worship, right? Yes, the, the scandal increases.

Seth: Yes. And what's interesting, notice the, the ordering there: gold, silver, bronze, iron.

David: Oh, sounds like the statue from the dream.

Seth: It's the same ordering of the metals in the statue of chapter 2. What is he toasting to? The universal sovereignty of the kingdoms of the world. Yeah, he's toasting to his own power, his own vanity. He is a new Nebuchadnezzar, taking it to a new degree by actually offending the God of the true universal sovereign who we've been proven over and over. His father just said it. His works are right. His ways are just. His kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting. God, Israel's God, is the one who has dominion. And then that's the same God he takes the idols from.

David: Right.

Seth: And then you have a repetition of the kingdom.

David: The walk through the metals probably is also a way of heightening the fact that he has not learned Nebuchadnezzar's lesson.

Seth: He hasn't.

David: Like the dream, he's repeating the dream. And he's saying like, oh, I know it'll fall, it's fine. He's like, no, I'm toasting and worshiping the statue of that dream.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So he has missed the point entirely.

Seth: Missed the point entirely. He's not learned.

David: I mean, because we talked about in chapter 4 was the point of Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation and him turning into a beast for 7 times was so that he would know, right, that God moves kings and establishes kings and does whatever he wants.

Seth: The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men, right?

David: And all of that happened so that the king would know that. And chapter 5 opens and the king clearly does not know that.

Seth: He doesn't know. Okay, so immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall in the king's palace opposite the lampstand. So interesting, the lampstand, perhaps a reference to the lampstand that was supposed to stand in the temple, like the menorah. The menorah, yeah. And because the lampstand and not like the— a golden lampstand, like it's probably just another way to highlight the idolatry of Belshazzar.

David: He's not only taken the vessels, he's also taken perhaps the golden lampstand that was in the temple.

Seth: Yes.

David: And lit it to his own glory.

Seth: That's right.

David: And so in the light of this ironic—

Seth: like, yeah, what would the light represent? God's presence and provision and In the light of the lamp, he sees a divine scroll.

David: Mm.

Seth: And then the king's colors changed and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way, his knees knocked together. Now we have another reference to the statue here, right? Remember we have the head and then the chest and then the legs and then the feet. It's the same ordering here. It's like, it's almost as if in this one little passage, The statue that he just toasted is now crumbling because— just go through it again. His thoughts alarmed him. The thoughts, the color, the color change in his face.

David: Yeah.

Seth: The thoughts of his heart. I think that's the Hebrew translation. His heart alarmed him. His limbs gave way. So in that phrase, there's actually his loins loosened.

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: It could mean that he, like, involuntarily defecated himself. Like, that's like— and then so, like, but we're going down from head. To heart to legs, and then his knees knocked together. So even the bottom of his— the eye is cracking.

David: Like, it is interesting.

Seth: Statue is falling.

David: His color changed, you know. Yeah, in the, in the dream, Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, and now here with Belshazzar, gold is turning to green.

Seth: Yeah, you know, like, he's—

David: the golden head is getting sick.

Seth: Well, what's funny is later on we'll have that same repetition of that phrase, gold and silver and bronze and iron and wood and stone, right before the kingdoms taken from Belshazzar and then give it— given to the Median Empire.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But they flip gold and silver. Oh. And so silver and gold. So the idea is the kingdom is changing.

David: Right.

Seth: The kingdom is changing. The color at the top is changing. So Daniel's a very intricately written book.

David: It really is. Uh, I also wanna go back to this weird thing that we just read is that a human hand appears.

David: Oh yeah.

Seth: And starts writing on the wall. We gotta bury the lead on that one.

David: What? This is a— I mean, that is weird.

Seth: Yeah, it's weird.

David: Like a floating finger hand thing writing on the wall is strange, but it, it does kind of remind us of another time in the Bible when you have the finger of God writing on a surface.

Seth: It's the Ten Commandments.

David: Ten Commandments, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Why that link?

Seth: It's almost as like as if like Belshazzar has set up his own false temple.

David: Oh, sure.

Seth: He brought out the goblets. He brought out the lampstand. All the articles of the presence of God are there. He's toasting to the gods. But who shows up at his festival to the gods? The one true God.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Who is the universal sovereign? The gods of Belshazzar or the God of Israel? You brought all of his things into your palace and then who shows up? Except the God that you have denied. Yeah, it could be that.

David: Totally. What's also interesting to think about, the law is, is the thing that dictates what happens in the temple and its proceedings and all that stuff. And those tablets would, would have been kept inside of the temple itself in the Ark of the Covenant. And so as you walk through the, the altar, possibly a reference to the wine in his own goblet, you know, and the, and the vessels that would be used for the ceremonial cleansing and all those things. And you walk past the light of the lampstand, and then you walk past the light of the lampstand, you get to the holy place. And what's there? The Ark of the Covenant, inside of which is the Ten Commandments inscribed by the finger of God. And there he's saying, hey, here is the covenant between me and my people. If you, if you obey these things, then you will be my people. If you don't, you'll be found wanting. Yeah, this is the measure. This is the plumb line. And we're about to see that like that is, in a sense, what's written on the wall is a, is A law of the judgment.

Seth: Yeah.

David: The judgment based off the law is I've, I've used the law to judge you and you've been found one thing. Could be what's one thing that's happening.

Seth: It's interesting.

David: It's interesting just to think about Belshazzar's feast as an anti-temple.

Seth: Yeah.

David: As like a shadow of the temple.

Seth: Yeah, he does. Yeah. And like, he doesn't do it. He does it to prove his superiority over the God of Israel.

David: Right.

Seth: And in the moment that he tries to prove his superiority to the God of Israel, God has proven to be the greater.

David: Okay, so that's what happens with the finger of God and the anti-temple and all that stuff. But what's written on the wall? What happens next? How does the king react to all of this?

Seth: So the king kind of does react like his father. He calls all the astrologers and the enchanters and the Chaldeans, and he declares to the wise men of Babylon that if you can interpret what is written on the wall, I'll cover you in gold and give you purple robes and make you the third ruler of the kingdom.

David: It is funny. Now he's being like Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, but the old version that he's not supposed to be like. This is like pre-furnace Nebuchadnezzar. He's going backwards, right? That's really funny.

Seth: Uh, and so all the king's wise men come in, but they cannot read the writing or make known to the king its interpretation. And the king kind of doubles down on his alarm. His color changes again, and all the lords, all his officials that he's gathered there are perplexed. But the queen remembers, oh, there's a man who is known for his interpretation of dreams. There's a man in your kingdom in whom the spirit of the holy God There's that phrase again. Phrase, same phrase is used in the last chapter. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians. He made him the minister of magic because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems was found in him. So call him and he will show you the interpretation.

David: Mm.

Seth: It's interesting. The wife knows more than the king.

David: Yeah, it's again showing his ignorance.

Seth: Shows his ignorance. It's also— there's, there's a repeated—

David: I mean, whenever Joseph had this happen to him, whenever the Pharaoh didn't know the interpretation, the cupbearer is the one who has to tell him that there's somebody who can interpret the dreams.

Seth: Even when Pilate is supposed to give judgment on the riddle of what is truth, his wife had a dream. It has a dream that disturbs her and He says, you need to be careful with how you deal with this Jesus person. Interesting. So this idea of like the ruler not knowing what to do, but having to be informed by someone close to him is a theme throughout scripture. Yeah. That's interesting. Because he's too blind or too proud or too— so God speaks to through intermediaries. Yeah.

David: It's also interesting that you kind of know what's coming if you're paying attention to the patterns of Daniel. When Daniel was first called upon to give a dream interpretation about the statue in the dream. Yeah, it's that the statue is going to fall. When he comes again to give an interpretation about the tree, the tree is going to get chopped down. And now Belshazzar has a vision. What's going to happen? I mean, it's not going to be good news for you, dude.

Seth: This is a pattern, which maybe why he wasn't invited. Like, maybe it's such a Debbie Downer.

David: Daniel doesn't get to come to the party.

Seth: Daniel always prophesies negative things.

David: He's like Bruno.

Seth: Bruno?

David: Yeah, from Encanto. He told me my fish would die the next day.

Seth: Dead. He told me I'd grow a gut.

David: And just like he said.

Seth: Oh no. Oh no.

David: Okay, no, we don't talk about Bruno. We don't need to talk about Bruno.

Seth: So Daniel comes in.

David: We just dated this podcast.

Seth: We dated this podcast. Guys, if you haven't watched Encanto yet, You really should, or the people 10 years from now, who are like, "What's a canto?" "Oh, I remember that." Anyway, and what's interesting is how Daniel is introduced. He says, "One of the exiles of Judah, whom the king my father brought from Judah." So he uses the phrase "from Judah" twice. So it's like the fact that he's so closely identified with Judah is significant. In this particular moment. Can you hazard a guess why?

David: Oh, do you know?

Seth: I have a guess.

David: Okay. Well, I mean, I mean, that's where the temple was, right? Okay.

Seth: I mean, I think that's the most obvious one. Like, what's on the line here? It's like the temple, Judah, the capital city.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Of Israel. The—

David: where all this stuff was ransacked from.

Seth: Right. He's a representative of the ransacked city. Oh, right.

David: You took all these things out of the temple of Judah And now possibly the God of Judah is writing on the wall. Let's get a man of Judah to come and tell us what's going on. Yes, it's his God. Let's see what he says. Yes, that's cool.

Seth: So that might be on the line. That's okay. So the king kind of repeats what his wife had said. Spirit of the gods is in you, man of understanding. The wise men can't do it. Now, if you give me the interpretation, I'll set you up over all my kingdom. And then Daniel responds kind of interestingly.

David: No, I'm good.

Seth: Yeah, he basically, he tells, he acts differently towards Belshazzar than he ever did toward Nebuchadnezzar. Every story we have of Daniel interacting with Nebuchadnezzar is almost kind of conciliatory, like kind.

David: Oh king, live forever.

Seth: May this dream be for your enemies. Yeah. Let me, I don't want you to die, Ashpenaz. Let's do a test and then let's see how the king responds to the test. He seems very willing to dialogue and be a friend of Nebuchadnezzar. But here he opens up with, says to the King Belshazzar, "Let your gifts be for yourself and give your reward to another.

David: Nevertheless, I'll read the writing the king has asked me to make." Yeah, it's like he was okay to be a part of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, maybe because ultimately he knew what kind of king he would be. But he does not want to be party to Belshazzar's kingdom.

Seth: Yeah, there's— yeah, there's something about Daniel knows something about Belshazzar that was not true. There's something true about Belshazzar that was not true of Nebuchadnezzar.

David: Yeah. I wonder if he came in, saw the writing on the wall and was like, I'm not joining this guy's team.

Seth: Right. Or he like, he saw the vessels of the temple. This is not something.

David: Oh, right.

Seth: Like he walks in and he sees the thing We'll learn in the next chapter that he prays towards Jerusalem 3 times a day. He would be familiar with the vessels of the temple. He's looking around this party where everybody's drunk. There's handwriting on the wall. The lampstand of his temple's there. The goblets that not even Nebuchadnezzar dared to touch have wine— like, have wine in them, and they're all drunk off the wine from God's goblets. Like, and on top of that, Nebuchadnezzar humbled himself, and this is his ancestor. Yeah, he's lost— it seems as if he's lost patience with the pride of this dynasty.

David: Yeah, it's interesting. It's like, it's hard for us sometimes again to get the offense that's happening here. But, um, because you're like, I mean, think about like eating, eating pork, you know, it's so hard for us to understand how disgusting that would be to like Peter in the first century whenever God shows him all this, all the, all the food. And then, right, Peter, kill and eat. He's like, "Far be it from me, Lord." Well, he's not just being pious there. He's like, "That's disgusting, right?

Seth: I would never eat that." "I don't eat pigs." Yeah, yeah.

David: It's like, well, you probably feel that way about bugs or puppies. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It was like, imagine it might be closer to walking into a feast, being brought into a feast, and everyone is just eating sliced open puppies.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And they're like, "Hey, what's up, man? Hey, if you can solve this riddle for us, you can have some cool stuff that we have. You're like, no thank you, I don't— I want nothing to do with this whatever's happening. Eating puppy party, this is disgusting. Yeah, but like, that's whatever that feeling is, times it by 10, and you'll get close to what Daniel must have felt like walking into that room and seeing all the sacred artifacts of his temple desecrated.

Seth: That's potentially what's happening here. Daniel never says that. No, he only focuses on the pride of Belshazzar and the lessons he should have learned from his father. So I think so. I think there is a visceral reaction to probably seeing the goblets of God being trampled on. But what Daniel focuses on is the failure of Belshazzar to humble himself like his father. And so he says, "Your father, he could kill and he could make alive whoever he wanted. He could raise up and whom he would, he humbled." I mean, he's comparing him to God there. He is comparing him to God, which is— we've made those same parallels throughout Nebuchadnezzar's story. But when your father's heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened, so they dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him. Driven from the children of mankind, he was made like a beast. He ate, he ate grass like an ox until he knew that the Most High rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. And you, his son, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this. I think Daniel is— I think he embodies the impatience of the Lord in this moment. Yeah, for people who take advantage of his grace, right? Belshazzar has seen God be gracious towards proud leaders over and over and over again. He's seen the character arc of his father, his grandfather, humbled. And he said, you failed to do what I have shown must happen in Babylon. Like, and this is the law. Like, they don't know the law. Babylonians don't know the law. But what's the one law they do know? God humbles the proud, right?

David: It was their king's mantra.

Seth: It was their king's mantra. And you failed the one law that my God has told you, right?

David: And I taught you a huge lesson.

Seth: Yes.

David: Where'd your king go for 7 times, right? Insane. Like an animal. I gave you this gigantic lived parable and you didn't learn the lesson. I wanted you to do one thing. And that was to be humble before me. And you have failed that test.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And then he does go on and says, in the height of your pride, what have you done? You've desecrated the things of the Lord's temple. You've set yourself above him.

Seth: And you praise the gods of silver and gold. There's that reversal.

David: Yes.

Seth: So that, yeah. And then from his presence he was sent and this writing was inscribed. And so now he's about to describe what the writing on the wall means. So what's interesting is that before he ever interprets it, he just rebukes the king. That's, that's what's interesting about this one. He rebukes the king rather than is conciliatory. Like, we're given the lesson of the— we're given the lesson the king was supposed to learn before he ever gets the interpretation, right?

David: He doesn't even need the interpretation to know that the king has messed up royally, right?

Seth: Which I think is an interesting— like, we, we've talked about this a couple different times, so maybe just Help me go down this rabbit trail. So the reason why Israel was sent into exile was because they had the law of God and rejected it. They chose to build their city on blood, as Ezekiel says.

David: Right. Injustice and oppression of the poor.

Seth: Yeah. Yes. And so they're sent into exile. The Babylonians don't have the law of God.

David: Right.

Seth: So how will God judge the nations? How do they know what's right and wrong? They don't have the same kosher laws. They don't have laws against eating puppies. Like, you know, like they don't have the laws. So God in his grace and mercy has given them one law, right?

David: Humble yourself before me.

Seth: Humble yourself before me. And that's the law that's broken.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And so this whole preamble before the interpretation is the— is almost like a covenant cursing, like a covenant explanation of the covenant God gave to Babylon, right? If you humble yourselves, you will be lifted up, right?

David: It does sound like a covenant curse because it He's reiterating the terms of the covenant. So this is what happens whenever God, through his prophets or even in the Torah, says what will happen if you break the law. He says, but if you X, Y, Z, and he says, you know, if you break my commandment, don't do this thing, you know, willfully do that thing, then the kingdom will be taken from you. And he's doing the same thing. He's like, I taught you the lesson. The lesson you were supposed to learn was this, and you haven't done it. Yeah, it is a covenant curse, right? I give you one law. Here's how you learned it. It's even funny in the, in the covenant curse sections, God often repeats narrative details. He's like, but if you forget that I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, yeah, and brought you into the land that wasn't yours, yeah, gave you vineyards that you did not plant. It was a lived parable too, not just a written code, but a lived parable, a lived salvation. If they forget that story, then they get the curses of the covenant. And that's what's happening here. He's like, I gave you a lived parable, a visual picture of what I wanted from you, and you've not done it. Therefore, the curse is coming against you, just like it came against my own people.

Seth: You know what's interesting is, like, as I think about, like, the idea that God gave one law, one, a one-law covenant to the Babylonians, the beginning of Daniel chapter 4 King Nebuchadnezzar writes to all of his people. He writes to the whole nation, all peoples, nations, and languages, and he gives them the law.

David: He gives them the one law.

Seth: How great are his signs, how marvelous are his works. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His dominion is from generation to generation.

David: I love that he calls them signs. Like, this is what we are talking about.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: He has given us a picture of what he wants from us. The Most High God. What does he want from us? That dominion is his. And I have written it to every language in every nation so that everyone knows the one true God's one law.

Seth: And like his own son has neglected his father's law.

David: That's amazing.

Seth: So yeah, that's what's on the line. That's what's on the line. Before we move into— because the Mene Mene Tekel and Parsin, what the hand has written, what the hand has written, we'll talk about that in its own section because it is—

David: it's dense.

Seth: It's dense. So let's just camp out here. Why is it good news? I've got a couple of questions. Okay, why is it good news that the nations have a different law than the people of God? And then why is it good news that God has had enough with the pride of the nations? You know, like, like, I'm like, I'm thinking like the judgment that like the pre-judgment Daniel hasn't even given the interpretation yet, but there's this like justice coming against the proud nations. Like, how do we see Jesus in this angry response to the proud and forgetful king? Um, what is that? Yeah, like that's what, that's what I'm thinking of right now.

David: Well, it reminds me of Romans 1 and 2. Okay, really quickly, that you have, um, that all people have broken the law. Yes, the Jews have broken their written law, But Romans 1 and the first part of 2 argue that God has made it plain in his creation. He's done a lived parable all throughout creation that has revealed that he will judge sin, that he has wrath against unrighteousness. And it's evident in the things that he has created. It is plain, Romans 1 will say.

Seth: He—

David: God himself has, in a sense, written a decree to all languages and nations telling them the one thing, you know, that they must do, that there is a God in heaven and he does hold people accountable.

Seth: Yeah. And then in Babylon in particular, we've seen vivid examples of that in King Nebuchadnezzar. So we don't just have the seasons declaring this truth or the stars declaring this.

David: God entered history in very real ways. And it would, it would, it would surprise me if that wasn't true of many, many other nations that we don't have recorded in Scripture, that God did not enact parables through their kings and their kingdoms?

Seth: Well, yeah, I think—

David: show himself.

Seth: I mean, I think about— we've referenced this story earlier on about when the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Canaan, Canaan, in the land of the Philistines. And they have all these tumors and rats because they took one of the things from the Ark of the Covenant or the temple, right, and put it in their house of their own gods. And what happened? God shows up.

David: Right.

Seth: And he— anyway, yeah. So, yeah.

David: So I do think that this does apply to all nations where there is a— there is one law evident to all nations that, and at least Romans' conclusion is that both Jew and Gentile have broken that law.

Seth: Yeah. And the reason why that's good news is because most people throughout history have been ruled by proud kings claiming to be gods, right? Like, maybe they don't— they don't say that anymore because most people, a lot of kings don't believe in the gods at all, right? But autocrats, yeah, people who claim all, all final say comes from them. And for the people who suffer under them, they need the good news that there's a God above them that's holding all people, even the autocrats, accountable. Right, I understand now. Right, tyrants, dictators, they all, they all fall, right?

David: No one can set themselves up above the God who writes his laws in the stars, right?

Seth: Yeah, right. Okay, and to whatever extent— what's interesting too, then, like we talked about the vessels and the lampstand being symbols of this, he makes this false temple whenever there's no temple anymore after Jesus because we are the images in his temple, right?

David: Yes, yes.

Seth: So when the autocrats take power and enslave Christians, they are taking the things, the temple of God, and using them for their own advantage. Wow. So yeah, we as vessels of the temple, when we're used by the oppressors become evidence against them that God will come and judge them. You cannot use the temple of God for— to prove your own power, right? And if you do so, it will be your downfall.

David: Our blood will cry out from the ground.

Seth: Our blood will cry out from the ground. That's right.

David: Let me just one sentence reiterate what you've just said. It's good news that there is still a law for the Gentiles. Because even the most powerful rulers in the world are under it.

Seth: Yeah, no one is exempt from God's justice.

David: Okay, yeah, I get that. I was like, I don't know how you were gonna get to a good news there in and of itself, there being this universal law. I was like, oh, but I get it. Yeah, that's really— that is good news that Belshazzar is held accountable. Is good news.

Seth: Yeah. Okay, so The writing.

David: The writing. What we've talked so much about, there was writing and Daniel's mad and the king's going to be judged. But what on earth did that disembodied divine hand write in the plaster?

Seth: 4 words. Okay.

David: 3 words, but one's repeated twice. Yes.

Seth: Yes. Mene, mene, tekel, parsin.

David: Mm. Well, okay. Case closed. I get it.

Seth: And then immediately Daniel goes into the interpretation. So let's just pause.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Why can nobody understand this? So my first assumption was that it was gibberish, right? Like God wrote gibberish on the walls.

David: It's gibberish to me, right? As an English reader.

Seth: That's exactly right. And part— remember what's on the line in Babel and the new Babel? Oh, Babylon is the confusion of languages, confusion of language.

David: So he's just writing Babel on the wall, right?

Seth: He's writing Babel on the wall. So like, I've kind of like, that's what I went in assuming.

David: That is not the case.

Seth: I don't think so. Right. So first of all, think about Semitic and Aramaic, Semitic languages and Aramaic in particular.

David: Right.

Seth: They don't have vowels in them. Right.

David: Which you'll have to stop there because it's like throwing a lot of people for a loop. So, but yes, like when you write like Hebrew or Aramaic, you're only writing the consonants and the vowels. I mean, they now modern versions of these languages do have vowels, but when they were originally written, they didn't have them. And so you're like, well, how would you ever know what words you meant if the consonants were just there? And it's context.

Seth: It's context. So, but if you— so the words in our English Bible say Menemeneteklemparsin, but if you just saw the letters M, N, M, N, T, K, L, P, R, S, right? And then there was no context for them, no vowels to them. Yep.

David: How on earth?

Seth: Like, they could mean dozens of different things.

David: Yes.

Seth: And if it's written in Aramaic, which I think they might have been, like, I think the idea here is like, these are clearly Aramaic words. And when Daniel gives his interpretation, everybody in the king's court recognizes that Daniel's telling the truth, right?

David: He's like, oh, that makes total sense now.

Seth: Right, right. Which is one of the things that was on the line for me, I think, was like, how does everybody know?

David: That Daniel's telling the truth here and not just been making it up, making stuff up, right?

Seth: Because when they see these letters on the wall, and as Daniel explained, he adds the vowels to them, it makes sense to everybody in the room. And Daniel's— it's clear that Daniel's right, I think, right? Does that make sense?

David: Yeah, I think so.

Seth: Okay.

David: Yeah. So he comes up to these consonanted words that are on the plaster, and he provides the vowels, right? He says, oh, I know what these words are. I know they could they could be several other words, but they're these words: mene, mene, tekel, and parson. What are those words? What are they? What are they? Because right now it's still gibberish to all of us English speakers.

Seth: So there are at least 3 layers of meaning that Daniel is working on here. So mene is a unit of measurement. It's a number of shekels.

David: You might have heard mina.

Seth: Mina, right? That's right.

David: That's in the Bible elsewhere. Yeah. A mina.

Seth: Yeah. Those are 2 different vowels, I and A.

David: And it's most likely 60 shekels. Which also, pause, yes, is just interesting.

Seth: Why?

David: The shekel. What is a shekel of the sanctuary? It's just another, another temple thing is happening here.

Seth: I thought that was like a universal—

David: it is, but they do talk about the shekel of the sanctuary when you want to bring in certain amounts of flour to make offerings. It's shekels, or even like bring a mina of flour in.

Seth: Interesting.

David: It's just interesting.

Seth: Interesting.

David: Okay, other, other links for the temple.

Seth: So on the first level of meaning, it's a unit of measurement. So this is a shekel or a mina.

David: A mina, 60 shekels.

Seth: 60 shekels. Tekel is shekel. Is shekel. Yeah. Tekel. Tekel. Tekel. I guess is T and S like similar letters in Aramaic?

David: I don't know Aramaic.

Seth: So anyway.

David: But a Tekel is a shekel. I mean, they sound the same.

Seth: A tickle.

David: But it literally is the word shekel.

Seth: It's the word shekel.

David: Yep.

Seth: And then parson is half a shekel. Is half a shekel. And that word parson is plural.

David: So 2 halves of a shekel.

Seth: 2 halves of a shekel.

David: So shekel has been split into 2. It's been divided.

Seth: It's been divided. So, or so the first level of meaning is these are weights, right?

David: Yeah. And think about mina, right? As a, as a weight, you would, you would know you had 60 shekels once the weight hit a mina. So you would, if you had a balance, you would have a mina on one side and then you would place on the other side shekels until it balanced out.

Seth: Right. Because it was a weight-based measurement, a weight-based measurement system. Okay.

David: Because it wasn't a size-based, or even just counting the number wouldn't really work because you could dilute the weight of the silver that was making the shekel. And silver weighs different than other metals. It's like, oh, you've given me a tin shekel. So that's why they did it based on weight.

Seth: Okay, so the first level of meaning is that they're units of measurement. Minas, shekels, and parsons. But interestingly, Daniel then takes these units of measurements and then turns them into verbs, right? He changes it, and the verbs are part of his interpretation.

David: And starting in verse 26, right, just like a mina numbers an amount of shekels, you have 60 shekels to number a mina. He's like, guys, the mina, the mene, just means numbered.

Seth: God has numbered your days in the kingdom and brought to an end. And he's adding some extra interpretation here, which we'll get there. We'll get there. And then he says, Tekel. He takes that word shekel and turns it into a verb. Yeah.

David: A shekel is a weight of silver.

Seth: And so you have been weighed. The weight is weighing. Yeah. Yeah. The number is numbering. The weight is weighing.

David: And the last word, the parson, is that like we said, it's splitting two shekels into half shekels. Yeah. So he says you've been split.

Seth: You've been divided.

David: Divided.

Seth: So it's pretty clear. It's pretty clear. So like, think about yourself as an Aramaic person having a consonantal language without vowels. And then somebody comes in and says, okay, you guys have seen these letters before. Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. Mina, shekel, Parsin, half a shekel. We know all that, right? But we also have another word. Change the vowels. That means number, weight, and divide. Like, yeah, yeah, I see that.

David: I'm following you.

Seth: I see this. I see this. And then in Daniel's interpretation, he gives synonyms for each of those words, which is part of his interpretation. This is the interpretation of the matter. God has numbered the days of your king and brought it to an end. Right.

David: Once the mina hits 60, it's done being a mina.

Seth: That's right.

David: You've got one full mina. So like whenever you say something is numbered, right, your days are numbered. Yeah, when something is numbered, yes, it's fixed, it's finite, and it maybe is even saying it's being brought to an end. So he's doing that interpretive work that's kind of plain on the surface now. Yeah, I'm like, oh, mina is a, is a number, and if something's numbered, it's being brought to an end. So it's a pretty obvious leap he's making.

Seth: Another— I heard one commentator say it, another way to talk about it is the word entrusted. You've been entrusted a certain number of days, you've been entrusted a certain weight, right?

David: I'm, yeah, I'm reminded of like the Psalm said, God has knows all the number of our days.

Seth: Yeah, he's entrusted you with a certain number of days to live your life well, and it's coming to an end, right? Oh, King.

David: Yep.

Seth: Tekel, you have been weighed. Shekel, you have been weighed in the balances, right?

David: Found wanting, which is a common thing that would happen with a shekel. So if you go up to a place that you're gonna buy something with shekels, they would have a weight on there, and they would have a real genuine shekel on one side, and you would put your shekel to buy something on the other side, and they should balance because there should be the same amount of precious metal in both. And so whenever you think about a shekel, you think about weighing. And so he says, okay, I've put you and your shekel of your life up on the scales. Uh-oh, it's not real.

Seth: You—

Seth: and what's funny is one synonym for the word weighed is too light. Oh, and so he's saying you've been placed You're a shekel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And you've been found too light on the scales.

David: Right.

Seth: Which is really interesting, right?

David: Especially when you think about the mina, you know, he's like, hey, I've given you a 60.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And you're not even a 1, right? It was like, I wanted you to be a 60, like Nebuchadnezzar. He was humbled. You knew the story. You were supposed to equal 60 shekels with your life. And man, you didn't even do 1.

Seth: I've put you on the scales. I've weighed you. Yeah. And I found you coming up short, right?

David: Lightweight.

Seth: Yep.

David: And then so he says, and then here's the, here's the real, like, punishment, the decree, the final interpretation for Parson, meaning the two, the split shekel into two, two half shekels.

Seth: What's funny here is now it's singular, Perez. He takes it, the two, and makes it one.

David: Which is Parson anymore, it's Perez, right?

Seth: But another, again, within the semantic range of a kind of consonantal language, This makes sense. And it means divided, right?

David: He's like, I'm going to take your shekel, I'm going to split it.

Seth: Yeah. And another synonym for splitting or dividing is like allocated.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And so your kingdom is going to be redistributed, redistributed from 2 to 1 or 1 to 2.

David: Right.

Seth: And you're being given over to the Medes and the Persians.

David: Yep. So, yeah, they get a half shekel. The Medes get a half shekel and the Persians get a half shekel.

Seth: And then what's crazy is Belshazzar, after he hears all this, gives Daniel the purple robe and the chain of gold and puts him as a third ruler of the kingdom. When the king hears all this, he's like, that makes absolute sense, right? And he honors, honors Daniel for the interpretation of his own downfall.

David: Maybe he's just drunk.

Seth: Maybe he's just drunk. Well, I, I, it was, I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my mind, so I want to gather them, but I think It's crazy to me that he does that. It is crazy that he just accepts this because it's so plainly obvious to him what he's— I hope he did a good job of explaining why these are self-evident interpretations to the riddle on the wall. I think the king himself sees that. Um, but regardless, honoring Daniel does not make his fate any better. That very night, the kingdom is taken from Belshazzar and given to Darius the Mede.

David: Yeah, the, the interpretation comes true right away.

Seth: Right away.

David: It's very interesting.

Seth: There's a potential reason for that.

David: Oh, I remember you telling me about this.

Seth: It could be that this big feast that he's celebrating is because Darius's army is at the gates of Babylon, right?

David: And he's like, I'm gonna throw one last hurrah.

Seth: And this big parade and party of pride is like the dying breaths of a king. And part of the reason why Daniel says, I don't want your power, is because it's pointless.

David: Right. If I put that purple robe on, they're going to think I'm with you and they're going to kill me when they come in.

Seth: Right. It's like you have no authority to give me. And besides that, if I took it, I might die. Yeah. Like, I have no reason to do this.

David: That's funny.

Seth: It's super, super funny.

David: Yeah, it's also like one of the reasons why he might immediately understand that the riddle was true, because he's like, "And tonight you're gonna be given over to Darius. Here he is." You know, it's like, right, the guy right outside the window, right?

Seth: This is your thing. The writing is on the wall. It's literally on the wall. This is a funny thing, and I don't know how much I could prove it, but we know, so this is the fall of the Babylonian Empire, right? There's paintings made about this. This is a date in history, right?

David: Yeah.

Seth: And remember, the king has just called all these astrologers.

David: Yes.

Seth: Into his courtroom. And so, you know, you can rewind the skies and know what constellations are in the skies, right, at any point in history.

David: Yep.

Seth: So one of the commentators I was reading said what's interesting about the Tekel interpretation, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting, is that on the day or the month that Babylon was overthrown, Libra would have been in the sky. And that's the astrological sign of a set of scales.

David: That's hilarious.

Seth: And so all the astrologers should have been studying the skies a little bit more closely.

David: Right.

Seth: And maybe they would have got the interpretation. But Daniel comes in and is poking fun at all the astrologers like, don't you guys even know the stars?

David: That's like your whole thing.

Seth: It's your whole thing. The, the scales are literally— they're not just on the wall. They're in the sky.

David: The writing's on the wall and the sky. And like, yeah. And another thing that it's self-evident, um, we, we have what I think is the only, uh, mention of a pagan king's age. That's right here. Darius, we're told, is about 62 years old, which is funny and further corroborates Daniel's interpretation because if you add up a mene, a tekel and 2 parsons, what number do you get? 60 for the mina, 1 shekel for the tekel, and 2 halves make another 1. So you have 62, right?

Seth: Which is an interesting detail because it seems as if Daniel, when he's writing this later in life, is giving an additional editorial weight to his own interpretation. Like, it's maybe not been clear that to Belshazzar, he's killed by a 62-year-old.

David: But like, as Daniel's reflecting on, he's like, oh my gosh, Darius was 62 when he came. And that's hilarious, right?

Seth: He's writing like, my interpretation was accurate, proven by the king that divided, that weighed, yeah, and divided.

David: Yeah, totally. That's funny.

Seth: And what's also interesting, we'll probably get to this in a couple of weeks, but there is another time the number 62 is mentioned in the Book of Daniel.

David: Hmm.

Seth: It's when an angel tells Daniel that there are 70 weeks of exile left. And the first period of time that passes is 62. So, and in Scripture, there's only one other 62 in all of Scripture, and it's the book of Chronicles, and it doesn't really match any of this. So it's interesting that a really unique moment, you have the age of a pagan king matching the prophetic numerology of the word.

David: Daniel's probably trying to help us interpret himself.

Seth: And then, yes, and then you have another 62 later on.

David: So We'll talk about that a little bit later, but a little Easter egg for later. Okay. So, I mean, what, what, how else do we wrap up the story before we start talking about how this is all about the gospel?

Seth: Because that's all I want to do now. I mean, we're having a repetition of a theme. God is the revealer of mysteries.

David: Yeah.

Seth: He's the wise man. Like he places his wise man in places where he can unveil the mystery and do his will among the nations. Babylon is judged when the riddle is solved. Yeah. Pride is judged when the riddle is solved.

David: Yeah.

David: I think something we should talk about is the fact that pride is measured and weighed and judged.

Seth: Hmm. Yeah.

David: That God is a measurer and a weigher and a judger, that he puts you on the scales and will find you wanting. And it's not based on how much you've done. It's, you know, he's not like, oh, you didn't conquer enough kingdoms, Belshazzar, or you didn't start enough feeding programs, even though that would be a really good thing for him to do. You know, you weren't humble. You weren't humble.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And God's going to put us on the scale. And I think what's a funny way to think about it is He judges our pride. He judges our pride, and our pride might be too heavy. I was reading an article in the Journal of Biblical Counseling from David Pallasen.

Seth: Okay.

David: And his reflections on Psalm 131, and he's talking about pride and shame. And the metaphor he uses is we're the wrong size.

Seth: Hmm.

David: Whenever we're proud, we think we're bigger than God or we're bigger than another person. We're the wrong size. But also when we're ashamed instead of humbled, we're too small and we can't matter and we have no weight or importance. He's like, humility is being the right size under God. I just think it's interesting to think about that idea because even the, even the word glory means weighty. Means weight. Yeah, it means weighty, heavy in Hebrew. And so it's interesting to think about pride and humility as being the right weight. Like, whenever you are humble, you weigh the right amount. Yeah, you are. Whenever you put next to a shekel, you weigh a shekel. But whenever you're proud, man, you, you, you weigh too much, or, you know, whatever, you've given yourself too much weight.

Seth: Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I think most people's conception of Judgment Day, or of judgment in general, is a set of scales. Yeah, it's a set of scales, right? And what you put on the scale is your good works. Right, or your bad works.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And depending— and on one side of the scale is your good works, and one side of the scale is your bad work.

David: And if your good works outweigh your bad, you win, you get to heaven.

Seth: Yeah, that's, that's the way it works. And that's not the picture that— it's like good works and bad works aren't even on the table. No, in this one it's humility and pride.

David: That's right.

Seth: And they're only on one side of the scale.

David: Yes. The other side is a correctly weighed human being. The other side in this story, the other side was Nebuchadnezzar, right? Nebuchadnezzar was on the other side of the scale because he humbled himself, or he was humbled, and exalted God alone as the Most High God. So that's on one side of the scale. Belshazzar's put on the other side and he weighs too much, or, you know, whatever the metaphor is here. He doesn't match.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so like God wants to put us on the scale and he wants us to be the right weight. He wants us to be the right size. He wants us to be found humble. Like, that's the challenge, I think, to us as modern readers today, is be the right size, be the right weight, right? Humble yourself before the Most High God. Don't think of yourself too highly, nor should you think of yourself too lowly. He still was King of Babylon, after all.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Be the right size. Don't be underweight or overweight. Balance the scales of being made in the image of God, but also being under the Most High God.

Seth: Okay. So I get that as like, okay, what's the moral command here?

David: Yeah.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah. Pursue humility.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Be the right size. Be the type of person when weighed in the balances against the hu— the humility of God, you, you match, you match.

David: You look like Jesus's humility. You look like God's humble character. Yes.

Seth: I'm also thinking about like the inevitability of judgment.

David: Yes, Jesus is coming with the scales.

Seth: Like, if you use your life to toast to your own longevity, throw parties to your vanity, get drunk on your invulnerability, like, Belshazzar's fate becomes yours. God will weigh you and find you wanting. Yeah. And that's frightening.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But it's also good news because that means that no arrogant power will ever last. Mm. Everyone who uses their power to mock God's kingdom and oppress God's people will be destroyed.

David: That's right.

Seth: So that means the good news of this text is that Jesus is coming to number, divide, and weigh the proud rulers of this world.

David: Right.

Seth: Revelation 19, Matthew 25. And like Daniel was patient with with two generations or three generations, right, of the Nebuchadnezzar family dynasty's, uh, pride. Jesus has been patient with human pride for generations, right?

David: He's been long-suffering, waiting, and he's given us visible parable after visible parable showing us, yes, the difference between pride and humility.

Seth: But the writing is on the wall in Jesus too. He's coming to find the arrogant wanting to number the proud among the conquered and divide the kingdom, the kingdom of the proud among the humble.

David: Right.

Seth: Who will inherit the kingdom of God?

David: The meek, right?

Seth: The lowly, the humble. Yeah.

David: The writing is on the wall in Jesus.

Seth: Yeah.

David: How do we know? Because the King of Heaven died on a cross. That's what establishes this kingdom of humility, is the King willfully laying down his life in a gentle and lowly way. In order to save the meek and the gentle and lowly. The writing's on the wall on the cross. And so we must see our gentle and lowly King and weigh ourselves next to him and be like, man, I just want to be humble and lowly and gentle like Jesus.

Seth: It's funny how Jesus— if Jesus was neither too small or too big, mm-hmm, he was— Jesus was the perfectly— the only true man who knew what size he should be. Yeah. It's funny that like he had all power of the universe and chose to lay it down, right? And the reason why Jesus being the right size is good news is because he's the one the kingdom is divided to. Who sits enthroned in Babylon now? King Jesus.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Who sits enthroned over the whole earth?

David: The humble king, right?

Seth: Who doesn't misuse the temple of God, who doesn't misuse the people of God, who doesn't colonize the nations of the world, but uses his power to bless the world. Yeah. To save the world, to serve the world, to love the world.

David: Yes, it is really good news that Belshazzar is not on the throne anymore. Yeah. The greatest king in the universe is not an evil king who's the wrong size. It's just good news.

Seth: Good news.

David: Uh, one last thing I want to do before we end is talk about another time in the New Testament when God's finger wrote something inscrutable that people didn't know what was being written.

Seth: Yeah. Jesus writes in the dirt at one point, right?

David: Does. It's the story of the woman caught in adultery where a woman is brought before Jesus and it's a riddle. They give Jesus a riddle just like Daniel keeps getting presented with. And they say, Jesus, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Our law says to stone her. What should we do? And they, they like trying to catch him. Yeah, in a trap. It's a riddle. And Jesus bends down, uses his finger to write something that we don't know, something inscrutable in the dirt, and then stands up and says, whoever is without sin, cast the first stone. And he just unravels the mystery. And, and the, the proud walk away. And the humbled woman is left to be risen up to sin no more.

Seth: Interesting.

David: And it's interesting to think about Jesus being the one who's in charge of the scales, you know, Jesus being the one who's doing the numbering. Yeah, doing the weighing and doing the dividing. When Jesus is the one who does that, like, the scales don't balance the way we think they should.

Seth: Hmm.

David: Now, an adulterous prostitute kind of woman can match Jesus, like she can be weighed and not be found wanting.

Seth: Oh yeah.

David: Because Jesus's mercy outweighs our sin. Jesus tips the scales in new directions.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And that's one way to think about it. The other way to think about it is what is he— what is he writing there in the dirt? He's maybe— if he is riffing on the story in Daniel, he's doing the same thing that Daniel was doing to the proud king. You have these proud law-abiders, you know, who are coming and trying to trap Jesus. And the judgment is against their pride, right? He's saying, I'm weighing you in this moment right now, and you're found wanting. Why? Because you're proud. You're not humble. You don't love this woman. You don't love me.

Seth: You're proud.

David: You're put— you're trying to put yourself over me as king.

Seth: You're using this woman just to trap me, right? She's a pawn in your plans. She's not— she's doing what Belshazzar did with the vessels of the temple. That's right. Using the things of God to their own, to benefit their own power. Yeah.

David: And so it's just amazing. I don't know if that's what was happening. No one knows. Right. It's one of the great mysteries of the New Testament.

Seth: We're talking about mysteries and riddles.

David: So yeah, it kind of does fit.

Seth: Um, but can you maybe last thing, last thing. I love that.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Because I want to be weighed and found different than I am. Yeah, you know, like, I totally— I need that.

David: We need, we need the Jesus who saves the woman caught in adultery whenever we think about putting ourselves up on a scale.

Seth: Yes. But also, I keep thinking about the parable of the weights, the parable of the talents.

David: Yes.

Seth: Where a master gives 3 different servants 3 different weights and uses that— tells them to use those weights in appropriately, right? And then when he returns, he says, well done, good and faithful servants, for using your weights well. And the one who didn't, that was redistributed, reallocated.

David: That's right.

Seth: Divided differently among those who were faithful. Have you thought about any parallels between that story and this story and how the kingdom of God and redistributing that weight might be tracking on here?

David: Well, it's interesting that I think it would be easy possibly to read the story of Daniel 5 and walk away from it being like, wow, that was a really good cautionary tale for kings.

Seth: Uh-huh.

David: They better manage their kingdoms well.

Seth: Right.

David: But then Jesus comes and he tells a very similar story about servants.

Seth: Hmm.

David: And how even servants use what God has given. And on both of them, in both of them, there's this imminent coming of a kingdom, you know.

Seth: Yeah. Whether that's Darius, Darius, or the master in the parable. Yeah.

David: And so they do track on to each other in really interesting ways. I'm struck by the fact that Daniel 5 is about a king and Matthew's parable is about a servant.

Seth: Right. And it does that. What that does is it does what we've kind of done implicitly.

David: That's right.

Seth: It's like all of us will be weighed and the way that we're not found wanting is when we align ourselves with Jesus. Yeah, we follow the humility of Jesus. We will be weighed and not found wanting.

David: Yeah. It is interesting too, if it was common knowledge that, um, Darius was knocking on the door whenever the party was thrown. That's the whole point of Jesus's parable, is to expect the master's return. It's the whole point of that parable that he's telling, is the master might come home at any time, so be ready. And, and Belshazzar was not ready for another king to come. He was, he was trying to throw a party to exert some kind of weird prideful rule that he didn't have.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so one way to live in humility is to know that the king is coming back, is to know that what you have, you're not going to keep, like your social status and your possessions and your influence over others isn't what's going to stick around forever.

Seth: It's been allocated to you for a season.

David: For a season.

Seth: It's been numbered to you. Yeah. So that you would steward it well.

David: And then Jesus is going to come.

Seth: He's going to weigh it and he's going to take it all back. It's all his.

David: It's all his. He's going to weigh it and then maybe it'll be divided to others or be given back to you tenfold.

Seth: I keep thinking about like being the right size. Pride is being too big. Shame is being too small. Jesus being the perfectly weighted human being. Yeah. But I also just imagine myself on the other side of that scale.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And never matching the weight of Jesus.

David: Right.

Seth: So how does my humility and like, how, like, I don't understand, like, how does that work? How can me being humble before the Jesus who died for me give me the humility of Jesus? Like, like, how do I become the right weight? Is that, is like simply being humble in that moment? Make me the right weight? Like what?

David: Like, right.

Seth: That's— it's a funny thing because I always, even now after being a Christian, I don't feel like I'm humble enough or too full of shame to match the weight of Jesus. Yeah.

David: I think what, for a Christian looking at this plot device in this story and this metaphor, I think the way that humility works best in it is to think about it like this, that a truly humble people— person who's the right size looks at the scales of their life and knows that on the side of the scale that they should be putting things on is Jesus. They put Jesus alone on the scale and that it's not going to be anything they do or how humble they are, or it's not their own works or their own character, or like it's going to be Jesus alone on the scale. They can't do it. They can't match the holiness of God. And so they allow God to be their sole representative. They allow Jesus to represent them fully. And when you truly do that and not just do it in pretense, be like, oh, I don't— Jesus just did it for me. It's fine. But when you truly know that you have nothing valuable to give and Jesus gave it all for you and you allow the humble Jesus to go sit up on the scales for you, you can't help but submit to him and bow before him and worship him. And as you do, you'll become like him. Like you're like, it's like, that's the story of the sanctification in the Bible.

Seth: Yeah.

Seth: Well, it makes me like adjust that metaphor a little bit. What was the metaphor? What was Nebuchadnezzar supposed to learn? The Most High rules and he gives it to whomever he wills. He gives it to the lowliest men.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So maybe it's not Jesus on one side, it's God on the other side. The Ancient of Days, the Judge, the Most High, the Most Heavy, the Glorious One.

David: Right.

Seth: Ways down the scale.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And like the scale is just tipped one side. The right side is just touching the ground.

David: Yep. And the left side's way up high.

Seth: And the— and every empire, every kingdom, every person is trying to throw as much as they can.

David: Yeah.

Seth: On the right side of the scale.

David: And they can't equal God.

Seth: And they can't equal God. But when Jesus comes as God, as a human, lowly, lowly, humble human, He steps onto the scale and for the first time in human history, it balances. And the good news is that we are found in Jesus, in his humility. Like we are Christ's body.

David: Yes, we are.

Seth: Like Riley, church is Christ's body. So as we are in him, we balance the scales of the ruler of the universe, right?

David: Because in Christ, we finally look like God. We're finally the right image, right? The right size, because we're in his image.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Wow. There's a lot there.

Seth: There's a lot there.

David: The metaphor goes a bunch of different ways.

Seth: Yeah. Thank you for being with us, guys.

David: Yeah, really, thank you. Keep meditating on that. That's, that's really good. And next week, you have any friends that are into astrology?

Seth: Ooh, this is the text for them. You have any Libras in your life?

David: This is the way to get— this is the way to get people— you're not the non- Christian friends in your life.

Seth: I do have a cousin who's very into astrology.

David: Like, hey, let's talk about Daniel 5.

Seth: Yeah, it'd be really cool. Yeah.

David: Um, but next week is Daniel and the Lion's Den. Oh man, here we go.

Seth: Classic. It's, it's, it's one of the most classic, and I'm excited.

David: We're going to subvert some, uh, assumptions about that, that, as we always do, that verse. Okay, well guys, thank you so much for being with us. We're so excited to go into Daniel 6 with you next week. And we will see you there.

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit SpokenGospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

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Why God Weighs the Proud and What It Means for Us

Show Notes

A Tale of Two Kings at the Center of Daniel

Belshazzar's Feast and the Desecration of the Temple

The Finger of God and the Anti-Temple

Daniel's Rebuke and the One Law of Babylon

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin — The Riddle Decoded

The Gospel in the Scales — Jesus, the Perfectly Weighted King

Related Resources

Introduction to Daniel

View our devotional on Daniel 1

Ready to study a different book?

Listen to the Daniel Introduction podcast

Listen to the Daniel 1: A Test of Allegiance podcast

Listen to the Daniel 2: A Statue of Four Kingdoms podcast

Listen to the Daniel 3: A Raging Furnace podcast

Listen to the Daniel 4: Nebuchadnezzar Goes Insane podcast

Listen to the Daniel 5: The Writing on the Wall podcast

Listen to the Daniel 6: The Lion's Den podcast

Listen to the Daniel 7: A Cloud-Riding Son of Man podcast

Listen to the Daniel 8: Rams, Goats, and Abominations podcast

Listen to the Daniel 9: 70 Weeks and a Prayer for Mercy podcast

Listen to the Daniel 10: A Shining Metal Man and the Prince of Persia podcast

Listen to the Daniel 11-12: Not a When, But a Who podcast

Listen to the Daniel Sermon: Only God is in Control podcast