Study # 1
November 20, 2022
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: God's resistance of the proud resulted in the death of the king and the dissolution of the Babylonian Empire.
Introduction: We have said in previous studies that Daniel had a specific format for the Book of Daniel that, initially, shows up in his deliberate switch from writing in the language of the Jews in the first chapter to writing in the language of the Babylonians in chapters two through seven, and then reverting to Hebrew in chapters eight through twelve. The handout titled "Literary Structure of Daniel" shows that there is a particular structure in the material written in the language of the Babylonians. That structure is called a "chiasm" and its major significance is that the central material (chapters four and five) is the "point" of the rest of the material. Thus, I have said that the theme of Daniel concerns the biblical statement: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
We have already looked at the first half of this chiasm: chapters two through four. Our study for this evening concerns the beginning of a study of the last half of this chiasm. The first half was the "milder" half where some "hope" is revealed because of God's dealings with Nebuchadnezzar. This second half is much more severe.
- I. The Background.
- A. Chapter five is the record of the last night of the reign of Babylonian kings (538 B.C.).
- 1. It is clearly out of chronological order as we see from 5:30 and 7:1 so we conclude that the material is arranged according to the theme revealed in the handout.
- 2. The reference to Belshazzar's "father" as Nebuchadnezzar was not technically accurate in that Nabonidus was his actual "father", but it was a form of the identification of his lineage.
- B. The city as described by Herodotus.
- 1. Fourteen miles square.
- 2. Walls 350 feet high and 87 feet thick at the base.
- 3. Outer wall with a moat behind it and an inner wall behind the moat.
- 4. The river Euphrates ran through the city, entering under the walls at one point and exiting under the walls after flowing through the city.
- 5. Stored provisions that would last for 20 years.
- C. The political situation.
- 1. Nabonidus was the "king" and Belshazzar was "co-regent" with him, being his son.
- 2. Nabonidus had left the city to confront the armies of the Medes and Persians and was defeated so that those armies besieged Babylon.
- 3. Belshazzar did not know that those armies had been digging a diversion from the river to a marsh so that the river could be diverted from its river bed under the walls of the city.
- 4. He was attempting to prop up the morale of his leaders by having a lavish party.
- D. The theological situation.
- 1. Behlshazzar decided to taunt the God of the Jews by bringing out the vessels of the temple in Jerusalem in order to drink from them.
- 2. God decided to respond with a terrifying riddle written by a lone hand upon the wall of the place where the king's throne was set.
- II. The Significance Of The Chapter.
- A. It signaled the beginning of the fulfillment of God's revelation of the progress of human imperialism.
- B. It revealed God's particular intervention in human history so that the kingdom was transferred to Darius the Mede.
- C. It revealed a special case of divine resistance to the proud and its deadly impact because of the wilfulness of the king.
