The King is Dead, Long Live the King Text: Daniel 5:29-31
Introduction: The Speed of Divine Judgment
We live in an age that has forgotten what it means to be weighed. Our culture is drunk on the wine of its own self-importance, feasting from the stolen vessels of a Christian heritage it simultaneously despises and depends upon. Like Belshazzar, modern man believes his own press releases. He thinks his kingdom is secure, his walls are high, and his party will never end. He scoffs at the writing on the wall, and if he bothers to call for an interpreter at all, it is only to domesticate the prophet and make him a part of the court entertainment.
But the God of the prophet Daniel is not a tame God. He is not a celestial butler, waiting to be summoned. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, the Ancient of Days, and His judgments are not slow, not when the cup of iniquity is full. We often think of God's patience as a kind of divine lethargy. We mistake His longsuffering for indifference. But the story of Belshazzar's feast is a stark and terrifying reminder that the divine sentence, once passed, is executed with breathtaking speed. One moment, the king is handing out purple robes and gold chains; the next, he is a corpse. One moment, Babylon is the unquestioned ruler of the world; the next, it has a new master.
This is not just a history lesson about a debauched pagan king. This is a paradigm. It is a pattern for how God deals with all proud and rebellious powers. He gives them rope. He lets them blaspheme. He allows them to reach the pinnacle of their arrogance. And then, in a single night, He brings the entire edifice crashing down. The transition from the height of hubris to the finality of judgment can be measured in hours. This passage shows us the vanity of worldly honors, the finality of divine judgment, and the inexorable advance of God's sovereign decree. What God has written on the wall of history cannot be erased, and what He has purposed will come to pass, right on schedule.
The Text
Then Belshazzar said the word, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck and issued a proclamation concerning him that he now would be the third powerful ruler in the kingdom.
That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed.
So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.
(Daniel 5:29-31 LSB)
The Emptiness of Earthly Rewards (v. 29)
We begin with the king's response to the terrible news:
"Then Belshazzar said the word, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck and issued a proclamation concerning him that he now would be the third powerful ruler in the kingdom." (Daniel 5:29)
Here we see the spiritual blindness of the natural man in its purest form. Belshazzar has just been told that his kingdom is finished, that God has weighed him and found him to be a lightweight, and that his empire is about to be carved up and handed over to the Medes and Persians. His response? He keeps his promise. He gives Daniel a promotion. This is like a man who has just been informed that the plane he is on is going down in flames, and he decides the most pressing business is to ensure the flight attendant gets a good tip.
Belshazzar is a thoroughgoing materialist. He thinks in terms of power, prestige, and position. He promised Daniel these things, and even with the divine death sentence ringing in his ears, he can only think to respond with the currency of his doomed kingdom. He drapes Daniel in purple, the color of royalty, and hangs a chain of gold around his neck. He makes him the third ruler. But what is the value of being the third ruler in a kingdom that will not exist by sunrise? What is the purchasing power of Babylonian gold when the Medo-Persian army is already pouring through the city gates?
This is the folly of every godless system. It offers rewards that are about to expire. The world offers you a corner office on a sinking ship. It gives you a first-class ticket on the Hindenburg. It promotes you to third ruler of Babylon on the very night that Babylon falls. Daniel, for his part, had already told the king to keep his gifts (Dan. 5:17). He was not impressed by the trinkets of a condemned regime. He served the King whose kingdom is everlasting. But Belshazzar, trapped in his pagan worldview, goes through the motions. He is a dead man walking, officiating a meaningless awards ceremony. He is trying to solve a spiritual crisis with a political solution, which is the perennial mistake of the secular state.
The Swiftness of Divine Judgment (v. 30)
The narrative moves with brutal efficiency from the hollow ceremony to the grim reality.
"That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed." (Daniel 5:30 LSB)
Notice the timing: "That same night." There is no delay. There is no appeals process. There is no time for a committee to study the writing on the wall. The party is over. The word of the Lord through His prophet is not a prediction of a distant possibility; it is the announcement of an imminent reality. God's judgments are not like our lumbering judicial systems. When God says "numbered, numbered, weighed, divided," He has already done the math, the scales have already rendered their verdict, and the sword is already falling.
The text is stark and unadorned. "Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed." It does not give us the bloody details, because the details are not the point. The point is the sovereignty and justice of God. The man who, just hours before, was the absolute monarch of the known world, who held the power of life and death, who drank wine from the sacred vessels of God's temple in defiant mockery, is now a cold, dead thing. His pride, his power, and his blasphemy could not save him. He was weighed, found wanting, and discarded.
This is a terrible warning to all who would set themselves up against the Lord and His anointed. God is not mocked. A man, a nation, a civilization can get away with rebellion for a season. But the night always comes. The God who shut the mouths of lions for Daniel is the same God who opened the gates of Babylon for the Persians. He raises up kings and He casts them down. Belshazzar thought he was the master of his fate. He learned, in his final terrifying moments, that he was nothing more than a tenant in God's world whose lease had just expired.
The Certainty of Divine Succession (v. 31)
The chapter concludes not with the chaos of a fallen kingdom, but with the orderly transition of power according to God's sovereign plan.
"So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two." (Daniel 5:31 LSB)
The word "received" is key. Darius did not, in the ultimate sense, conquer the kingdom. He received it. It was handed to him. By whom? By the God who gives the kingdoms of men to whomever He will (Dan. 4:17). The handwriting on the wall had promised that the kingdom would be given to the Medes and Persians, and here we see the fulfillment of that word. History is not a chaotic series of accidents and power grabs. It is the unfolding of God's predetermined plan. The rise and fall of empires is not ultimately determined in war rooms and on battlefields, but in the throne room of heaven.
The mention of Darius's age, sixty-two, is not incidental. It grounds the event in concrete history. This is not a myth or a parable. This is a real kingdom, falling on a real night, and being taken over by a real man of a certain age. God's work is done in space and time. But it also shows us that God's instrument is a man already past his prime. God is not dependent on the strength of young conquerors. He can use a sixty-two-year-old man to receive the greatest empire on earth because the victory is not in the man, but in the God who sent him.
This transfer of power is a crucial step in God's redemptive plan. The fall of Babylon was prophesied by Isaiah and Jeremiah. It was the necessary precondition for the release of the Jews from their exile. The scepter passes from Babylon to Persia, and it will be a Persian king, Cyrus, who will issue the decree for God's people to return and rebuild the temple. God toppled a blasphemous empire in one night, not just to punish a wicked king, but to advance His covenant purposes for His people. He was clearing the way for the next chapter in the story that leads inexorably to the coming of the true King, Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The Writing on Our Wall
It is easy for us to read this story and cluck our tongues at the foolishness of Belshazzar. How could he be so blind? How could he party in the face of such a clear warning? But we must ask ourselves if we are any different. Our entire western civilization is in the midst of a great, drunken feast. We have taken the sacred things of God, the truths of Scripture, the institution of marriage, the sanctity of life, the reality of gender, and we are using them as party cups in our revelry. We are drunk on our technological prowess, our sexual freedoms, and our self-worship.
And the writing is on the wall for us as well. The message is the same: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. God has numbered the days of our godless rebellion. He is weighing our culture, our institutions, our churches, and our own hearts in the balances of His justice. And what does He find? Is He finding weighty faithfulness, or are we coming up light?
The story of Belshazzar ends in judgment, but it does not have to be our story. The reason it does not have to end that way is because another King has come. Jesus Christ, the one who is the substance of all these shadows, entered into the feast of this world. He saw the writing on the wall, the sentence of condemnation that stood against us. But instead of watching the kingdom fall, He took the judgment upon Himself. He was the one who was killed, not for his own sin, but for ours. He went into the darkness of that night so that we could be brought into the light of an everlasting kingdom.
Therefore, the question for us is this: in which kingdom are you investing? Are you chasing the purple robes and gold chains of this present, passing age? Or have you, like Daniel, set your face toward the unshakable kingdom of God? The night is coming for every person and every nation. The scales are ready. The only way to not be found wanting is to be found in Christ. He is our weight, He is our righteousness, and He is the King who, having died, rose again. And His kingdom will never be given to another.