By Roy B. Blizzard
The passage for translation this week is found in the book of Daniel. You may not be aware, but much of the book of Daniel is in Aramaic and not Hebrew. This particular passage on which I want to focus is in Aramaic. Although the story is lengthy, I am going to focus just on a passage or two in Daniel 5, starting with Verse 1.
Daniel 5 (KJV)
[1]Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand.…
[5] In the same hour the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.…
[9] Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled, his countenance was changed, and his lords were astonished.…
[25] "And this is the inscription that was written:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
[26] This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; [27] TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; [28] PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."…
[30] That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. [31] And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
Translation with Comments:
"Belshazzar, the King made a great feast to a thousand of his nobles and drank wine before the thousands"…
And, as you will recall in the middle of the feast, fingers of a man’s hand appeared out of no where and wrote something on the plaster of the wall of the King’s palace. Needless to say, it broke up the party. Belshazzar was especially disconcerted because no one could translate what was written.
But, then, someone remembered Daniel and Belshazzar ordered that Daniel be called to declare the interpretation.
Daniel is offered all kinds of gifts and rewards, which he refuses, chastises Belshazzar for his excesses and disobedience and then proceeds to translate the writing.
Translation:
"And this was the writing that was written:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
This is the interpretation of the thing.
MENE – God has numbered your kingdom and it is finished.
TEKEL – You are weighed in the scales and you are found lacking.
PERES – Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians That very night, the kingdom of Babylon fell to Darius the Mede."
This is such an interesting and important passage in more ways than you would suppose.
First, whether you are aware of it or not, for years critics "poo-poo’ed" the whole book of Daniel because of this story of Belshazzar. Why" Because we had the King lists of Assyria and Babylon and there was no Belshazzar mentioned in the King lists as having ever reigned over Babylon. So, they said the whole story must be a fabrication.
The interesting thing about the Bible that makes it different from any other religious document is that it is a historical document. It talks about nations and kingdoms and kings and countries and mountains and rivers and cities and peoples, etc., and these things can be documented by the facts of history or the findings of Biblical archaeology. In no other religious document is that the case.
In recent months, much has been said about the Koran, which means, in Arabic, recitations. It is the religious document of millions of people in the world today who are known as Moslems and the religious system known as Islam, which means submission.
The Koran also contains bits and pieces of information that can be either confirmed or negated by historical facts. I will give just one example and illustration and I could cite many such examples. From Sura II C-48, page 51 of the Yusuf Ali translation published by Amana Corp., 1983.
"Abraham was a righteous man of God, a Muslem and so were his children. Abraham and Ishma’il (Ishmael) built the Ka’ba as the house of God and purified it to be a center of worship for all the world."
The commentary at the bottom of the passage footnote 121, notes that,
"Abraham and Ishmael together built the House of God in Mecca long before the temple of Jerusalem was built. They purified it and laid the foundation of the universal religion, which is summed up in the word Islam, or complete submission to the will of God. Abraham and Ishmael were thus true Moslems. Historically, the temple at Mecca must have been a far more ancient place of worship than the temple of Jerusalem."
Just as a side note, Islam declares that Abraham was going to offer Ishmael on the altar rather than Isaac and that together, Abraham and Ishmael built and dedicated the Kaba.
Of course, the date for Abraham is somewhere around the 18th century BCE. The story of the origin of the Kaba is surrounded in myth and legend. Like other shrines in Arabia, it was part of a sacred area where intertribal fighting was forbidden. It was at the center of a cult involving the worship of 360 idols and the presiding deity was Hubal. Three goddesses described in the Koran as the daughters of Allah; Allat, Uzza and Manat, were worshipped in the vicinity.
There are, in fact, many historical references pointing to the legendary background of much of what appears in the Koran as history.
The same could be said of the Book of Mormon, which has little or nothing in the document that can be substantiated by history or archaeology.
But, not so with the Biblical text. And this passage in Daniel is a prime example.
In the archaeological excavation of Babylonia and Assyria, many historical documents were found that relate to Biblical events or individuals mentioned in the Biblical text. In those findings was a tablet that is known today as the Chronicle of Nabonidus. He is mentioned in the chronicles as the last king of Babylonia (556-539), the exact time that Belshazzar is said to have reigned. In that chronicle, we learned much about Nabonidus; that he was something of a visionary or religious zealot who attempted to resurrect the worship of the ancient moon godess, Sin. In that chronicle of Nabonidus, we are told that while he was away from the palace, his son, Belshazzar, reigned in his stead. And…in one fell swoop, the historicity of the Book of Daniel and Belshazzar was validated.
We know more about Nabonidus from the writings of Josephus, who tells us in Apion 1:153 that after the fall of Babylon, Nabonidus was treated kindly by Cyrus of Medo-Persia.
Although there are certainly questions that can be raised about other events and/or personages mentioned in the Biblical text, basically one can say that, given time, the continuing historical and archaeological investigations ongoing in the lands of the Bible tends to verify and substantiate the information contained in the Biblical text. That is what makes it different from all other religious documents.
