Scary Stories of the Bible (Part II)
The Writing on the Wall
In general, we don’t think of the Bible as a book with scary stories in it and that’s probably a good thing. The Holy Scriptures contain the story of God moving closer and closer to His people, executing His great rescue plan to save them. But within the histories of the Bible one can find some pretty scary stuff. This Halloween, in the spirit of fun, we are going to look at another “scary” story from the Bible.
“Many years later King Belshazzar gave a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking the wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines. So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. While they drank from them they praised their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.” (Daniel 5:1-4)
Belshazzar was king many years after Nebuchadnezzar, who had many dreams that Daniel interrupted and who, in understanding these interpretations, turned to God and praised Him. Belshazzar did not follow in Nebuchadnezzar’s footsteps and instead returned to worshipping idols. In this case, the king took the gold and silver cups from God’s temple and used them while worshipping idols. Then, there was a moment straight out of a scary movie.
“Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, and his face turned pale with fright. His knees knocked together in fear and his legs gave way beneath him.” (Daniel 5:5-6)
A disembodied hand or fingers began writing on the plaster wall in a language he did not understand. The ghostly hand wrote upon the wall, “Mene, mene, tekel, and Parsin.” This terrified King Belshazzar. He called for wise men and enchanters and fortune-tellers to read the writing and tell him what it meant but none of them could.
“But when all the king’s wise men had come in, none of them could read the writing or tell him what it meant. So the king grew even more alarmed, and his face turned pale. His nobles, too, were shaken.” (Daniel 5:8-9)
Belshazzar’s mother remembered how Daniel interrupted dreams for Nebuchadnezzar, so she suggested Belshazzar call for Daniel to tell him the meaning of the ghostly writing. Daniel was brought forth and he began by scolding Belshazzar for not following in Nebuchadnezzar’s ways because Belshazzar knew the tough lesson Nebuchadnezzar had to learn to worship the Most High God. (Daniel 5:17-23)
“So God has sent this hand to write this message. “This is the message that was written: Mene, mene, tekel, and Parsin. This is what these words mean: Mene means ‘numbered’—God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end. Tekel means ‘weighed’—you have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up. Parsin means ‘divided’—your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:24-28)
Since Daniel could interpret the writing he was given a purple robe and a gold chain to wear around his neck. Belshazzar proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom. However, this was no fairy tale ending, but one more out of a work from Edgar Allen Poe.
“That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed. And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.” (Daniel 5:30-31)
If only Vincent Price had done an audio recording of Daniel 5….
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
