v.
2b: “…he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels…”
o There is no evidence
that this particularly expressed demonstration of contempt for the God of Israel and for
the Hebrew People was part of Belshazzar’s original design in holding the Feast—it
seems evident that the alcohol inflamed his passions and lowered his
inhibitions, allowing him to venture into actualizing what may had previously
been a suppressed and hidden desire.
This is not the first time in the
Scriptures that impiety and transgression is fueled by alcohol—leading
inevitably to judgment! Consider the case of Nadab and Abihu, the
priestly sons of Aaron, whose lack of mindfulness in handling sacred forms
(Lev. 10:1-3) appears to have been, in some measure, associated with the use of
alcohol (Lev. 10:8-11). Today’s leaders of the Christian Church
and their families would be well advised to profit from this example (cf., 1 Tim. 3:3; 3:8; Titus 1:7,
2:2-3)!
Lev. 10:9: “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons
with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a
statute forever throughout your generations.”
1Tim. 3:2-3: “Therefore an overseer must
be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled,
respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but
gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.”
1Tim. 3:8-9: “Deacons likewise must be
dignified, not two-faced, not given to excessive drinking, not greedy
for gain, holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.”
o Such a profane use of
the sacred articles was a blasphemous act of sacrilegious impiety specifically
targeting the God of Israel for ridicule.
o Presumably, the
treasuries of Babylon contained the artifacts of a variety of subject
peoples—but Belshazzar only calls for the sacred articles of the Jews!
o Daniel later affirms
that Belshazzar (who was probably a teenager at the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s
life) had some degree of knowledge of God’s redemptive dealings with King
Nebuchadnezzar (vv. 19-22)—but would have none of it! Perhaps this
act of impiety was designed, in part, to represent a contemptuous refutation of
Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion and subsequent testimony.
o Daniel also represents
the King’s act of sacrilege as a prideful deed of self-exaltation (v.
23), in which the King places himself over the Sovereign God of Heaven and
Earth.
o This was also a bold
display of contempt for the revealed will of the God of Israel Belshazzar was
also doubtless aware of Biblical prophecies that indicated that the time
of the 70-year Jewish Captivity was nearing its end (Jer. 25:8-13, 29:10-11),
and that Babylon’s end would come at the hands of the Medes (Jer. 51:11) and their
specifically-named prophesized ruler, Cyrus (Isa. 44:28, 45:1-7). Belshazzar
may also have been well aware of the content of the Dream of the Great
Colossus, as interpreted by Daniel years earlier (Dan. 2).
o This act also
constituted a challenge to the God of Israel—and was probably designed
as a morale-boosting affirmation of the superiority of the gods of Babylon
over the God of Israel.
o
A
basic assumption and theory of the heathen: the victory of a nation in battle
demonstrates the superiority of its gods over those of the vanquished people.
o
This
thinking guided the path of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, in the Days of
righteous Hezekiah, King of Judah:
2 Kings 18:32b-35: “But do not listen to Hezekiah
when he misleads you, saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any one of the
gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena
and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of
the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver
Jerusalem from my hand?'"
o
But
ultimately, the weakness of the above heathen-theory (i.e., God’s favor self-evidently
rests with those who possess earthly might) would be best demonstrated at the Cross—that
place of seeming defeat and rejection for Christianity’s Divine Founder—where
the power of God was never more evident (1 Cor. 1:24, Phil. 2:8-11)! God’s
power is made perfect not in our strength, but in our weakness (2 Cor.
12:9). Ultimately, Christianity is about the triumph of the meek (Matt. 5:5)—not
the advancement of the powerful (Luke 1:46-56).
o As in the former days
of King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah, when a foreign ruler had likewise
forced God’s Hand through a public display of blasphemy, challenging God’s
power, the result would be catastrophic judgment:
2 Kings 19:5-7: So the servants of King Hezekiah
came to Isaiah. Isaiah said to them, "Thus you shall say to your master,
'Thus says the LORD, "Do not be afraid because of the words that you have
heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.
Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to
his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land."
2 Kings 19:32-37: “Therefore thus says the LORD
concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city or shoot an
arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege
ramp against it. By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he
shall not come to this city,' declares the LORD. For I will defend this city to
save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake." Then it happened
that night that the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp
of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them
were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived
at Nineveh. It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god,
that Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into
the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.
Likewise, Belshazzar’s profane act would
providentially serve to stimulate and provoke the Hand of the Lord (vv. 22-24),
in accordance with the plan of God as previously revealed by the Prophet
Jeremiah (Jer. 51:39-41; cf., Jer. 51:55-57):
Jer. 51:39-41: “While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the LORD. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and male goats. How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!”
Jer. 51:55-57: For the LORD is laying Babylon
waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters; the
noise of their voice is raised, for a destroyer has come upon her, upon
Babylon; her warriors are taken; their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD
is a God of recompense; he will surely repay. I will make drunk her officials
and her wise men, her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall
sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD
of hosts.
o The decadent and
impious feast of Belshazzar also typifies the sort of derangement that
we see amongst the lost during the Great Tribulation period, who commit
spiritual fornication with the Whore of Babylon while remaining insensitive to
impending Divine judgment.
Rev 17:1-2: Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality."
o Sinclair Ferguson offers
this apt reflection regarding Belshazzar:
“Belshazzar is perhaps the supreme Old
Testament parallel to the rich fool in Jesus’ parable.”
Like the rich fool of Luke 12:16-21, Belshazzar was purely
a man of the “here-and-now,” leaving no room in his daily deliberations for God
and utterly destitute of any significant life-purpose other than the poor and paltry
cause of self. Likewise, even as the rich fool’s illusion of security
lay in the abundance of his many possessions, so too was Belshazzar’s ill-founded
confidence centered upon the material—namely, Babylon’s mud bricks and
its vast storehouse of stockpiled provisions. In both cases, neither worldly strategies
nor material wealth would serve to rescue either Belshazzar or the rich fool from
experiencing a sudden and unanticipated death and a subsequent outpouring of
catastrophic Divine judgment.
o Belshazzar is depicted
by Daniel as the consummate nihilist, wallowing in a self-created milieu
of intoxication, gluttony, and sensuality, crowned with his blasphemous acts of
impiety and sacrilege. It could also be well-observed that Belshazzar
ultimately demonstrates contempt even for the founding-ideals of Babylon
itself. Standing in contrast to the great Nebuchadnezzar—who was at least sincere
in his promotion of the nation’s interests, and studious in his attempts to
uphold its values and ideals—Belshazzar may be accurately characterized in his smallness
as one who was quite unburdened by any sort of lofty principles or higher worldview.
o
Interestingly,
the ancient historian Xenophon strongly concurs with Daniel’s assessment
of the King’s character. In reference to the last (unnamed) King of Babylon, Xenophon
refers to him as “young” and “impious,” ascribing to him various moral outrages
and shocking abuses of authority.
o In one such case,
Xenophon relates (Cyropaedia, 4.6.1-6) that the king cruelly murdered
with his own hand a young nobleman, the only son of the high official Gobryas,
who had made the mistake of besting the king in a hunting expedition. After
being bidden by the king to do his best, the young man demonstrated his acumen
with a spear in killing both a bear and a lion after the king had missed both. Hot
with a jealous rage, Belshazzar proceeded to snatched a spear from an attendant
and slew the young man—who was later poignantly described by his father in an
interview with Cyrus the Great as “my son, my only, well-loved son;” a
mere youth sporting his first “peach-fuzz” of a beard.
o In another such case,
Xenophon relates that the son of a very high official, a courtier named Gadates,
was seized and “unmanned” (i.e., castrated) by King Belshazzar at a banquet
where they had been drinking together—simply because one of the king’s
concubines had praised Gadates for his handsomeness and remarked that the woman
who would one day be his wife would indeed be counted most fortunate. In a
jealous rage, the king had the young man transformed into a lifelong eunuch (Cyropaedia,
5.2.28).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.