Page 143 - Daniel

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL (5:5–9)

5:5–9 Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote
on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand.
And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed,
and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees
knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters,
the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men
of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its

interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold
around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all
the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or
make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was
greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.

While the feast was in progress with its drinking and shouting of
praises to the gods of Babylon, the fingers of a man’s hand suddenly

appeared and wrote on the plastered wall of the palace. With only the
fingers of the hand visible, the spectacle immediately attracted attention.
In the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace archeologists have uncovered
a large throne room 56 feet wide and 173 feet long that probably was

the scene of this banquet. Midway in the long wall opposite the entrance
there was a niche in front of which the king may well have been seated.
The walls were washed over with white gypsum and covered in one
place with a façade of ornamental bricks. 15

A reconstruction of the throne room in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in Babylon.

It is probable that the banquet that night was illuminated by torches,
which not only produced smoke but fitful light that would only partially