Daniel 5:14, commentary and pictures

Belshazzar's words acknowledge that Daniel was already known at the Babylonian court as one in whom was the spirit of the gods, and in whom light and understanding and exceptional wisdom were found. That light and wisdom was God-given, and its work was to interpret dreams in the light of the living Scriptures and living oracles, not to interpret Scripture and God's providences in the light of dreams and fancies. Daniel possessed that wisdom because, in contrast to Belshazzar, he purposed not to eat luxuries or taste wine and made God his strength.

He served as a statesman in Babylon in a most critical and trying position, faithfully doing his assigned civil work while plainly refusing any work that would oppose God or militate against Him. His faithful course provoked discussion, and through God's providence always at work and incessant over human affairs, Babylon's rulers and the king of Babylon were brought into reasoning contact and reasoning relation with him. God had light for the king, and through Daniel presented things foretold in the prophecies against Babylon and other kingdoms, bringing rulers into contact with those prophecies and with the living Scriptures. So by interpretation of the king's dream Jehovah was exalted as more powerful than earthly kings and than any other kingdom.

The same witness had been given in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the light of the living oracles, which Nebuchadnezzar read through his own idolatrous mind and then set up the golden image on the plain of Dura to exalt Babylon. It was given again in the deliverance when Christ walked in the fiery furnace with the three faithful servants who would not bow. The verse belongs to the fall of Babylon amid feasting and revelry, when the great city was swept with destruction and left desolate in ruins and passed away.

The judgment fell because Belshazzar and his thousand lords forgot God in prosperity, credited human achievement for the kingdom's honor and glory, and in sacrilegious mirth made light of what God had chosen as sacred by profaning the golden vessels consecrated to Jehovah. They drank from them while praising the gods of gold and silver and the idols of Babylon amid music, dancing, feasting, sparkling wine, blasphemy, and idolatrous sacrifices and offerings in insult to the God of heaven. Belshazzar, though an absolute monarch whose will was law with everything to flatter pride and indulge passion, was void of self-control, hasty, violent, molded by flattery, cruel when opposed, self-indulgent, gluttonous, drunken, and corrupt at heart. Under wine his reason was beclouded and reverence departed, so that he forgot and dishonored God.

The coming calamity resulted from disregarding heaven-sent light, for Belshazzar ignored the light and lessons given to Nebuchadnezzar and failed to learn from his experience and to practice what God had taught. The God they defied witnessed the unholy scene, and in the midst of the feast a bloodless hand traced mysterious characters recording Belshazzar's destiny on the palace wall, filling the king and his courtiers with terror. Daniel as servant of the Most High pronounced their doom, for God weighed Belshazzar's motives, character, life, and soul in the balances of His sanctuary and found him wanting, a record and history to testify to the close of time that stands when the books of heaven are opened. Presumption and defiance, blasphemy and disobedience, and neglect and failure to practice God's lessons can bring divine judgment when people persist until they pass the limits of God's forbearance. Rulers who forget God and refuse to obey His law are tested and, if they do not humble themselves and confess their sins, suffer the penalty of transgression.

As Babylon fell in an hour of feasting and reveling, so it will be at the end of the world, when only wise students of God's Word with oil in their vessels with their lamps will be prepared to meet the Bridegroom. The same God still witnesses those who profane not soulless vessels but the characters of those Christ purchased by His blood through words of calumny, falsehood, and slander against the servants of Christ. The hand that wrote on Belshazzar's wall keeps faithful record of every act of injustice or oppression committed against God's people. Because wine and tobacco shut away reason and prepare the way for every excess of wild license, as seen in Belshazzar, the only safeguard for youth and mature age is total abstinence.