Daniel 5:10-12 “Blind Stupidity”

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.

Daniel 5:10-12 “Vessels of Hope”

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.”.

In verse 9, we leave behind the terrified king, his baffled nobles, and his answerless counselors. Suddenly faced with a monumental crisis, these boastful, arrogant men find themselves hopeless. I find it no surprise at all that there appears on the scene a woman, and that that woman points them to hope.

This is one of the great fractals of our created world—that it will be “the seed of the woman” who will “crush the head of the serpent.” Adam, as appointed prince of this world, had pulled down the entire race by his sin and would have left us all hopeless. But God ordained that mankind’s great hope would come through a woman, in that case, of course being Mary and her conception of the Lord Jesus Christ. What I would suggest is that the fractal of that truth (or shall we say its pattern), then became a truth which gets repeated in a million different ways on a million different scales all throughout history and our existence.

I’m never surprised when God steps into some “impossible” situation and uses a woman to lead the way out. As men, we bear enormous responsibilities before God in our families, our communities, our churches, and everywhere else people interact. However, that man is a fool who does not deeply respect, value, and appreciate the advice and inputs and contributions of the women in his life.

It took me twenty years of marriage before I realized just how true this is. Up to that point, I’d made a lot of decisions on my own, without seriously considering Joan’s opinions. Sadly, I have to confess, pretty much across the board, I now regret every one of those decisions I made. They landed me in one hopeless situation after another and inflicted a lot of misery on my family. Finally, I woke up and started valuing her inputs. What amazes me now is, after another almost twenty years, my whole life feels like it’s been since then one good decision after another. We make it a point to do nothing until we’ve talked about it, put our heads together (as the old saying goes), and come to a point where we’re both agreed this is a good idea.

On the one hand, that’s just good management. It can’t be a good idea to have two brains in the same house and only use one of them! I also would assert part of the advantage comes from the fact that a woman simply sees the world through a different lens than a man. She sees everything from a completely different perspective which provides valuable insights into the decision-making process. But my point here looking at Daniel chapter 5 is that I think there is a far grander explanation, and that being the fractal of truth the Lord established when He granted to the woman the honor of being God’s vessel of hope to the world.

All that said, it is no surprise that into this room full of hopeless men walks a woman, who then points the way toward hope. She is introduced in verse 10 as “the queen.” For me, there is no doubt this is actually the woman we would call the queen-mother, who would be Nitocris, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and the wife of Nabonidus, Belshazzar’s father. Just to begin with, that could be why she is introduced as “the queen.” She literally is the queen, since her husband is the formal king. Belshazzar’s wives and concubines are with him at this party, so she clearly wasn’t one of them, and it would make sense that none of Belshazzar’s wives would be designated “queen,” because there already is one. Father/son co-regencies, such as we have with Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, have been common arrangements all through history, but there is always just one queen.

This would explain why she’s not necessarily at the party—she is an older woman now and probably less than impressed with her son’s revelry. This would also explain how she can simply appear in the room and then give advice to a king. She’s his mother. Less then 100 years later, even though she was the queen, Esther will have to risk her life to step uninvited into the presence of the king. (Granted that will be in Persia and this is in Babylon, but I doubt things were much different culturally). The one woman who trumps it all would be his mother.

This would also explain her familiarity with the events of Nebuchadnezzar's life. She was his daughter. She was around to see it all and certainly around to appreciate what Daniel did for the man who was her father.

I want to ponder a lot more on what she says, but, for now, I’ll just assert again that man is a fool who does not deeply respect, value, and appreciate the advice and inputs and contributions of the women in his life. What we see in this passage is just one instance of the fractal truth which has permeated our existence since Eden—that the Lord will often use the women in our lives to be our vessels of hope.

Knowing our Bibles, that should never surprise us!

Daniel 5:5-9 “Power”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁵In that moment appeared fingers of a hand of a man writing to the opposite of the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the palace of the king and the king [was] one seeing the palm of the hand which [was] one writing. ⁶Then the king, his countenance changed it and his thoughts alarmed him and the joints of his loins [were] ones loosened and his knees [were] ones knocking one to this. ⁷The king [was] one calling in strength to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and ones counseling. The king answering, one saying to the wise men of Babel, “All of a man who reads this writing and declares to me its meaning, he will be clothed [with] purple, and the necklace of the gold upon his neck, and third in the kingdom he will rule. ⁸Then ones coming in [were] the all of the wise men of the king, ones not able to read the writing and to make known the meaning to the king. ⁹Then the king Belshazzar [was] one being greatly alarmed and his face [was] one changing on him and his nobles [were] ones being perplexed.

One last thing I want to ponder on before I leave these verses. Isn’t it interesting that this is how the Lord chose to reveal Himself to Belshazzar? The Lord very specifically chose to use this image of a hand writing on the wall to get Belshazzar’s attention.

I guess my point is that He could have done this in a thousand different ways. If it were me, I would have thought perhaps a thundering voice along with an earthquake would do nicely. Or perhaps, how about a giant shining angel who sweeps the room with his sword and wipes out all these profaning revelers? Or what if the floor of the whole hall just opened up and swallowed them all alive?

If you think through your Bible, at different times and in different places, the Lord used all those methods, and many more. But not here. Out of all His revelations, as far as we know, this is the only time He ever used this image of a man’s hand writing on a wall.

It certainly got the job done. By verse 9 we have a terrified king, answerless “wise” men, and a thousand baffled nobles. At least two things are clearly established: the Lord is present and they are clueless. The Lord has been present all along, of course. He has been watching and listening ever since the party began. He heard Belshazzar call for the temple vessels. He watched their arrogant sacrilege as they drank their wine from those holy vessels. He listened as they praised their idols. He heard it all. He saw it all. Their problem was they didn’t see Him.

Because He wasn’t visible, it was easy for them to pretend He doesn’t exist. But in an instant, the hand appears and all of a sudden they know they’re in trouble! At that point, once again, it would have seemed like a great time for a thundering voice.

But that isn’t what the Lord did. My mind goes immediately to Elijah who found out the Lord is not in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire, but rather in a still, small voice (I Kings 19:11,12). The Lord certainly can and has expressed Himself to the world in great displays of power, as in the case of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. However, I’ve been thinking lately how sometimes a still, small voice is almost more impressive than loud, explosive displays. It seems to me another way to express power is not to use it! It’s like a boss calling you in to quietly fire you! He could yell at you and throw you out on the street, but, because he has the power, he can simply, quietly tell you your services are no longer needed and dismiss you. What if you throw a tantrum and threaten to sue the company and he still just quietly reiterates that your services are no longer needed and dismisses you? I’m thinking, in a sense, that quiet calm demeanor can be more impressive than a loud, angry voice.

I’m also reminded of a story I read once of a group gathered for a barbecue. At some point, one of the men (probably drunk) started asserting to everyone there that God does not exist. To prove his point, he stood and shouted to God to send a lightning bolt and kill him. After nothing happened for several minutes, the man scoffed and turned to get another brew or something. As he turned, his heel landed on a pea someone had dropped. His feet slipped out from under him, his head hit the concrete, and there he died. Case in point. Which is more impressive, that the Lord in fact send the lightning bolt, or that He kill the arrogant man with a pea?

When Jesus returns to the earth, He will come riding a white horse, with eyes like a blazing fire, leading the armies of heaven, and with a sharp sword going out of His mouth “wherewith to slay the wicked” (Rev. 19:11-16). Yet, the first time He came, He let Himself be born a helpless baby in a stable in a little town and it was said of Him, “He will not shout or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out” (Isa. 42:3,4).  

Sometimes He does. Sometimes He doesn’t. Of course, you and I will probably never know why the Lord one time chooses to reveal Himself in displays of awesome power, then the next time turns around and speaks in a still, small voice. Maybe that is itself an expression of power—that He chooses.

I think the takeaway is first of all that we should all notice it is definitely true that the Lord can and may display His power precisely by being very quiet. I would guess the world as a whole would assume any expression of divine power should be awe-inspiring. However, people who truly know their God will also see Him in His quiet expressions of power.

The second takeaway might be a “Go and do thou likewise.” Perhaps we all need to realize how much power can be displayed simply by being quiet? There may be times to yell and scream, but perhaps we should be more aware of those times when, if we know we have the power, we choose not to use it? I find a sort of strange comfort in just knowing that is an option!