The Rooted Podcast

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Hello and welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm joined again by Mark and Esther. We're continuing our series on the Book of Daniel. Today we're going to talk about the fifth chapter of Daniel which tells us the story of the writing on the wall. So we're going to talk about King Belshazzar, we'll talk about judgment, discuss the differences between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. We're going to talk about an interesting literary structure that we find in the Book of Daniel and what we think the author was doing with that.

lots of things to get into. Before we get started, if you love the podcast, please do leave us a review. You can send in your questions. And we also have a survey that we've recently put out, just trying to get as much feedback as we can. So we'd love to hear from you. You'll find everything you need in the show notes. And I think that's it. So we can get started. I'll just read verses one through six, which is just the beginning of the story, and then summarize what happens after. And then we can kind of get into talking about

One night, King Belshazzar invited a thousand noblemen to a great banquet, and they drank wine together. While they were drinking, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups and bowls which his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had carried off from the temple in Jerusalem. The king sent for them so that he, his noblemen, his wives, and his concubines could drink out of them. At once the gold cups and bowls were brought

and they all drank wine out of them and praised gods made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster wall of the palace, where the light from the lamps was shining most brightly. And the king saw the hand as it was writing. He turned pale and was so frightened that his knees began to shake. So that's the beginning of the passage, that's what's happening. We have a king very afraid.

And so what happens is he brings in his magicians and wizards and astrologers and he says, tell me what this means. And none of them are able to do it. And the queen says to him, you know who I remember is Daniel. She says that he should be brought in to interpret what's being written on the wall. So Daniel's brought into the king's presence. He does interpret it for the king. The king rewards him, dresses him in a robe of royal purple, hangs a chain around his

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And then interestingly, Belshazzar that night, we're told, is killed. So that's the story, but maybe let's begin with verses one through six that we just read. Something I find really interesting is the thing that Belshazzar seems to do that turns things the wrong way is to take these sort of cups and bowls and special things made of gold and silver, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and carried there.

and using them at this meal while praising other gods. So there's this sort of significance in this. So what is the significance in that? Yeah, it's interesting to me. It seemed to hark back to what we were talking about last week when we talked about Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation, how he sort of set himself up against God. Maybe Belshazzar is doing the same sort of thing here.

you know, it's a way of pouring scorn on God himself by abusing and treating as perfectly ordinary and common the sacred objects which had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem. I mean, when you read in sort of earlier in the Old Testament, those long kind of descriptions about the tabernacle and all of the different artifacts and implements that should be used to worship God and

I think it describes them as being consecrated for a special purpose. It's bad enough that they've been taken in the exile, but there's clearly a huge amount of disrespect here, isn't there, in the way that they're being used just for this jolly, this banquet, this feast. Maybe, I mean, was it even an orgy? But just the most disgusting, indulgent display.

from Belshazzar and the other people he'd invited. And they've brought these sacred objects into that and they're misusing them. It reminded me of Second Kings and the story of Hezekiah, when Hezekiah shows all of the stuff in his palace and all of the important sort of things. He shows it all to his visitors and he gets in trouble for it, doesn't it? It kind of reminded me of that a little bit, but this almost seems to be taking it to the next

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and that he's not just showing them all of his sort of special items and ornaments, but they're actually using them in a sort of disrespectful way. So there's a bit of an attitude with it as well. Yeah, he's saying, don't care about God. I don't care about, you know, the God of the Jews, the God of the Hebrews. That God is nothing to me. And I'll show that by abusing the things that are sacred, not just to him, but to the things that are sacred to his worshipers as well. So it's also an expression of power, isn't it? You

I don't care, there's nothing you can do about this. So it's deliberate disrespect. He's deliberately sort of abusing the religious feelings, the spiritual feelings of, you know, people who are now his subjects. Not a nice man at all. It's not just that he doesn't care about God, he doesn't fear God. Because if you feared God, you wouldn't do that with his things. So yeah, it's a complete disregard.

we see this today and do we see a consequence as great as Belshazzar's? definitely think we see it today. I think there was, you know, in times gone by, was a certain automatic reverence towards Christian symbols, religious symbols in this country. There were things that you just didn't do. I don't know if my mum's going to be listening to this, but I remember years ago her telling me that the only time that her father

ever smacked her was when she put a dish down on top of a Bible and that was something that you just didn't do. That's a feeling that probably isn't there really nowadays. But I think certainly in our culture at large, you know, a sense that Christians can be laughed at and that Christian things can be laughed at and that, you know, among some people there's just the sense that, you know, ours is not a faith to be taken seriously.

And I don't subscribe to this idea that we're all sort of persecuted and all that sort of thing. think most of the time we really, really aren't. It's just that sense of respect to Christianity, to Christian things, I think has largely gone. And I think there are consequences to that really, because I think there are consequences for us because we can get quite sort of defensive and quite sort of worried about how we're perceived and how people think about us and how people talk about us.

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know, that's not really an attractive thing to be, a constructive way to engage with the wider world if we're sort of worried or defensive all the time. But yeah, I think there is that. know, I don't know that we can just say, it's just totally wrong to mock or question any other beliefs. Because if you look in the Bible itself, you know, in Isaiah, there are some hilarious chapters really in Isaiah 44.

And Isaiah 46, which is actually about the gods of Babylon, that mock this whole idea of shaping a piece of wood which you have to chop down, carry, you create it, you go through this elaborate sort of craftsmanship process and then you bow down to it and ask it to save you, but it can't speak, it can't do anything. You know, in Isaiah 46, it's kind of saying, look, you have to carry these gods on beasts of burden.

But then God, speaking to Isaiah, says, well, but I'm the one who's carrying you. You have to carry these lumps of stone and wood, but I carry you. I provide for you my people. So if it's wrong to mock what might be deemed sacred to someone else, well, it seems like the Bible, you know, God's word would be guilty of doing that. So the question is really about, it true?

And this story, you know, it's not, you know, what you said about us as Christians maybe getting defences sometimes when we're mocked. Really, it's not so much about us. You think about Psalm 1, it talks about people not standing in the way of sinners, not sitting in the seat of mockers, but that's not to people, it's to God, it's not mocking God. And in this story that we're looking at

God himself intervenes. It's not Daniel and his crew coming in and saying, how dare you misuse these vessels? Although Daniel does judge, know, sort of speaks God's judgment. But it's this hand that appears and writes on the wall, it's God's judgment on him. Yeah, I just feel a little bit uncomfortable about being like, just nobody should be mocked. mean, mocking is unpleasant. But if you believe something ridiculous or

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Should we not be able to question that and point out the ridiculousness of it? I'm sure that that's what Isaiah does and it really is funny actually. I would not want to mock somebody's faith to be honest, no matter how ridiculous I thought it was. I think somebody's faith is important to them and I think you might not sort of intellectually respect their belief, but you should probably respect them. So I'd

I'd be very uncomfortable about mocking somebody else's belief. cannot imagine that you would do such a thing as to that. So that's not you, I know. Yeah, I think what I'm getting at is just that if we are mocked, it's sometimes quite difficult to know how to respond really. And I wonder what it would have been like for Daniel and the other Jews in Babylon to have known that that sort of thing was going on. mean, how would they feel about it? Pretty raw.

I imagine, actually. I think your point is really good, Esther. That makes me wonder, do you think that this is then a specific sort of judgment? Do you think this is a special judgment if God is specifically to Belshazzar, this is something that specifically needed to be dealt with then? Well, I guess from this point of view, he is desecrating objects that the real most high living God has said should be used for a purpose.

there's kind of the argument from the biblical point of view that this disrespect matters because it is against the Most High God. me, it looks as though this is the sort of culmination of something which have been brewing for a long time because later on, well, the writing on the wall is, God has numbered the days of your reign. You've been weighed in the balance and found wanting and your kingdom is divided. So it's something which has happened before.

But this, you know, this is just the last straw. my goodness, who would do that? So we know that this was the last straw. we have some sort of, so this didn't just come out of the blue? This wasn't Belshazzar's first warning? No, I don't think so. In chapter five, it is kind of made explicit through Daniel speaking to Belshazzar what the judgment is on him. It kind of recaps what we were looking at last week, what happened to

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Daniel says to him, yeah, he was a great king, but do you remember how he was humbled? Do you remember what happened to him? You didn't learn from that. You failed to humble yourself. You've set yourself up against God. So I think that suggests that this isn't just a one -time incident because there were lessons he could have learned from many years ago from someone he admires and he hasn't learned

The other thing here is that the kingdom was at that point being invaded by Cyrus. And at this point, the city of Babylon was under siege. There was a Greek historian called Herodotus, and he'd never been to Babylon. So some of the details are bit shaky, but he did write an account of how the city actually fell. And apparently what

happened was the way that Cyrus actually conquered the city was that he diverted the river Euphrates so that the water level fell enough for his soldiers to be able to wade into the city before they knew it, the people were inside. I'll just read you a couple of sentences from Herodotus. He says, owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of the central parts

long after the outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced. But as they were engaged in a festival, continued dancing and reveling until they learnt about the capture. Such then were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon." So even while Belshazzar and his motley crew were having this party, this orgy, whatever it was,

Even at that very moment, Cyrus' troops were moving towards the central parts of the city where the palace was because they had already broken through the walls and they'd already invaded the capital. Well, you can't divert a river overnight. They would have known all of this was happening. Why weren't they standing on the battlements and preparing to fight? Instead, there's just this complete disregard. suppose they

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somebody else would fight the invaders while they feasted. don't know. But yeah, it feels very much like Belshazzar has got his head buried in the ground. Absolutely. You know, whatever the circumstances of the capture of the city were, still it was under siege. Still Belshazzar knew exactly what was happening. He didn't do anything about it. To your earlier question about is this some kind of special judgment?

I do think that's an interesting question. And there's a little note in my study Bible that says, you know, Daniel, the name means God is my judge. And so often how he sort of speaks into these different situations in the book of Daniel, he is kind of speaking judgment. He certainly is in this story. But there's quite a lot of judgment imagery in the book of Daniel, verse one of chapter

this vision Daniel receives is in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon. So it's kind of, there's an overlap with, you know, so it's maybe not right into this moment because this is at the end of Belshazzar's reign, but right at the beginning of it, Daniel receives a vision of judgment. And you've got this picture of the ancient of days sitting on his throne with thousands upon thousands serving him and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands.

like in front of him and it says the court sat in judgment and the books were opened. And it's this image of God is sovereign over what's happening and he is sitting in judgment on Babylon and he's going to bring that empire to a close. So I just think, yeah, interesting to pick up on that imagery.

So another thing that's interesting about this story is the way that it compares to Nebuchadnezzar's, which came just in the chapter before. We just read it last week. So we see in these two stories right next to each other, two kings that are being humbled. So we just thought we'd touch on this because there does seem to be a literary structure in the Book of Daniel that's really interesting. So it's called the chiastic structure, if you haven't ever heard of that. Basically, what it is is that an idea will be presented in a specific order.

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and then it will be repeated in the reverse order. So if you look throughout the Bible, you can actually find lots of them. But there's one specifically in Daniel that's interesting. it starts in chapter two, we see that King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. And then in chapter three, Daniel's friends face persecution in the fiery furnace. And then in chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar is humbled. Then we see the same thing happen, but in the reverse order.

So in chapter five, Belshazzar is humbled. In chapter six, Daniel is persecuted and thrown into the lion's den. And then in chapter seven, Daniel has a dream. So there are two dreams, one in chapter two, one in chapter seven, two persecutions, one in chapter three, one in chapter six, and two kings who are humbled right next to each other in chapters four and five. So it's just a really interesting thing. Maybe it's not as easy to understand

hearing this, but you can look it up. There's lots of really interesting stuff on it. One of the interesting things about a chiastic structure as well is that a lot of the time, the way in which they're structured is that a certain message is hidden right in the middle of the structure. And when that message is hidden there, it's meant to be sort of the main point that is wanted to be made by the author. In the middle of the chiastic structure that we find in Daniel, we find

praising of God at the end of chapter four. So we saw that in the episode we did last week. So that's when Nebuchadnezzar is redeemed, he's brought back from his madness, and he praises God. So it's a really interesting thing. But thinking about that sort of structure, it makes this comparison between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar even more interesting. So I guess one thing to compare is that Nebuchadnezzar's story is one of redemption and Belshazzar's is less so.

Are there any other sort of comparisons we see there? If we're looking at Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar as like, you know, either side of this kind of peak of the book, making that point, praise the Most High God, that's the big message. You kind of see in Nebuchadnezzar's story, God's mercy. It's a call to repentance, this experience that he has that ultimately turns him to acknowledge God. But then with Belshazzar, you see his judgment.

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So it's kind of like two sides of the same coin, isn't it? And it's making a point around a kind of choice that we all have when it comes to God, acknowledging Him and being redeemed and restored, becoming one of His people. And on the other side, not, well, we're all going to face judgment, but, you know, being judged and sound wanting. Yeah, so quite a stark, a scary message, but then you have to look back and say, there was mercy.

when people responded. yeah. There's also in Nebuchadnezzar's story, there's time given to him to repent, isn't there? And in Belshazzar's story, I mean, you might speculate about how much he knew about what was coming, but in the story, he does wrong, the judgment's pronounced, that's that. That very night, you know, the invaders come and everything's over for him. You know, there's no time to repent, really.

I suppose there is a sense of urgency there then as readers today or people looking on at the time when this happened, because, sometimes we think we've got all the time in the world to straighten ourselves out or to, well, I'll deal with that at some point, but right now, you know, I think there's like a passage in Hebrews that's like every day while you still have a chance. Respond, basically.

And some people still won't, but some people will heed that. But yeah, we don't know when Jesus is going to return, do we? We don't know when our time's going to be up to respond. So there's a sense of urgency. other thing in the two stories is that Nebuchadnezzar, I mean, I know that Daniel tells him to stop oppressing people and things like that, but he doesn't come across as a bad man. He's just rather pleased with himself, isn't he, at that particular moment?

Whereas Belshazzar is actively wicked, pouring scorn on God, actually, and certainly on the people of God through his abuse of the sacred items from the temple. So they are of a different nature, I think, a different character. So what can we get out of this story for ourselves? And what does this mean for us today? Or maybe just for each of you, what does this mean to you specifically?

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I found it quite interesting and quite challenging, this idea of the writing on the wall. It's a pronouncement of judgment and by the time that judgment is pronounced, it's too late, isn't it? I, in fact, I caught on to the thing. I do not want to be judged either for things that I have done or for things that I haven't done. And I think there's this idea that we live every day as

it might be our last and we should be trying to, you know, not justify our existence. That's not what I'm saying. It's just that we have a limited amount of time on this earth. And you know, it's about, it's like Jesus' parable, isn't it, of the wise and foolish virgins. And there comes a moment where you're ready or you're not. And that moment is coming for all of us.

and I sometimes think, my goodness, I really hope I'm ready. And, you know, I like to relax. I want to sit down occasionally and watch, you know, trashy movies or read a trashy book, something like that. And I don't think I should be living at some high pitch of spiritual endeavor every moment of my life because I don't think anybody can do that. And I think there is such a thing as sort of resting in the grace of God and trusting in the grace of God. But at the same time, I

think that we are accountable to God for how we spend our time and for how we live our lives. I think that's what I'm saying in a sort of roundabout way. the writing on the wall, sooner or later, something is written. Something is written about all of us. And Esther, what you were saying, was it in chapter seven where there's this moment where the books are open. So what are the books going to say about me? Well, I dread to

Well, I mean, it makes you think of the Hebrews four, doesn't it? I guess even as we're reading this word, it's sort of like if we feel uncomfortable with this story, it's reading us as well, isn't it? It's cutting through.

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everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. And I mean, that should give everybody pause. Like sometimes we think that, you know, stuff is secret that isn't secret. And, you know, any picture of judgment, even if you are, you know, confident in your salvation in Christ, just the thought that the book of your life will be opened

it will be laid bare what you've done. is because I, it's a scary thought because I know that I've done lots of things wrong that I, I don't want people to know that about me. But then doesn't that give you such an amazing picture though of God's grace? That, that even though I am guilty, you know, and I've done lots of terrible things that I'm ashamed of, He won't cast me aside because of Christ.

Yeah, I mean, I would have a very similar response to this in terms of how should I apply this story to my life? You know, I could just look at Belshazzar as kind of like a cautionary tale of someone who didn't heed the warnings in his life because although, yes, this judgment happened very swiftly, there were other things that he could have paid attention to in his lifetime that he would have known about, that would have pointed to God.

And I think sometimes when we say, I didn't have a chance or I didn't know, we're not necessarily being honest with ourselves. When I've been completely off -piste in my life and not living for God, it's not like I didn't know. But for some reason I continued and I'm, yeah, so I think this is serious. I don't want to live in a way

If we're saying that Jesus lives in us, His Holy Spirit is in us, well, think about those vessels from the temple and how they're desecrated by Belshazzar. How do I desecrate things that are holy by not living for God when He's living in me? Maybe that sounds a bit super spiritual, but this is what this story is, how it speaks to me. That's good, Esther.

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I'm endlessly fascinated by the way in which the Lord speaks, and it's always different, and I love that. So I actually really like that it's a randomly He's deciding to speak with a hand writing on a wall. And sometimes it's an angel, and sometimes it's a vision, and sometimes it's a dream. And even today, He's speaking in so many different ways, and I find that creativity and the newness of it so enticing and fascinating, and I love it.

Honestly, when I read this story myself, I get distracted by the handwriting on the wall. So yeah, that's it for me. Thank you guys for another good conversation this week. We're going to be back next week and we've got a special guest. We've got George from Fios, who is excellent, from Fios Think Tank, which is part of Bible Society. And he wrote in the Rooted Journal for Daniel. So he's going to come chat with us and we're really looking forward

So we will see you next week in the meantime if you'd like to leave us a review, a comment, send in your questions. We'd love to hear from you so please feel free to do that and we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety .org .uk.