The Book of Daniel 5:24-31

Welcome back to my study/review of The Book of Daniel. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.

Daniel 5:24-31

²⁴ “Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. ²⁵ And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. ²⁶ This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; ²⁷ Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; ²⁸ Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

²⁹ Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

³⁰ That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. ³¹  And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

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Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! Less than 80 years after conquering Judah, Babylon is itself conquered.

Before jumping into the verses, I want to engage in a somewhat lengthy but related side trail diversion to discuss the significance of 8 decades in Scripture. It’s been a talking point in the media, often referred to as “the curse of the eighth decade.” If you do an internet search for that phrase, you’ll pull up dozens of articles concerning the nation of Israel approaching it’s 80th year – most of them pointing out that historically that 80th year mark has not worked out well. For an article explaining the “curse of the eighth decade” I direct you HERE with an excerpt below:

The first Jewish state, founded by King David, accomplished phenomenal achievements and survived united for 80 years. In the 81st year, due to internal conflicts, the kingdom of the House of David disintegrated into the separate kingdoms of Yehuda and Yisrael, and so began its fall. In the process, we lost millions of our brothers, the members of the Ten Tribes, who, according to Rabbi Akiva, “will not return in the future.”

The second Jewish state was the Hasmonean kingdom during the Second Temple era. It existed for 77 years as a united and sovereign kingdom. In the eighth decade of its life, the kingdom was torn apart by infighting, which led the representatives of the two camps claiming the crown to approach Pompey in Syria, each one begging him to agree to make them vassals of Rome. And so the sovereign Hasmonean state became a degraded protectorate state of Rome, devoid of proud Jewish sovereignty.

The establishment of the State of Israel 75 years ago is the third attempt to overcome the “curse of the eighth decade,” which defeated the two previous Jewish states. We are currently in the midst of our third opportunity, but it is uncertain whether we will survive it. Before our eyes, we are witnessing fratricidal hatred – and right now it really doesn’t matter who started it, because both sides bear equal responsibility for the terrible social chaos that is eating us apart, just as Bourguiba predicted. All the warning signs of a national catastrophe are flashing red. And don’t under any circumstances count on the possibility of a fourth chance.

Small comfort can be found in the fact that other nations have also experienced the “curse of the eighth decade” in a very painful way. The bloody American Civil War broke out 85 years after the adoption of the Constitution (oh, what luck – it happened to them in the ninth decade!). Italy became fascist and Germany became a Nazi terrorist state in the eighth decade after each nation’s unification. The Third Republic of France, founded in 1871, surrendered to the Nazi boot in 1940, in its eighth decade, while the communist monster that was born in the October Revolution of 1917 began to disintegrate in the 1980s and was finally shattered into pieces 74 years after its founding in 1991.

Middle Eastern politicians (including multiple Prime Ministers of Israel) and media commentators have pointed this out. For example (excerpt via middleeastmonitor.com)

If these pressures continue building, there is a chance that the West could push Israel to end the latest war in Gaza quickly through a real ceasefire and opening of borders. This would mean the destruction of Netanyahu’s political career and government, after so many years in power. It could also exacerbate the existing domestic crises within Israel between Jews of European descent and Mizrahi, and religious and secular backgrounds. The long term outcome of the current military confrontation remains unclear, but the Palestinian Resistance is not going away and will continue fighting for national liberation and an end to oppression.

The curse of the eighth decade, which haunts the Israeli mind, has seemingly come true. Regardless of all the killing and destruction Israel inflicts upon them, Palestinians rise up against their occupiers once more. They show no signs of giving up their struggle until the inalienable rights of self-determination and freedom in an independent Palestinian State are finally achieved, after over 70 years of dispossession and statelessness.

Yet, this curse will not be confined to the Israelis. The widespread distrust in Arab leaders might have dire consequences on the region and, by extension, the rest of the world. Historically, similar situations provide the perfect environment for military coups, public unrest or even assassination of heads of states. The longer this situation in Gaza continues, the higher the possibility we might witness such dramatic events.

If you happen to be an American, here are some interesting “every 80 years” events:

1784: First full year after winning the Revolutionary War
1865: The American Civil War officially ends.
1945: World War 2 ends
2025: ??

(Is it relevant that Israel created coinage during Donald Trump’s first term in office overtly comparing him to Cyrus the Great? I guess we’ll see.)

For anyone looking to continue going backward from the 1780s, the Acts of Union – forming the U.K. – was signed about 80 years prior to the American Revolution.

That’s enough I think to divert anyone who might take a rabbit trail to begin their journey. Let’s dive into the verses. From Ellicott’s Bible Commentary on verse 24:

(24) Then.—Not only “at that time,” but also “because of this.” Daniel here expressly designates the writing as something proceeding from God.

Remember that the previous set of verses included Daniel’s condemnation of the Babylonian ruler for his lack of humility. The writing on the wall signifies God’s pronouncement of judgment. Continuing to verse 25 and a note from The Pulpit Commentaries:

Daniel 5:25-28

And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. The Septuagint has two versions of this passage, one in the text, the other in the portion at the beginning, which we think is really composed of marginal readings. In the text the Aramaic is not given at all. As we have already seen, the verse which corresponds to Daniel 5:25 here is really the latter part of Daniel 5:17 of the Septuagint, “This is the writing: It hath been numbered; it is reckoned; it has been carried away.” In the verses which are appended to the beginning of the chapter, we have the Aramaic words, but given in a different order, and without the repetition of the first word: “MANE, PHARES, THEKEL. MANE, It has been numbered; PHARES, It is carried away; THEKEL, It has been set up.” Here not only is the order different, but the meaning assigned to phares is singular. פְרַס means in Syriac, “spread out.” It would seem that ἐξαίρω meant “stretched out” as well as “carried away.” It is still more difficult to understand how thekel can mean “set up,” unless the words, ἐν ζυγῷ, “on the balance,” are understood. The Septuagint of the best version is briefer than the Massoretic, though less so than it is in some of the other passages, “Numbered is the time of thy kingdom; ceases thy kingdom; cut short and ended has been thy kingdom; to the Modes and the Persians has it been given.” The word interpreted is not repeated as in the Massoretic text, and תְקִל is derived from קְלַל, which in some of the conjugations means “destroyed,” whereas in Daniel 5:17 it is rendered κατελογίσθη, “it is reckoned,” a rendering of תקל which makes it mean “weigh.” The Septuagint rendering of the first clause is an evident attempt at explaining the numbering implied. The Massoretic reading involves a pun in both the last words; there is a play between תְקִל (teqel), “to weigh,” and קְלַל (qelal), “to be light,” although the introduction of שכח rather conceals this. In the last the play is between פרס, “to divide,” and פדס, “a Persian.” Theodotion avoids the repetition of the first word, otherwise he is in somewhat close agreement with the Massoretic text, “MANE, God hath measured thy kingdom; THEKEL, It is set on the balance, and found wanting; PHARES, Thy kingdom is cut asunder, and given to the Medes and the Persians.” The Peshitta is in close agreement with the Massoretic text. The actual meaning of the words, taking them as they appear in the Massoretictext, as Aramaic words, is, to give English equivalents, “a pound, a pound, an ounce, and quarters;” hence the impossibility of interpreting the words. We find all these words, mena, teqel (shekel), pares, in the Ninevite inscriptions. As the words are interpreted, we cannot fail to be impressed with the peremptory style of the inscription, as Hitzig has it. Zöckler refers to the sculpturesque style (lapidarstil). This brevity rendered it difficult for the soothsayers to put any meaning into the words at all. In all the versions the fact that the kingdom is to be given to the Medes and Persians is emphasized, but, moreover, the play on words in the last clause implies the Persians as the prominent assailants of the Babylonian power, but really that the two powers were united. It seems extraordinary that any one, in the face of this, should maintain that the author of Daniel separated the two powers, and thought the Median power succeeded the Babylonian, and then that the Persian succeeded the Median. We know now that Herodotus’s representation of the history of Media and Persia is utterly false and misleading.

The note above is a very informative exploration of the text, noting that some of the ancient translations present the text in a differing order – though the meaning is essentially the same.

Wikipedia’s article on the topic is also quite interesting, and I’ll share an exceprt below:

מנא מנא תקל ופרסין‎

Daniel reads the words “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN” and interprets them for the king: “MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed … and found wanting;” and “UPHARSIN”, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made… that he should rank third in the kingdom; [and] that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean (Babylonian) king was killed, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom.”

You might be like me and wonder why “Mene” is written twice, but is only interpreted one time. I’ll direct you to a note from Ellicott on that point:

(25) Mene . . .—It should be remarked that the word Mene, which occurs twice in the inscription, is found only once in the interpretation, and that the “Medes” who are mentioned in the interpretation are not spoken of in the inscription. Hence it has been conjectured that the second Mene was originally Madai, or Media. This, though it appears plausible, has no external support. The word Mene, “numbered,” is repeated twice for the sake of emphasis. The days of Babylon are numbered; it is God Himself who has numbered them. “Mene” is used in the double sense of “numbering” and “bringing to an end.” Similarly, “Tekel” implies both the act of “weighing” and the fact of “being light.” The “u” in Upharsin is the conjunction “and,” while pharsin, or, rather, parsin, is the plural of peres, a noun which implies “divisions” and also Persians. It appears from Daniel 5:28 that the divided empire of Babylon and the Medo-Persian empire are signified.

After hearing this, the Babylonian king does as he promised Daniel. Perhaps he hoped that he might divert or delay this pronouncement. Or maybe he was simply bound to do as he said he would do despite Daniel giving him very bad news. From TPC:

Daniel 5:29

Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. The Septuagint runs thus: “Then Baltasar the king clothed Daniel in purple, and put on him a golden necklace, and gave authority to him over a third part of his kingdom.” The only difference here is that there is no word of a proclamation. Theodotion and the Peshitta agree with the Massoretic text. We have תַּלְתָא here instead of תַּלְתִּי. The presence of the haphel form instead of the aphel, is to be noted. No reader whose attention is directed to it can fail to be struck with the magnanimity of Belshazzar; he had promised that whoever would interpret the inscription should be clothed in purple and gold, and be made third ruler of the kingdom. Had he been a mean man, he might have higgled about the matter; he might have declared an uncertainty as to whether Daniel did not, out of his spite against the murderers of the son of Nebuchadnezzar, invent the evil interpretation. The treatment Ahab meted out to Micaiah the son of Imlah sows the way a tyrannical monarch may a-t towards one who has uttered unpalatable prophecies against him. He might, according to the Persian story, have proclaimed Daniel exalted to all the promised honors, and then instantly had him executed. But, no; in noble simplicity he fulfils his promise to the last letter, without any apparent after-thought of vengeance. If Belshazzar is intended to represent Antiochus Epiphanes, certainly the portrait is singularly unlike anything we know of that monarch. Cruel and. treacherous, he was very unlikely to keep such a promise to one who had made such a prophecy concerning him. Even if lie could have done so, no Jew, with blood boiling from the indignities and cruelties heaped upon the Jewish race, could have pictured him doing this. Even the natural instinct that makes us think that specially terrible misfortune must be the result of specially unbroken wickedness, would certainly have led the writer of Daniel, if drawing on his imagination, to make Belshazzar meanly refuse his rewards, or, having given them, to threaten the receiver with death. It is no answer to say, with Ewald and Jephet-ibn-Ali. that the reward once promised was irrevocable, for the accuracy of the reading of the writing might have been contested, and the correctness of the interpretation denied. Further, as has been pointed out by Keil, there is no evidence that Epiphanes ever desecrated the sacred vessels at a banquet; he was regardless enough to have done so, but his financial necessities were too pressing for delaying the coining of these golden treasures. Moreover, in Antiochus such desecration would be without purpose, whereas, as we have seen, there might be a purpose in the action of Belshazzar. The idea maintained by commentators of the critical school, that there in any reference in the description given here of the feast of Belshazzar and its results to the feast which Antiochus gave to the peel,In of Antioch, as described by Polybius, 26; is mere nonsense. The ponts of contrast are vastly more prominent than the points of resemblance. Belshazzar’s feast is over in one night; Antiochus’s feast lasted several days. Belshazzar’s feast was given in his palace, to “a thousand of his lords;” Antiochus invited the whole populace of Antioch to revel in the grove of Daphne. While, as we have seen, there is blasphemy against Jehovah and defiance of him in Belshazzar’s feast, there in no kind of debauchery. In regard to the feast of Antiochus, on the other hand, while there is maddest excess of every kind, a very orgy of lust and drunkenness, there is no word, either in Polybius or in the Books of the Maccabees, of any special act of defiance to Jehovah, or blasphemy of his Name. The only point of identity is that both the banquet of Belshazzar and the orgy of Antiochus have been called “feasts.” Altogether, the idea that Belshazzar represents Antiochus Epiphanes is nearly as absurd as that Nebuchadnezzar does. Did the orthodox interpretation involve such an identification, what boundless scorn would be poured on the unfortunate maintainers of such a view?

The note reminds us that many skeptics of the Book of Daniel exist (those who give it a late composition date and ascribe to it the intention of relating it to a 2nd century BC set of circumstances.) The note points out that this skepticism is a bit of a reach. Further – as I showed above regarding the numerous “80 years” cycles – history does have a way of repeating itself. Perceived similarities can simply be similarities. Similarities are not proof of imitation. Continuing on to verse 30, again in TPC:

Daniel 5:30

In that night was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldeans slain. The version of the LXX. is here very different, “And the interpretation came upon Belshazzar the king, and the kingdom was taken from the Chaldeans, and given to the Medes and the Persians. There seems no possibility of connecting these two readings so that either should be shown to have come from the other. The Massoretic text, which is here supported by Theodotion and the Peshitta, is the shorter; but in this instance, as neither can have sprung from the other, Brevity has less probative force. If we look at the probability of the situation, we are compelled to accept the Septuagint reading. If the Massoretic reading had been the original, the dramatic completeness of the disaster, following with such rapidity on the back of the prophecy, would certainly have been preserved in every translation. Whereas the desire for this dramatic completeness might lead to the Massoretic verse being fabricated. Further, when we look at the events of the night, it seems impossible to place all of them in the short interval of one night. The feast had begun after sundown, for the lamps were lighted. It had already gone on some time ere Belshazzar thought of the vessels of the house of God. Then, in contempt of Jehovah, the guests sang praises to the gods of Babylon. it is after all this that the writing appears. There is next the calling of the wise men, who were in the vicinity of the palace. On their failure to explain the writing, the other wise men are summoned by proclamation; they assemble, essay the reading, and fail. The queen-mother comps—either is called, or, hearing the tumult, comes in herself—and tells Belshazzar of Daniel. Daniel is summoned, and reads the writing. Even if we maintain—although it does not seem the natural reading of the passage—that the proclamation of a reward to him who could read the writing followed immediately on the order to call in the astrologers and other wise men, still, it is difficult to imagine all the events, especially the summoning of all the wise men in Babylon by proclamation, and the finding out of Daniel and bringing him to the court, taking place in one night, and that in that very night was Belshazzar slain. On the other hand, the Septuagint makes no such demand on our belief. According to it, the prophecy was not so closely connected with its fulfilment. The feast recorded here may have taken place six, eight, or ten )ears before the actual fall of Babylon. We know that from his seventh year till some time between his eleventh and seventeenth year Nahunahid was in Tema. This feast might be the inauguration of Belshazzar’s viceroyalty; in that case it would be nearly ten years before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. If that is so, the supposed contradiction between this verse and Daniel 8:1 vanishes. We need only look at the various theories of who Belshazzar was. Niebuhr assumes it as a second name for Evil-Merodach—a view for which Keil has some sympathy. Niebuhr ingeniously combines the statement from Berosus, that his reign was ἀνόμως καὶ ἀσελγῶς. This, however, might mean a favour for the Jews, shown by the special honour given to Jehoiachin—a thing which would be readily regarded by the Babylonians as “lawless and outrageous.” lie maintains that the change of dynasty implied in Babylon was the assumption of the supremacy by Astyages the Mede, who, according to Niebuhr, is Darius the Mede. After one year’s personal reign, he placed Neriglissar on the throne. This view is definitely contradicted by the contract tables, which have no reference to a reign between Evil-Merodach and Neriglissar. The other theory is that he is Labasi-Marduk. This view is maintained by Delitzsch and Ebrard. All of them assume the murder of the king the very night of the feast—a thing which is in the teeth of probability, and not supported by the Septuagint reading.

The note above explains that the Septuagint’s text does not indicate that the feast and the fall of Babylon happened on the very same night. It then makes the argument that in this case, the Septuagint is the more accurate version, based on the story’s own context. (We are again reminded of why Daniel is such a puzzle for historians, translators, and scholars generally.)

Finishing the chapter, we’ll look at Ellicott’s note on verse 31:

(31) Darius the Median.—Note the LXX. variation: “And Artaxerxes of the Medes took the kingdom, and Darius, full of days and glorious in old age.” (See Excursus D.)

Took—i.e., received it from the hands of a conqueror. (Comp. Daniel 9:1, where Darius is said to have been “made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.”)

In future verses, we will cover in more detail the debate / history of who actually conquered Babylon, and whether the history affirms the Daniel account or contradicts it. But for now, we can mark this as the end of Babylonian rule within the text. The golden head from Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream has been replaced by the silver chest and arms of that vision.