Daniel 5:24-31

d. TRAGEDY

TEXT: Daniel 5:24-31

24

then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed,

25

And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

26

This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end.

27

TEKEL; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

28

PERES; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

29

Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

30

In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain.

31

And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

QUERIES

a.

In what language were the words written?

b.

Why would the king reward Daniel for such a terrible message?

c.

What is the significance of mentioning the age of Darius?

PARAPHRASE

And then God sent the fingers to write the message upon the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin! This is what it means: Mene means numbered; thus God has fixed the limit the days of your reign, and they are ended. Tekel means weighed; thus you have been weighed in the balances of God and have failed the test. Peres means divided, and thus your kingdom will be divided up between the Medes and the Persians. Somewhat grateful that the suspense was ended, and determined to keep his promise, Belshazzar made royal decree that Daniel was to be robed in purple, and that a golden chain of authority was to be placed around his neck. The king then announced that Daniel was elevated to third ruler in the kingdom. But, lo, that very same tragic night Belshazzar, the Chaldean monarch, was slain; and Gubaru (Darius the Mede) entered the city and began reigning at the age of sixty-two.

COMMENT

Daniel 5:24-28. THIS IS THE WRITING THAT WAS INSCRIBED: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. The phrase sent from before him, indicates the supernatural nature of the apparitionthat is, the portion of the hand (fingers) which appeared and did the inscribing upon the wall were very plainly from some supernatural origin.

The language of the supernatural message was probably Aramaic and in the ancient alphabetic characters which we find in the oldest Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions such as the Moabite Stone, the Siloam Inscription, and the Aramaic inscriptions from Zenjerli.

1.

Mene is the passive participle of menah, to number and means not only to count, but also to fix the limit of speaking of end or finish or expiration. According to the divine principle that when men sow to the flesh they shall reap corruption, this king and his kingdom's number is up!

2.

Tekel is a passive participle, the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew root shaqal, and means to weigh. The idea is that Belshazzar has been put in the balances of God and weighed or tested to see if he balances to God's standards. (cf. 1 Samuel 2:3; Job 31:6; Psalms 62:9; Proverbs 16:2). He does not!

3.

Peres: Pharsin is the plural form of peres; u is the customary form of the conjunction and. It means to break or divide. There may be in the word peres an allusion to the word paras which means Persian. So it is revealed to Daniel that this kingdom is to be divided up and given to the Medes and the Persians.

Leupold notes, This sequence: Medes-' first, then -Persians,-' indicates a point of historical accuracy that fits in beautifully with the idea of Daniel's authorship of the book. The supremacy in this dual kingdom remained but a short time with the Medes and that while Daniel was still on the scene, and then passed permanently to the Persians, a fine point that a writer who lived in the Maccabean age would hardly have thought of recording. Yet the form upharsin, -Persians,-' gives the emphasis to the much longer Persian supremacy.

Daniel 5:29-30. IN THAT NIGHT BELSHAZZAR THE CHALDEAN KING WAS SLAIN. Daniel refused the rewards of the king before he made his revelation of the words upon the wall because he wanted to make it abundantly clear that, come what may, he was determined to declare the truth. It now being clear that he had no mercenary motives, there is no reason why the gifts should at this time be refused.

How did Belshazzar die? He was slain! But by whom? Daniel does not say. Daniel 5:30-31 may or may not be separated by an extended time, so far as we know. Actually, Daniel 5:31 should be Daniel 5:1 of the sixth chapter, and Edward J. Young so treats it. However, Boutflower believes that Jeremiah (in Jer. Chapter s 50-51) foretells Babylon's demise by strategem (Jeremiah 50:24); that this strategem is connected with her water-defences (51-36); that the city will be taken with such surprise the reeds will be burned with fire (Jeremiah 51:32); that this stratagem will be executed when a great feast is going on, at which all the principal men of the land are gathered together. and they will be drunken (Jeremiah 51:39; Jeremiah 51:57). Now it is evident that Daniel does not give any details about the seizure of the city of Babylon by the Medes and the Persians. But Daniel's silence does not necessarily contradict the trustworthy accounts of other ancient historians!

When we investigate the ancient historians (Herodotus who is believed to have visited Babylon only some 80 years after its downfall; Xenophon who wrote his history about 100 years after Herodotus visited Babylon; Berossus, a Chaldean priest who wrote a history about 300 B.C.; The Nabonidus Chronicle; and the Cyrus Cylinder) here is what we find:

a.

According to Herodotus, Cyrus (the Persian king) was a long time in preparing for the siege of Babylon, and the Babylonians advanced to meet him. Being defeated, they retreated and barricaded themselves inside their city walls. Eventually, Cyrus diverted the waters of the Euphrates so that his troops could march into the city by the bed of the stream when the water was shallow. The city fell when a festival was being celebrated.

b.

Xenophon mentions the diverting of a stream which flowed through Babylon. Then, one night when the Babylonians were observing a festival with drinking and revelry, Cyrus turned aside the course of the river and entered the city. The entrance was actually made by Gobryas (or Ugbaru), one of Cyrus-' generals. Bobryas entered the royal palace and slew the wicked king Belshazzar. Xenophon represents the Babylonians as being extremely hostile to Cyrus.

c.

Berossus writes that Nabonidus (father of Belshazzar and co-regent) met the approaching Cyrus and being defeated, fled to Borsippa. Cyrus then captured Babylon and tore down is walls. Nabonidus surrendered and was sent to Carmania where he lived in exile, supported by a small pension from the Persians, until he died.

d.

The Nabonidus Chronicle mentions that in the month Tishri (October) Cyrus fought and destroyed the people of Akkad at Ophis on the Tigris river; on the 14th day he captured Sippar without fighting. Nabonidus fled; on the 16th day Gobryas (Ugbaru), the governor of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus without fighting entered Babylon. This chronicle is one of the multitudinous clay tablets found in Asshurbanipal's library by Rassam and Layard and is sometimes called the Annalistic Tablet. The tablet measures 4 inches by 3½in four columns, two on the obverse and two on the reverse. The tablet is of sun-dried clay and it is no wonder that considerable portions of it are illegible. The record breaks off at a point of deep interestthe burial of Belshazzar and the installation of Gabaru as his successor (whom Whitcomb suggests was the mysterious Darius the Mede of Daniel 5:31 ff.) A translation of a portion of this chronicle may be read in Boutflower, pages 126-127.

e.

The Cyrus Cylinder, written evidently by a priest of Merodach, who must have come into contact with some of the Hebrew captives at Babylon, since his style and tone of thought are Hebraistic (one of the most Hebraistic which have come from Babylonia to Assyria), also states that Cyrus entered Babylon without encounter or battle. The great theme of the Cylinder is that Cyrus is the chosen of Merodach, and that Merodach has given him the empire of Babylon.

Note now the points of agreement: (1) A preliminary battle between the Medo-Persian coalition and the Babylonians fought, according to the Chronicle at Opis; according to Herodotus fought at a short distance from the city; (2) The statement as to the death of the king's son (Belshazzar) on the night of the capture of Babylon in the Nabonidus Chronicle would seem to agree with Daniel 5:30; (3) The statement that the attack on the palace was led by Ugbaru (Gobryas), who, according to Xenophon, was one of the two leaders of the attacking party. Xenophon speaks of Gobryas as the Babylonian governor of a wide district (Gutim), who had been very badly treated by the Babylonian king and had gone over to the side of Cyrus; (4) According to the Cylinder, Cyrus held a great reception after the capture of Babylonthis agrees with the statement of Xenophon that very soon after the taking of the city Cyrus admitted to his presence the Babylonians, who flocked around him in overwhelming numbers.

Here then is a summary of the fall of perhaps the richest, most magnificent empire of antiquity. As far as we know from the Greek historians, the siege was not a bloody one. After the preliminary battle fought near Opis, the Babylonians retreated within their walls, and continued their busy commercial life, scoffing at the efforts of their beseigers, who, under pretense of raising up an earthen wall of siege encircling the city, were steadily and thoroughly preparing the strategem of diverting the river which enabled them to gain an entrance into the part of the city still unconquered. There was thus no fighting till the last fatal night, when all was sudden, sharp, and soon over. As the sequel shows, whether told by Xenophon or recorded on the Cylinder, Cyrus did his best to conciliate the inhabitants, and they for their part responded heartily to his efforts. Hence it was possible for the official documents to emphasize these facts and to represent the entry of Cyrus into Babylon as a peaceful one. And indeed it was, except for that single night of carnage, when the impious Belshazzar was slain. Cyrus then evidently crowned Cambyses, his son as co-ruler of all the Persian domain and gave him the honor of burying the slain Belshazzar while he appointed Gubaru (Darius the Mede) (see notes on Daniel 5:31)as governor of Babylon. Having set this part of his vast empire in order, Cyrus took his generals and his army off to other worlds to conquer.

Daniel 5:31 AND DARIUS THE MEDE RECEIVED THE KINGDOM. Who is Darius the Mede? John C. Whitcomb, Jr., in his very important book entitled Darius, The Mede, published by Eerdmans, contends that mistakes were made in translation of the Nabonidus Chronicle when two different names in this Chronicle were both translated Gobryas. One name (on line 15) was Ugbaru, the governor of Gutium, who entered Babylon with the army of Cyrus and conquered the city. On lines 19-20 of the same Chronicle is the name Gubaru, who appointed satraps. In line 22 Ngbaru is said to have died. It is Mr. Whitcomb's suggestion that Ugbaru was indeed Gobryas who conquered the city in the name of Cyrus, but it was Gubaru who had been appointed governor of Babylon and beyond the River, and who is one and the same person as Daniel's Darius of Daniel 5:31. Gubaru (Darius) was governor of Babylon and the River beyond on the very day that Cyrus first set foot in the conquered city, which was on October 29 (seventeen days after its conquest by Ugbaru or Gobryas), and he continued in that position throughout the reign of Cyrus and through more than half the subsequent reign of Cambyses the son of Cyrus, The great prominence given to Darius the Mede (Gubaru) in the book of Daniel is more readily explained if we assume his identification with a person by the name of Gubaru whose reign extended not only over a period of three weeks (the time within which Ugbaru was dead after capturing Babylon) or even a year, but of fourteen years (539-525 B.C.)!

The cuneiform signs for Ug and Gu are quite different, and could not possibly have been confused by the Persian scribe whose text (the Nabonidus Chronicle) we now possess.
Thus it is Mr. Whitcomb's conclusion that there is one person in history, and only one, who fits all the Biblical data concerning Darius the Mede. He is never mentioned by the Greek historians, but appears in various sixth century B.C. cuneiform texts under the name of Gubaru.
Listed below are the various cuneiform references to Gubaru, the Governor of Babylon and the Region beyond the River, in chronological order:

539 B.C., October 29 (3rd day of Marcheswan, Accession Year of Cyrus)Nabonidus Chronicle, Col. III, Line 20.
535/534 B.C. (4th Year of Cyrus)Pohl 43, 45, 46.
533/532 B.C. (6th Year of Cyrus)Tremayne 56:5, 92.4.
532/531 B.C. (7th Year of Cyrus)Contenau 142.
531/530 B.C. (8th Year of Cyrus)Tremayne 70:5, Phol 61.
530/529 B.C. (Accession Year of Cambyses)Dougherty 103:11; Keiser 169:22; Niles & Keiser 114:15.
529/528 B.C. (1st Year of Cambyses)Strassmaier 96:3, 4, 8; Clay 20:13, 14, 15.
528/527 B.C. (2nd Year of Cambyses)Contenau 150, 152; Dougherty 120:3, 14; Tremayne 127:12, 128:19.

527/526 B.C. (3rd Year of Cambyses)Tremayne 137:22, 160:12.
526/525 B.C. (4th Year of CambysesTremayne 168:8, 172:13; Pinches Text.
525/524 B.C. (5th Year of Cambyses)Tremayne 177:9, 178:16; Contenau 168.

QUIZ

1.

In what language were the words probably written upon the wall of the king's banquet hall?

2.

What is the meaning of Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin?

3.

Describe the final conquest of the city of Babylon.

4.

Who is Darius the Mede?