“And you his descendant, O Belshazzar, you have not humbled your heart; though you knew all this. But you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you, and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine in them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor know. And the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.”
With brave and powerful words Daniel stood before the distressed monarch with words that at any other time would have ensured his own death, and pointed out that he had done things even worse than those done by Nebuchadnezzar.
He was without excuse. He knew what had happened to his grandfather. And yet he had not learned his lesson. Instead of being humble before the God of heaven he had deliberately blasphemed His name, he had arrogantly and deliberately appropriated what was His in order to insult Him, and had not only allowed his inebriated courtiers, wives and concubines to drink wine from them, but had used them for the worship of mindless, blind, deaf images made of earthly metals by man.
The implication is that these gods were thus in contrast to the Lord of heaven, He Who was the living God, Who was the source of men's breath, He Who heard and saw all things. And He with His all seeing eye and all hearing ear had seen and heard what Belshazzar had done. His crime was greater far than Nebuchadnezzar's. And yet what folly. It had all been against the One Who held his life in His hands, the One Who had given him breath and could just as easily take it away, and he had done it in order to worship those who could do neither. What then could he expect this message to mean?
We must see these words as intended to make him repent, even at this late moment, otherwise why torment him with them? Perhaps he had a special feeling for this wayward son of his great friend. And they were also meant for his lords, and for the wives and concubines. All would soon stare death in the eyes, and all needed to seek the mercy of the God of heaven. Although they did not know it, for many of them this was to be their last chance.
And this also all applies to us who read these words, who constantly forget that we are faced with the living God, and that the things of this world and the things we often worship are as nothing. For us too one day there will be the writing on the wall, and for some, sooner than we might think.