©Michael Player
Chapter 5:1-9 (ESV) - King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.
Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.
Question to consider: What does it mean that the king’s color changed and his knees knocked together?
Belshazzar, whose name meant, “Bel protect the king,” was the son of king Nabonidus. He was most likely related to Nebuchadnezzar through his mother’s side, and “father” in this case would be more like “ancestor”. We learned at the end of Jeremiah that the son of Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach, became friends with king Jehoiachin after he was exiled from Judah, and Zedekiah was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar.
Evil-merodach ruled the kingdom while his father had his seven-year period of madness. After his father’s restoration and death several years later, he became king for two years until he was murdered by his brother-in-law, Neriglassar. Neriglassar ruled for four years before dying of natural causes. His son, Laborosoarchod, ruled for nine months before being overthrown by the final king of Babylon, Nabonidus.
Belshazzar was standing in as king (co-regent) while his father was off at war (presumably with the Medo-Persians). So if Belshazzar knew Nebuchadnezzar, it would be as his grandfather, and this point in history may have been many years after his death. Nabonidus ruled for about seventeen years, and this incident was at the end of his reign. If Belshazzar was even twenty years old at this time, his grandfather would have died when he was three.
As I mentioned earlier in this study, even when Nebuchadnezzar created the enormous golden statue of himself and forced the people to bow down in worship, he left the vessels from Jerusalem alone. From the moment that Daniel delivered his first dream and interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar was on a path which ultimately brought him to the place where he would worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The fact that this chapter immediately followed the testimony of Nebuchadnezzar is no coincidence. I believe that for the rest of his life, Nebuchadnezzar testified to the holiness of God, and after several years of living in prosperity outside of the faith of his grandfather, Belshazzar felt invincible enough to desecrate God’s vessels in this way. It is bad enough to worship the false gods of Babylon, but to use the vessels of the LORD in this vile worship was deliberately blasphemous. Given that the concubines participated in this “worship,” we can only assume that it was sexual in nature, for it was not customary for the men and women to drink together in this way, and often idol worship involved either sex acts or blood sacrifices.
When the disembodied hand began to carve a message into the plaster, it is obvious that Belshazzar was terrified, for he went pale, and his knees knocked together as he lost control of his limbs. Given that the message was not able to be interpreted by the Babylonian enchanters, dread set in even further, for Belshazzar probably realized at that point that he had offended the one for whom the vessels were meant.
Dear heavenly Father, may Your great name be praised in all the earth. Help us bring the good news of Christ to those who don’t know You so that they may desire to bring You glory and praise rather than to blaspheme Your name. Amen.