Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
10The queen, because of the words of the king and his nobles, to the house of the banquet she came. The queen answered and she said, “O king, to ages live! Do not let your thoughts alarm you and do not let your countenance be changed. 11There is a man in your kingdom who [the] spirit of [the] gods [is] in him and, in the days of your father, illumination and insight and wisdom like [the] wisdom of [the] gods was found in him, and the king Nebuchadnezzar your father, your father the king, appointed him [the] master of [the] conjurers, astrologers, Chaldeans, [and] ones divining, 12because an extraordinary spirit and understanding and insight interpreting dreams and explaining puzzles and solving difficult problems was found in him, in Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called and the meaning he will declare.”.
It would seem to me that any thinking reader would pause here and ask, “Hey! Wait a minute. How is it possible that a man of Daniel’s capabilities could be so unknown?” Read again how Nitocris describes him: “the spirit of the gods is in him,,,illumination and insight and wisdom like that of the gods was found in him…because an extraordinary spirit and understanding and insight interpreting dreams and explaining puzzles and solving difficult problems was found in him…” How could any nation or company or church (or any other organization for that matter) have among their number a man of such eminent skills and yet be ignorant he even exists?
The question makes me groan. Anyone who’s been alive for any amount of time will quickly remark, “Oh, that’s no surprise. I’ve seen it happen a million times.” I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve seen when the company has an employee with amazing skills and they just don’t use them. The thought makes me groan. For instance, back in the Great Recession of the 2007-2011 era, things got very slow where I worked. The bosses were begging all of us to think of work we could give the technicians to do. At that time, company websites had begun to be very important. For the previous 100 years, if you wanted to have a service like surveying provided, you’d just look them up in the “Yellow Pages.” However, more and more, people were just going on-line and doing google searches for such things. The company’s website was almost useless. A girl who did drafting also had a photography business on the side, shooting weddings, and senior pictures and such. For that business she had personally built one of the most spectacular websites I’ve ever seen. She did it herself! I pointed out all of this to the bosses and, of course, they immediately assigned her to do the same for them, right? Wrong. They would let her sit in her chair with nothing to do and when the Recession was over and everyone was busy again, do you think they had a great website? Nope. Same old lame, dull, uninformative page of uselessness.
Like I said: Makes me groan. I could sit here and type for hours all the examples that come to my mind. That probably isn’t necessary because anyone reading this has their own bank of memories of the same unexplainable stupidity. Everywhere you look, you see people of eminent skills get overlooked and ignored while the world struggles on. It would seem this world we live in is plagued with a blind stupidity that defies imagination.
At first, one wonders at the apparent stupidity of Belshazzar and his nobles and counselors. It is amazing that Nitocris would have to come in and bring up Daniel’s name. But, again, stepping back for just one second, we all can see that no, this is not unusual at all. It’s happening all around us all day every day.
Actually, for us believers, this should not be surprising and or mysterious. If we know our Bible and if we will be in the habit of letting that Bible inform us about our world, we know exactly the problem. The book of Proverbs, early on addresses this very thing: “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; …How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? …but since you rejected me when I called and since you ignored all my advice, I will laugh at your disaster…” (1:20-33).
“Fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7). Jesus addressed exactly this same problem in His day: “Why is My language not clear to you? You belong to your father the devil and you want to carry out your father’s desire…there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies…the reason you do not hear is because you do not belong to God” (John 8:42-47).
The problem for Belshazzar and for us today is a spiritual problem. The blind stupidity which we see is only a symptom of a much larger problem. A world without God is not only a world without wisdom, but even worse, it is a world that actually doesn’t even want to hear wisdom! It is a world that prefers lies to truth! Without God, we are a race of fools.
For you and me, this whole discussion should bring us back to the question of our own attention to the Bible. As a believer, I should know it is the Truth. In this world swirling in lies, we have an anchor, a sure foundation. We know, “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Why then would such a book lie and gather dust in so many supposedly Christian homes? Why does one have to listen to sermons and read books and wonder, “Has this guy ever really studied the Bible?” Sadly, even believers still carry in their hearts the same propensity for blind stupidity. Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness…” That very statement would suggest there will be those who do not “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” He promises a blessing for those who do, but then there’s everyone else.
You and I make a choice which we will be, and I believe it all comes back to this very simple matter of our attention to the Word of God. We see that the only real cure for this world’s blind stupidity is to deliberately and specifically embrace the Lord’s presence in our lives, then to give careful attention to His truth. “In His light, we see light.” We need Jesus to take the penalty of our sin, then give us His Spirit to begin living a godly life—a wise life. However, once again, accomplishing that will come down to our attention to the Word.
Our Bibles lie on our desk just like Daniel was there in Belshazzar’s kingdom. Though Belshazzar had such amazing giftedness at his fingertips, he ignored it and blundered on through life. May you and I not treat our Bibles the same. “When you know the truth, the truth shall make you free.” Let us make sure we are regularly mining such life-giving truth, the only cure for this world’s blind stupidity.
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