Study # 2
November 27, 2022
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: God's resistance of the proud resulted in the death of the king and the dissolution of the Babylonian Empire.
Introduction: In our last study we focused most of our attention to the historical issues involved in the second half of the chiastic structure of Daniel 2-7 which involves God's execution of His "resistance" to the proud. The first half of that chiastic structure was tilted toward "mercy" in God's dealings with an extraordinarily "proud" man. God gave Nebuchadnezzar a large overview of how the history of mankind was going to play out. Nebuchadnezzar responded with a display of a complete rejection of what God had shown him. Thus, God responded to the king with a severe disciplinary action by making him insane for seven years. But, mercy was shown in that God restored the kingdom to the king once he humbled himself and yielded to God's Truth.
This evening, we are going to look a bit further into the actual record in Daniel Five.
- I. The Details of This Beginning Of The Second Half Of Daniel's Chiasm.
- A. 5:1-4.
- 1. The blatant hostility of Belshazzar to God.
- a. He was under siege by the armies of Darius the Mede, and had been for a long time.
- b. He decided to have a great feast to distract the leadership of Babylon from their plight.
- c. He deliberately focused upon flaunting his possession of the Temple vessels of Yahweh and demeaning them by using them to drink wine in the honor of gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone (the worship of which had brought them to their predicament).
- 2. This was deliberate for whatever reasons; and it showed the hostility of the king toward the Jews in his kingdom.
- B. 5:5-7.
- 1. Yahweh responded with a fantastic revelation.
- a. It was "fantastic" because it consisted of a hand which wrote upon the wall.
- b. It was a revelation because it used three words that referred to monetary items (Bible Knowledge Commentary).
- 1) The first was Mene; an Armaic noun referring to a weight of 50 shekels (1.5 pounds). This one is repeated for emphasis.
- 2) The second was Tekel; a noun referring to a single shekel (2/5ths of an ounce).
- 3) The third was Pharsin; a noun meaning a half-mina (25 shekels, about 2/3rds of a pound).
- 2. This method of revelation was terrifying to the king and he immediately summoned his "wise men".
- C. 5:8-9.
- 1. The king's wise men were totally incapable of making any sense out of what they saw on the wall.
- 2. The king was "stressed" to the max.
- D. 5:10-12.
- 1. The queen (mother) told Belshazzar about Daniel and told him to summon Daniel so he could give the king the meaning of the revelation.
- 2. Significantly, she indicated that Daniel had formerly been the head over the wise men of Babylon.
- E. 5:13-31.
- 1. Daniel pointedly revealed the basis for God's "judgment without mercy": Belshazzar's full knowledge of Daniel's details.
- 2. He then "interprets" the words on the all.
- a. The double "MENE" is interpreted to mean that God has settled the number of days of the Kingdom of Babylon: the repetition of this word implies that the reckoning of the number of the days was "twice counted" (50 shekels).
- b. The "TEKEL" is interpreted to mean that the king has been put into the scales and has been shown to be "too light" (a single shekel in weight).
- c. The "PHARSIN" is changed to PERES, which is interpreted as meaning the kingdom of Babylon has been shattered and was to be taken over by the Medes and Persians.
- 3. The king exalts Daniel as promised, but is killed that very night.
