The Terror of a King (Dan. 5:5d-7a)

 

v. 5d: “and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.”

o   Note the emphasis upon the fact that the King himself was an eyewitness—ensuring that the dreadful apparition could not be dismissed by Belshazzar as a false report born out of fancy, or perhaps an alcohol-fueled delusion arising from the bosom of the intoxicated.

 

v. 6a: “Then the king's countenance changed…”

o   The term translated “countenance” literally refers to “brightness,” or bright looks; the color drained from Belshazzar’s face as he beheld the spectral apparition.

 

o   Instantly, the King has returned to sobriety and his grand theatrical display of bravado has vanished!

 

“Behold, Reader! on what a slender thread the happiness of man hangs, when in a moment the appearance on a wall can snap it asunder!”—Robert Hawker, Poor Man’s Commentary

 

v. 6b: “and his thoughts alarmed him…”

o   Precisely WHY his mind was troubled and filled with terror by the awful apparition is not directly specified—yet we may conjecture the following…

 

·         In general, we may observe that men are terrified by an encounter with the transcendent—what Rudolf Otto (The Idea of the Holy, 1917) has described as the numinous—referring to an awe-inspiring and fear-inducing encounter with the Holy (cf., Ex. 34:30). The Holy is that which is wholly other and above, and which lies outside the normal experience of man. Biblically, the term Holy primarily refers to that which is transcendent; the popular idea of holiness as a moral purity is a secondary idea that is contained within the first. Note how sinful men reacted to an encounter with a Holy God in the Person of Christ:

Luke 5:8: And seeing [the miracle of the great catch], Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.

Luke 8:37: And all the multitude of the neighborhood of the Gadarenes were seized with a great fear [with reference to the healing of the demoniac]. And they asked Him to depart from them. And entering into the boat, He returned.

 

·         In this specific case, Belshazzar was doubtless aware that the dreadful apparition was connected to his acts of blasphemy against the God of Israel (vv. 2-4)—the very same God that his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had also offended (4:28-33), resulting in catastrophic judgment—of which Belshazzar was fully aware (vv. 18-22)! The dormant conscience was at last awakened!

v. 6c: “…so that the joints of his loins were loosed…” [KJV]

o   Loins is commonly understood to refer to that area engirdled by the belt—an area serving as the seat of a man’s strength; Belshazzar’s strength thus departed.

 

o   Belshazzar loses control of his lower extremities and is apparently either unable, or barely able, to stand.

 

o   Some commentators have also apprehended within this statement the suggestion that Belshazzar may also have lost control of his bladder, or perhaps his bowels—and thus became incontinent!

 

o   Isaiah 45:1 may contain a reference to this event in speaking of the triumphs of the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great, who would strip rival kings—including Belshazzar—of their dignity, power, and sovereignty.

 

“Thus says the LORD to Cyrus His anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand, to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings…”

 

v. 6d: “…and his knees knocked against each other.”

o   A further expression of the king’s overwhelming fear. The great Assyrian city of Nineveh had experienced a similar terror in the day of its downfall:

 

Nahum 2:11: She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and waste! Hearts are melting and knees knocking! Also anguish is in the whole body and all their faces are grown pale!

 

o   How quickly passes the mirthful delight of the wicked! Solomon compares their moment of glee to a fire fueled by thorns: pointlessly, it crackles merrily with a great noise and a grand show of flame—but only for a brief moment, rapidly burning itself out and accomplishing nothing!

 

Eccl. 7:6: For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

 

o   Henry Cowles, in his old commentary on Daniel (1867), paints a vivid picture of this scene, reminding us that the terror experienced by Belshazzar will ultimately be visited upon all sinners:

 

It is an appalling scene when a sinning mortal knows that the Great God has come to meet him in the very midst of his sins! Belshazzar might well stand aghast to find him- self thus confronted face to face with the dread Jehovah whom he is purposely insulting! He has a sense of a present Power, more than human, in that strange hand, writing unknown words on his palace-wall, and a guilty conscience helps him to forecast some fearful doom! The brightness of his countenance is gone (so the original imports); his mind is fearfully agitated; his knees smite against each other. How changed the scene from the glee of his blasphemous revelry to this paleness of cheek, convulsion of frame, remorse of conscience, and dread foreboding of doom! Many a sinner has had a like experience, and other thousands must have it!

 

Heb 10:31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

o   The guilt-induced terror generated by the awful specter causes the king to lose composure before the eyes of his shocked courtiers in much the same manner as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, upon encountering Banquo’s ghost (Act 3, Scene 4).

v. 7a: “The king cried aloud…

o   A further indication of the king’s lack of composure is revealed as he disregards appearances and desperately cries for his appointed “experts” in matters pertaining to the supernatural.  

 

v. 7b: “…to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers…”

 

o   The list of enumerated classes indicates that the entire college of such “experts” were subject to the royal summons, as in 2:2 & 4:4 5:11—though reference to the “magicians” (Heb., charṭôm) is absent. Some have seen some significance in this—arguing that Belshazzar was deliberately avoiding contact with Daniel, who was referred to as their president in 4:9. As Keil & Delitzsch argue, however, this suggestion is most improbable, in that v. 8 indicates that all classes of wise men were summoned upon this grave occasion (“all the king's wise men came in”).

 

o   Furthermore, by this time, the octogenarian Daniel appears to have been placed “on the shelf” by the regime, no longer actively functioning at court as the chief administrator over the company of magi (cf., vv. 11-16). It should be remembered that there had been several regime-changes subsequent to the death of Daniel’s great royal patron, King Nebuchadnezzar.

 

o   These “experts,” with remarkable consistency, had long-proven unsuccessful at such interpretive efforts in the past (Dan. 2:10-11, 4:7)—yet the king impulsively and intuitively turns to them as a source of divine wisdom. Sadly, the ungodly have a persistent pattern of preferring the smooth counsel and worldly wisdom of spiritual humbugs and imposters over the genuine knowledge and revelation that is provided by authentic and accredited messengers of God (1 Kings 22:5-8).

 

2 Tim. 4:3-4: For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

 

As with the prior courtly narratives of chapters 2 and 4, it will once again be demonstrated through the failure of the wise men that “the world by its wisdom did not know God…” (1 Cor. 1:21).

 

o   How is it, we may ask, that the king did not initially choose to reactivate the forgotten Daniel, in light of Belshazzar’s personal knowledge of the events of chapter 4 (Dan. 5:22)? Note Calvin’s comments on this passage, underlining the doctrine of the entire (or total) depravity of natural man:

 

“When God sets before him the sign of his judgment, he calls together the magi and the Chaldeans, and passes by Daniel. And what possible excuse can he have for this? We have seen, as I have said, how very prone men are to be deluded by Satan’s impostures, and the well-known proverb becomes true—The world loves to be deceived!”

 “…We see, then, how blind King Belshazzar was, since he closed his eyes to the light offered him. So in the present day almost all the world continues in blindness; it is not allowed to wander in darkness, but when light shines upon it, it closes its eyes, rejects God’s grace, and purposely desires to cast itself headlong. This conduct is far too common.” (John Calvin, Commentary on Daniel)

The wicked, in the end, are “hostile” both to the Father (Rom. 8:7) and His Anointed One (Ps. 2:2)—who is the Truth Personified (John 14:6)—and thus despise His truth and prefer the darkness (John 3:19-20; 7:7, 8:40, 45; 2 Thess. 2:10-12).

 

John 3:19-20:  And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

 

v. 7c: “‘Any man who can read this inscription and explain its interpretation…’”

o   The fact that the court’s wise men were both unable (due to their spiritual deficiencies) and unwilling to venture an interpretation (probably sensing the ominous, as in 4:7) is no great puzzle. Less clear is their apparent inability to even be able to read the text of the mysterious message. Various suggestions have been proposed as to why the message and its interpretation were indiscernible to both the king and his college of wise men (v. 8), including the following:

 

o   …While the language was Aramaic, the particular characters employed were the older, pre-Exilic form of Hebrew script (i.e., paleo-Hebrew), as opposed to today’s familiar Aramaic (“Assyrian”) square script, or block-lettering;

 

o   …The simple words themselves—common Aramaic ones—were not undiscernible—only their meaningful interpretation. Thus, the thought here would be that the wise men could not read understandingly (but note the seemingly clear and contrary testimony of v. 8, if taken at face value);

 

o   …The absence of later Masoretic vowel points and accents served to obscure the legibility of the message, which was written purely in consonant-form (“How are you this afternoon?” = “HW R Y THS FTRNN”—or perhaps even “HWRYTHSFTRNN”);

 

o   …The script was laid-out in some sort of unusual or unconventional form, order, or pattern, which contributed to its illegibility, and consequently, to the interpretive difficulty.

 

o   Ultimately, the validity of any of the above proposed solutions resists positive confirmation and absolute certainty, and should thus not serve to obscure the central point that Daniel alone—God’s accredited messenger (Dan. 2:47; 4:9, 18)—was able to understand and interpret the message due to Sovereign Divine intervention and influence.