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Belshazzar and the writing on the wall

The king critics said never existed, why he offered "the third ruler in the kingdom", the night Babylon fell, and what MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN means.

Daniel 5 records one of the most famous nights in history: a proud king, a great feast, a hand writing on a palace wall, and the fall of Babylon before morning. Critics once pointed to this chapter as proof that the Bible got its history wrong. The ground has answered them.

The king history forgot

Ancient writers outside the Bible named Nabonidus as the last king of Babylon. None of them mentioned a Belshazzar, so many scholars assumed Daniel had invented him. Then, in the 1850s, J. E. Taylor dug into the temple tower at Ur, in southern Iraq, and found four clay cylinders written by Nabonidus himself. They close with a prayer for the king and for "Belshazzar, the eldest son". Belshazzar was real, and he was the crown prince of Babylon.

Why "the third ruler in the kingdom"?

Other Babylonian texts explain the rest. The Verse Account of Nabonidus says that early in his reign Nabonidus handed the kingship to his firstborn son and left for Tayma, an oasis in the Arabian desert. The Nabonidus Chronicle notes year after year that the king was in Tayma while the prince and the army stayed in Babylonia. The chronicle does not name the prince, but the cylinders and business records of those years show he was Belshazzar. Nabonidus was away for about ten years.

So Babylon in effect had two kings. That is why Belshazzar promised that whoever read the writing "shall be the third ruler in the kingdom" (Daniel 5:7, 16, 29). First and second place were already taken.

Daniel 5:18 calls Nebuchadnezzar Belshazzar's father. In Scripture "father" often means ancestor or predecessor, and GotQuestions.org adds that Belshazzar was probably Nebuchadnezzar's grandson through his mother. That link is likely, but not proven.

The vessels from the house of God

More than sixty years earlier, Nebuchadnezzar had carried "part of the vessels of the house of God" from Jerusalem to the treasure house of his god (Daniel 1:2). On the night of the feast Belshazzar sent for them on purpose, and "They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone" (Daniel 5:4). It was a deliberate insult to the LORD. Yet God had not forgotten His vessels. When the exile ended, "Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:7), and they went home.

The night Babylon fell

Babylon fell to the armies of Cyrus the Persian in October 539 BC. Here is what each source says:

The Babylonian texts are closest to the events and do not mention the river; the Greek accounts came later and include some storytelling. A city taken without a battle is not a city where no one died, and every source agrees Babylon fell suddenly while it felt safe. Scripture gives the plain fact:

In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old. (Daniel 5:30-31)

Long before, Isaiah had named the conqueror: "Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus" (Isaiah 45:1).

What MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN means

And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. (Daniel 5:25-28)

The words are Aramaic, though the Bible does not tell us why the wise men could not read them. On their own they look like weights used for money: a mina, a shekel, and a peres, meaning a half (most likely a half-mina, though some say a half-shekel). The "U" in UPHARSIN means "and". But Daniel read each word as a verb: numbered, weighed, divided. And the same letters spell Paras, Persia. God passed sentence in the king's own coinage.

Weighed, and found wanting

GotQuestions.org draws the lesson that we reap what we sow, and that it never pays to ignore God's warnings. Belshazzar had every warning: "thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this" (Daniel 5:22).

The hard truth is that every one of us, weighed in God's balance, is found wanting: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Even faithful Daniel, who refused the king's gifts and told him the truth, later prayed "confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel" (Daniel 9:20). He needed a Saviour too.

That is why the gospel is good news. Jesus never failed God's test, and He took our place: "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Whoever trusts in Christ is weighed not by his own life, but by Christ's righteousness, credited to him through faith. Belshazzar's night ended in judgment. To all who turn to Jesus, the same God offers mercy.

Sources

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