The Queen's Memory and the King's Folly Text: Daniel 5:10-12
Introduction: The Bankruptcy of Paganism
We come now to a moment of high drama in the courts of Babylon. A disembodied hand has just finished writing on the wall, and the greatest empire on earth is in a state of collective panic. The king, Belshazzar, who moments before was the very picture of arrogant, blasphemous power, has had his face drained of all its color. His thoughts are in turmoil, his limbs have gone slack, and his knees are knocking together. His wise men, his conjurers, his Chaldeans, have all been summoned, and they are, to a man, utterly useless. They are impotent. They cannot read the writing.
This is what the bankruptcy of a pagan worldview looks like when God decides to call in the debt. For all their accumulated knowledge, for all their supposed access to the spiritual realm, for all their charts and incantations, they are struck dumb. Why? Because their entire system is a fraud. It is a closed loop, a house of mirrors. They are men talking to themselves in the dark. When God, the true and living God, decides to speak, their entire vocabulary becomes obsolete. Their wisdom is revealed to be the very pinnacle of foolishness.
The scene is one of complete masculine failure. The king and all his nobles, the men who run the empire, are undone by a few words they cannot read. Their authority has evaporated. Their bravado is gone. They are terrified children. And into this vacuum of competence and courage steps a woman. The queen, likely the queen mother, enters the scene not with panic, but with a memory. And that memory is the key that will unlock the entire situation. In a room full of powerful but useless men, it is a woman's remembrance of true spiritual power that points the way forward. This is a profound lesson for us. When a culture's masculine leadership gives itself over to decadence and folly, as ours has, do not be surprised when God uses unexpected means to remind them of where true strength is to be found.
The Text
The queen entered the banquet hall because of the words of the king and his nobles; the queen answered and said, “O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts alarm you or the splendor of your face be changed. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is a spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father, illumination, insight, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, set him as chief of the magicians, conjurers, Chaldeans, and diviners. This was because an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and insight, interpretation of dreams, explanation of enigmas, and solving of difficult problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Let Daniel now be summoned, and he will declare the interpretation.”
(Daniel 5:10-12 LSB)
A Woman's Counsel (v. 10)
We begin with the entrance of the queen.
"The queen entered the banquet hall because of the words of the king and his nobles; the queen answered and said, 'O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts alarm you or the splendor of your face be changed.'" (Daniel 5:10)
The first thing to note is her composure. The king is a wreck, and his lords are in the same condition. But the queen enters, hears the commotion, and speaks with clarity and purpose. She is not there as a usurper. She begins with the customary, respectful address: "O king, live forever!" This is not the language of a feminist coup. This is the language of a wise counselor, a true helpmeet, who sees the man in authority floundering and brings him the aid he desperately needs. She is not seeking to take his authority, but rather to buttress it with wisdom he has forgotten.
She immediately addresses his fear. "Do not let your thoughts alarm you." She identifies the source of his terror, it is internal. His own thoughts are betraying him. The external writing has triggered an internal collapse. This is always how God's judgment works. It doesn't just confront us from the outside; it dismantles us from the inside. Belshazzar's problem is not just the graffiti on his wall; it is the fact that he has no theological grid, no foundation, with which to process it. He is spiritually defenseless. The queen's counsel is to stop the panic and listen to a solution. She is a voice of sanity in a room full of madness.
A Forgotten History (v. 11)
Next, the queen reminds the king of a resource he has willfully ignored.
"There is a man in your kingdom in whom is a spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father, illumination, insight, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, set him as chief of the magicians, conjurers, Chaldeans, and diviners." (Daniel 5:11 LSB)
Notice how she describes Daniel. She is a pagan, and so she uses pagan terminology: "a spirit of the holy gods." She doesn't have the precise theological vocabulary of a covenant member, but she recognizes the genuine article when she sees it. She knows that what Daniel possesses is not of this world. It is qualitatively different from the parlor tricks of the court magicians. She lists his qualities: illumination, insight, and wisdom. This is not just cleverness. This is supernatural understanding.
She then appeals to the authority of Belshazzar's own father, Nebuchadnezzar. She drives the point home by repeating it: "your father, your father the king." This is a subtle but sharp rebuke. You, Belshazzar, are not living up to the standard set by your own father. Nebuchadnezzar, for all his faults, was a man who eventually learned to recognize and honor the God of the Hebrews. He had his own terrifying encounter with God's sovereignty, was humbled to the point of eating grass like an ox, and was restored only after he acknowledged that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. And it was this Nebuchadnezzar who promoted Daniel, putting him in charge of the very "wise men" who now stand before Belshazzar, completely baffled.
The implication is damning. The solution to your problem has been in your kingdom all along, but you, in your arrogant folly, have forgotten him. You have let the greatest spiritual asset of the empire languish in obscurity. Decadent sons often squander the wisdom earned by their fathers. Belshazzar inherited the throne, but he did not inherit the hard-won humility of Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted the power without the piety, the kingdom without the King of kings.
The Resume of a Man of God (v. 12)
The queen concludes by giving a detailed account of Daniel's qualifications.
"This was because an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and insight, interpretation of dreams, explanation of enigmas, and solving of difficult problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Let Daniel now be summoned, and he will declare the interpretation." (Daniel 5:12 LSB)
This is the resume of a man filled with the Spirit of God, even if the pagans can only describe it as an "extraordinary spirit." Look at the list of his capabilities. He interprets dreams, which is to say he understands God's symbolic language. He explains enigmas, meaning he can unravel things that are twisted and dark. He solves difficult problems, literally "untying knots." This is a picture of divine wisdom bringing clarity and order to chaos and confusion. The Babylonian wise men can only stare at the knot. Daniel, because he serves the God who spoke reality into existence, can untie it.
The queen even remembers Daniel's Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, given to him by Nebuchadnezzar. This shows how thoroughly Daniel was integrated into the court's memory, even if the current king had forgotten him. She concludes with a simple, direct command that is also a statement of faith: "Let Daniel now be summoned, and he will declare the interpretation." There is no doubt in her mind. While the professional wise men have failed, she knows the man of God will succeed. This is the testimony that a long life of faithfulness creates. Daniel's reputation for competence and divine insight was so solid that even in his old age, after years of being sidelined, the queen mother knew he was the only one who could solve the crisis.
Conclusion: The Church as the Queen's Memory
What does this scene have to do with us? Everything. We are living in Belshazzar's feast. Our leaders are drunk on their own power, toasting their own accomplishments with the consecrated vessels of a Christian heritage they openly despise. They are arrogant, decadent, and spiritually blind. And now, the writing is on the wall for them. Our civilization is seeing signs and portents that it cannot read. The economy is shaking, the culture is fracturing, the political order is unstable, and their wise men, their economists, their sociologists, their talking heads, are all as useless as Belshazzar's conjurers. They cannot read the writing because they do not know the Author.
In this moment of crisis, the Church is called to be the queen mother. We are the repository of a forgotten memory. We are the ones who are supposed to remember "a man in the kingdom," a greater Daniel, Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We are the ones who must stand up in the midst of the panic and say, with calm and respectful confidence, "Do not let your thoughts alarm you. There is a solution. There is one who can untie the knots. There is one who can read the writing."
Our task is to remind a terrified world of the wisdom they have forsaken. We must point them back to the King whom their fathers, in moments of clarity, were forced to acknowledge. We are to be the voice of sanity, the voice of history, the voice of hope in a world that is losing its mind. We must not panic with them. We must not be impressed by their titles or terrified by their fears. We must simply remember what God has done, and remember the man, Christ Jesus, who holds all authority in heaven and on earth. Let them summon Him. He will declare the interpretation.