40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Daniel 5:1-31 (Episode 514)

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

King Belshazzar has a great feast, and the hand of God crashes the party. Daniel is tasked with interpreting the handwriting on the wall. And this isn't the only time the finger of God carves out words of law. Have a listen. More from 1517: ·       Support the work at 1517 ·       1517 on Youtube ·       1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts ·       1517 Events Schedule ·       1517 Academy - Free Theological Education   New Books from 1517 Publishing: ·       The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco ·       Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz ·       By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas ·       Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith   More from the hosts: ·       Daniel Emery Price ·       Chad Bird   Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook

What would happen if Aslan came bounding out of Narnia and began teaching your confirmation class or Bible study? What if Martin Luther could have traveled from Wittenberg through the wardrobe all while writing the Small Catechism? Hi, this is Pastor Sam Schuldeis, author of the latest book from 1517, Luther and the Lion, a Narnian Catechism. This book weaves together the imagination of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the instruction of Martin Luther's Small Catechism. Two great authors, two classic books One epic true story of good news for you in Jesus The true untamed Lion of Judah

Who is full of grace and goodness You can order your copy today at 1517.org Forward slash shop Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast You can go to 1517.org slash podcast Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing

You can support the work by becoming a donor to the cause You can sign up for some academies You can buy some books There's so much for you to do And we appreciate everyone who is, you know, poking around the website and checking out the materials. We encourage you to continue to do that. Chad, we are in Daniel chapter 5. We just got through chapter 4.

A little bit of a turn here coming, so we're going to fast forward a little bit. It would have been weird to end 4 and start 5 in the same episode because there's, you know, this week or whatever it is in between those episodes. you need to think of as a little bit longer than a week. It's been a little more than a week since you've heard from us. Yeah, it's been a few. It's been a few. It's been a few. So what is it that happened in the last episode?

Well, you got Nebuchadnezzar roaming around like a beast. That's what happened. You know, he had a dream. Daniel said, this dream is not great for you in the short term, but kind of good for you in the long term. So it turns out that God's going to humble you, which is good, but it probably won't be that enjoyable while you're going through it. And so Nebuchadnezzar is out there with his fingernails long and his hair long,

and he's out there acting like a wild animal out of his mind until that humility is really set in, it's really taken root. And then he says, hey, and then my reason came back to me, and he comes back and he glorifies God, and that's kind of it. yeah yeah that's a which is a i mean it's a great ending right those who walk in pride god is able to humble and uh he definitely was definitely was humbled those who walk in pride god is able to humble oh that's this is most certainly true this is most certainly true yeah proved not only by scripture but by a lot of experience mine mine included yeah now you would think if uh if

everything that we just, you know, just heard about was known in the kingdom. And it certainly would have been that, oh, let's say, you know, a future ruler of Babylon, knowing that these things happened to King Nebuchadnezzar, would also not want to repeat the same mistakes, right? He's like, oh, I see what happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he walked in pride. God humbled him in a very memorable and painful sort of way. Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to walk down that path. But as we shall see, that is exactly what a later co-regent, co-king named Belshazzar did. So we're going to hear about how God deals with him in chapter five. So yeah, some time has passed. I mean, we're probably around a quarter century has passed from the end of the previous chapter

with everything we heard about Nebuchadnezzar being a beast. Now what's going to happen with with Belshazzar. So we're in about 539 BC, and Nebuchadnezzar died in 562. We've had about three rulers in between Nebuchadnezzar and the guy that we're dealing with now. Actually, what's going on, you have Nabonidus, who's the king. But for about the last decade of his reign, he shared that with his son Belshazzar. So we're not going to hear about Nabonidus. We are going to hear about Belshazzar. So he's kind of, you can think of him as the co-regent, the co-king. He's helping out with his father. And everything that's about to happen here is going to happen right on the cusp of, literally on the cusp of Babylon's being conquered by the Persians and the Babylonian

kingdom basically coming to an end. So this is the last night of the kingdom of Babylon that we're going to hear about in chapter 5. In fact, we know from even sources outside the scriptures that on the final night before Babylon was conquered, that there was this drinking feast that was taking place. And that's precisely what's going to be recorded here for us in Daniel chapter 5. Yeah, it's also interesting. I think that a lot of times, this is probably just based on Sunday school, and it just holds over, just based on children's Bible books and felt boards and whatever. But even in my mind, this is why I say it holds over, even when I think about, oh, I don't know, Daniel in the lion's den, I think of someone younger than me,

which is most certainly not the case. Because even if Daniel was a pretty young man at the beginning of this book he's not young now oh yeah yeah some time has passed he's a he's a gray beard like i am or or significantly older than i am for sure but yeah i mean all the all the sunday school stuff you picture daniel when this is happening or certainly with the lions dead he's like 25 or something no you know add a few decades to those uh felt boards if you want to picture actually what Daniel looked like. So we've heard about how God is kind of dealing with these kings, Nebuchadnezzar for sure. We're about to hear how he deals with Belshazzar. And then at the very end of chapter five, we're going to get introduced to a guy named Darius, and we'll have to talk about

the history behind him and the debate with regard to who this is. But in all these chapters, we have God doing kind of the same sort of thing, right? He's dealing with these, in this case, Babylonian and then Persian rulers. And notice that in every one of these situations, he also has his Israelites. He's got his faithful that are being used by him in different sorts of ways to rebuke or to instruct or to guide these Gentile rulers. And of course, this is the same kind of thing that we see happening already in Genesis, right? When you have Joseph elevated to the right hand of Pharaoh,

So sort of the same thing that you have happening with Esther, but certainly the same thing you have happening with Mordecai, who becomes basically the chief vizier, the grand vizier, the right-hand man of the Persian ruler. So all these situations are kind of under the big theme of God blessing all the nations through his people, which is kind of a foreshadowing of the great blessing that God is going to give to all the nations through his chosen seed, the Messiah. So all these are part of kind of the same salvation story. all right so uh to verse verse one in chapter five but king belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand this is no small gathering you got a bunch of people there the king is there they're gonna have we'll hear more about it in just a minute but this great feast you got a lot of a lot of wine being consumed and the important of thing to keep in mind, if you're picturing this, is that they're inside the great city of

Babylon, which they probably think is impregnable. There's no way anybody's getting into Babylon. But outside those city walls are armies that are ready to attack, ready to conquer the city. But inside, people are eating and drinking, feasting, drinking wine, and doing other things we'll hear about in just a second. All the while on the assumption, the prideful assumption that, ah, nothing's going to happen to us. We're safe and secure inside Babylon, which is protected by our own Babylonian deities. So verse two says, Abel Shazar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the kings and his lords, his wives

and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze iron wood and stone you know i was trying to think of some kind of modern analogy that would be as big a gut punch as something like this would be i mean the most i guess most obvious uh parallel would be somebody uh goes into a church's sacristy they steal all the communion vessels They take it to their house, and they have some big party with scandalous things taking place, and they're using the communion chalice to drink their wine or their beer out of. I mean, that's certainly one possibility.

Well, praising the gods, plural, that made each individual thing. These gods, man, they really can only do one thing. Like the gods of, and then they have this list of things, and you're like, man, it's better just to have one god of all those things. You've got to have a god for each one of these things. These gods are very specific. They are very specific, yeah. I was doing some research into Roman deities last year, and I think it was like the door and the threshold. There were like five different deities associated with the doorway.

But the Romans were like that. They would invest divinity in all kinds of natural things, gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, stone, you name it. They had a God for it. So this is not just kind of a, oh, we're running out of cups. Why don't you go grab some from the cupboard? It just so happens that they found these golden vessels that have been taken out of the temple in Jerusalem. This is a quite purposeful flaunting of the supposed superiority of the Babylonian deities, because the gods of Babylon had empowered the Babylonians, so the thinking goes, to conquer the Israelites. And so this is, at the same time, throwing shade on the God of Israel and then praising the gods of the Babylonians.

And so it's doubly deadly, the things that are going on here. It's both blasphemy as well as idolatry that's happening as they do this. So the stage is set for then one of the creepiest things that's ever recorded in Scripture, which begins with verse 5. Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. I just love that description. You think he's scared? I think he is.

Is that where we get the term, like, knee-knocking? Yeah, it must be. It must be, yeah. It's hard to imagine an older reference. yeah uh so yeah so from this chapter alone we get two english expressions that are just kind of you know taking on a life of their own the handwriting's on the wall i mean you hear that all the time right the writing's on the wall yeah handwriting's on the wall and then yeah your your knees are knocking i know the handwriting of the wall is you know obviously from this but i yeah i expect uh the uh the king james translation probably popularized the same expression

so uh you know he's scared obviously so what's he do verse seven tells us the king called loudly to bring in the enchanters the chaldeans the astrologers and the king declared to the wise men of babylon this sounds this all sounds very familiar doesn't it yeah yeah we've uh we've heard this in previous generations with with nebuchadnezzar he the king declared to the wise men of babylon whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom well all the king's men came in but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation then king belshazzar was greatly alarmed and his color changed and his

lords were perplexed so yeah everyone's uh in a state of shock and confusion and fear all all molded together. By the way, just kind of a side note to this, he promises that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. This is one of these details that's significant because it's indicative of the fact that Daniel knew what he was talking about. There was a time, in fact, when people doubted the historical presence of someone called Belshazzar. Well, and then his name was discovered in writings from Babylon and like, oh, I guess he really did exist. And we also know, as I mentioned earlier, that he was the co-regent with his dad, Nabonidus. And so when he promises that anyone who can read and interpret this will be the third ruler in the kingdom, well, that is historically

verifiable because that would be the third one, Nabonidus, and then Belshazzar, and then whoever is able to read and interpret these words. It's a bit of a mystery as to why they couldn't read and interpret them. The writing evidently is Aramaic, so that would not be a problem. Aramaic was the language that was used in Babylon. It was the lingua franca all over the Roman world. The interpretation, of course, is quite another matter. So either the reading and interpretation is just kind of understood to be one activity or perhaps for some reason they were just kept from kind of putting things together and being able to read this in a proper way they certainly didn't know what the interpretation was to be though one thing that's interesting is there's a there's a

number of times uh in scripture uh because i always think about you know if i'm if i'm doing like some real incarnational theology god has a hand and you know it belongs to jesus and he's got eyes and they belong to jesus and he's got a back that you know that moses sees and it belongs to jesus and all this kind of stuff but uh the hand uh writing uh god does this like very literally where he writes with his hand. So you think about carving, you know, the Ten Commandments into tablets of stone with your finger, right? So God writes with his hand.

You have this, like the handwriting, carving stuff into the wall. And you might be like, what is that? Like, whose hand is that, and how does it work? But I think that Jesus, when he gets down with the woman caught in adultery, and then he starts this writing in the dirt, like clues you in on like whose finger it is that does all this writing. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's exactly it, too.

And he cast out demons by the finger of God. That reference there, too. Yeah. Yeah, it's a hand of Christ, which here appears to write quite the judgment against Belshazzar. Well, it is interesting because, like, you know, in that example, when the Pharisees are basically, you know, asking Jesus, hey, you have anything to say? It's almost as if Jesus says, well, when I have something really important to say, I just write it and I just carve it into things with my finger. You see this hand? Yeah.

you've you've read about this hand in the scriptures before yeah that's right yeah so uh we're gonna have to we have to get somebody in here who's gonna be able to read and to interpret uh this this particular message so uh that's going to introduce the queen which is verse 10 the queen this could be this is probably the queen mother so this is probably belshazzar's mother uh the word could be translated either way the queen or the queen mother so this is probably the wife of Nabonidus, a little bit older. And of course, she therefore maybe has a little bit longer memory than her son does. The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall.

And the queen declared, O king, live forever. Don't let your thoughts alarm you or your color change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. We've heard that before. in the days of your father and your father understood here in kind of a generic sense because if uh he wasn't his biological father nebuchadnezzar but he was his paternal uh king in the sense of you know he comes in this in this line from nebuchadnezzar so don't understand that

strictly speaking biologically in the days of your father or your ancestor we might say Light and understanding and wisdom Like the wisdom of the gods Were found in him And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father Your father the king Made him chief of the magicians, enchanters Chaldeans and astrologers

Because an excellent spirit Knowledge and understanding to interpret dreams Explain riddles and solve problems Were found in this And now she's finally going to name him In this Daniel Whom the king named Belshazzar now let Daniel be called and he will show the interpretation it does make you wonder if Daniel's

just like so the thing happens with Nebuchadnezzar this is I mean this happens a lot I guess new king rolls in and you're just hanging out after that like I mean this guy doesn't know you in the same way or whatever and so you have no idea what Daniel's been doing he's just been around yeah i guess so i mean he's he's one of these that he sticks around for a very very long time uh i mean he's there as a probably as a teenager when he's first brought over and he's through the reign of nebuchadnezzar i mean we don't know what he was doing in the other three kings who uh who filled the throne but he's still there at least some people still know him And someone asked him, so what is it that you do?

Every 30 years or so, they need someone to interpret something, and I'm that guy. Yeah, this is probably a terrible analogy, but it's kind of like Creed in The Office. I don't know if you were ever an Office fan, but like, what does Creed do? No one really knows, but he's always there. On occasion, he steps forward and he drops some words that may or may not make sense. But Creed is definitely a figure of that office through all those episodes. Yeah, that's Daniel. These Babylonians, by the way, man, they like to draw things out rhetorically.

She's got this long speech. You know, don't worry. I know a guy. And here's a 500-word description of him before I ever get around to dropping his name, Daniel. So they do like their rhetorical flourishes. The queen as well as the king. I mean, like if you were like, didn't you get your house painted or something? And I was like, man, I know a guy.

My father used him, and he's painted all the houses on that block. And then if you go across town, those houses he painted and the paints that he uses, he doesn't use it. And you're like, can I get this guy's name? If you just give his name and phone number, that would be helpful. I don't need the 30-minute introduction before you get to that detail. But yeah, that's definitely a feature of Babylonian rhetoric, evidently. So the queen has, all right, she's dropped the name Daniel. So we got to get Daniel in here now and figure out what in the world this handwriting is all about.

So they find Daniel, verse 13. Daniel's brought in before the king. And the king answered and said to Daniel, you are that Daniel, and I don't think this is an interrogative, I think he's just saying, you're that guy, right? You're the Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king my father brought from Judah. I've heard of you, that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. All right, so far so good. Now, the wise men, the enchanters have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its

interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter. But I've heard that you can give the interpretation and solve problems. Now, if you can read the writing and make known its interpretation, you should be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom so a lot of words basically saying hey i've heard that you you have the gift so use that gift and if you do i'll reward you it's kind of repeating a lot of the stuff that we have we've already heard you know daniel's response to this is one of the the better responses that you can have to something like like you come across seeming like such the man you're basically like

yeah i don't need any of that but this is light work yeah yeah he definitely steals the show with this one he's like uh let your keep let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another that's that's just great yeah just keep gifts or i mean if you're really in a giving mood well you can give it to somebody else i'm just really not but if you want this red it's no big deal yeah i'm not here for that but i'll yeah i'll read the writing and i'll make and i'll let you know it's interpretation yeah he seemed just pretty laid back about it like he he doesn't seem to have the relationship with nebuchadnezzar i mean with with this guy

that he does with Nebuchadnezzar. No. I mean, there's, Belshazzar is young and he didn't even know who Daniel was.

So, no. This is how you also know that Daniel's not young. Daniel's probably just like, man, I'm pretty comfortable. I'm just trying to, I've been laying low. You know,

I'm totally interested in any of this. That's an old, that's something you realize when you get older, like, oh, I don't need any of that. But I mean,

but yeah, I know how to read. That is a problem when you get older. What do you want for Father's Day? What about your birthday? What about Christmas? I'm good. I'm fine.

Take me out to eat. That's all I really want. Give me a good meal and I'll be happy. I don't need your purple or your gold chains or political office or anything. So he's going to do it. Verse 18, O King, a little bit of history first. the most high god gave nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and glory and majesty and because of the greatness that he gave him all peoples nations and languages trembled and feared

before him whom he would he killed and whom he would he kept alive whom he would he raised up and whom he would he humbled but this now this is going to take us back to the previous chapter But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him. That's exactly what we talked about with the previous chapter. And we have more details here. Verse 21. He was driven from among the children of mankind and his mind was made like that of a beast and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox and his body was wet with the dew of heaven

Until, same kind of language you heard in the previous chapter Until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdoms of mankind And sets over it whom he will Alright, so there's your bit of a history lesson About what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar What God did for him, what he did in pride What God did in response And then when he came to the point of repentance, acknowledgement, and lesson, the hard lesson that he learned over that.

He does a couple of things here, too, because one, I mean, as we started this chapter, this guy is doing like something that is, I mean, would you rightly say is like a proud act, which is like, hey, go get all those vessels. Go get all those cups and all that stuff from that stupid, you know, Israel God. Let's drink out of that stuff. because we're awesome, and no one's going to be able to get in here. So it is interesting. He's like, hey, you know, Nebuchadnezzar was kind of like that. Yeah, he did some proud things, and this is how this worked out. And then, of course, he is, as they say, the spirit of the gods or whatever.

You notice that it's not that subtle that he, like, is correcting their polytheism with some monotheism. I'm like, hey, man, there's like there is a most high God and like he decides everything. Yeah. Yeah. You got some theological correction going on here. You've got some very not so implicit rebuke that's already kind of set the stage for what he's about to make explicit in just a minute. So you should know all this is what he's about to say.

Say next verse 22. so having kind of laid all this out you his son belshazzar have not humbled your heart though you knew all this but you have lifted up yourself against the lord of heaven and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you and you and your lords and your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them and you have praised the gods of silver and gold of bronze irons, wood, stone, which do not see or hear or know. But the God in whose hand, oh, that's kind of nice, in whose hand, in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways, him you have not honored. Ooh, that's a, talk about a slap in the face. So you've got, I'm assuming everybody's

still there at the party everybody's freaked out bringing that back bringing daniel he's the expert and uh all he wanted was the interpretation right just give me a read this give me his interpretation daniel like brings a pulpit with him steps up and preaches this uh sermon in which he castigates the pride of king belshazzar it's it's a wonder daniel survives these things yeah well i mean he pretty much preps him and says uh i'm gonna interpret this um based on what i'm seeing right now i wouldn't anticipate good news right like i don't i don't think this is gonna go well nope nope you've set yourself up some for the for the bad news of some pretty heavy law that's gonna strike you in the chest that's the that's the first

thing that you're going to hear. So let's get this message interpreted, which is what's going to happen to verse 24. Then from his presence, the hand was sent. So that's kind of a nice juxtaposition, but the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways, you have not honored. So from his presence, this hand was sent. Very, very nice. And this writing was inscribed. and this is the writing that was inscribed okay so this is a we kind of been teased this whole chapter you know daniel does that a lot doesn't he you know we're told words appeared and here we are in verse 25 before we're actually told what the handwriting on the wall actually said so this is it uh many many or many many however you want to say pronounce that it's repeated same word repeated

twice, tekel and parson. All right. So Aramaic words, four words, but the first is repeated twice. So mene, mene, tekel, parson is the way that you would see this in Aramaic. And this is the interpretation of the matter. First of all, mene or mene, that is formed from the verb for numbering or counting. So, many, many, God has numbered, counted the days of your kingdom, and brought it to an end. I don't know that you need to go beyond that before you realize, oh, okay, this is not what I was really wanting to hear. And the fact that it's repeated, not repeated, so we see it twice, it's like, oh, yeah, for sure. It's at an end. There is no There's no extenuating circumstances which are going to allow this to continue beyond the end.

God is numbered. He's counted the days of your kingdom. And guess what? It's over for good. Secondly, tackle. Why? Because, again, this is a pun off the word to call, which means to weigh. You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

That is so terrifying. I don't know why. to me that is like spooky that's haunting kind of stuff right there like you've been weighed in the balances and found wanting is like only god would say something like that like where you're like that's not good there is something about that maybe it's just it's so graphic and you can picture the the scales yeah put you over here we're gonna put something else over here oh guess what? You're short. Yeah. You, you fall short, like big time found wanting. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but that, uh, that kind of, that kind of image, that kind of judgment just strikes

right in the heart. And then we have one more, which is, uh, Perez, uh, Perez. And there's sort of a twofold things that are going on here because this verb can mean to, to divide, which is how he starts out here, Peres, because your kingdom is divided. And the second part of this is, this is formed from the same root for Persians and given to the Medes and the Persians. So it's a double pun on the word Peres here, both division as well as, well, this Persians. So Mene, Mene, Tekel, Peres, all together, that's a fourfold punch to the face that's going to take him down, take it down hard.

Well, just to kind of wrap this up, let me talk about this some more. Verse 29 was, well, he's going to go ahead and do what he told Daniel, even though Daniel basically refused the gifts. This is like, surely, if I'm to take this as true, uh in your god's guy i mean like this is like a desperate play here where it's like maybe i can make him happy by like really taking care of his guy right like um that's actually a

good that's a that's a that's a good point uh because the natural reaction of a king would be like oh off with his head right yeah especially having him publicly embarrassed him this way but he doesn't yeah so maybe he's gambling on the fact well man if this guy can read and interpret this this well and everything they say about him is true if he's on my team well i don't know maybe i have a chance right i mean i need i need this god to see me honoring his guy right uh maybe that can maybe this can be reversed that's what he does so he we're told he gives the command and And Daniel is decked out with purple, which I think we've talked about this before in other contexts, but purple was the royal color. This was made from a very hard-to-find secretion of sea snails.

And so you had to get tons and tons of this just to have enough dye for one garment. So if you had anything made out of purple, then, yeah, you were either of immense wealth, probably the ancient equivalent of at least a millionaire, if not a billionaire, or you were royalty, or both. So he's clothed with purple. Got a chain of gold put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. which is it's kind of funny because this kingdom is daniel just said uh it's it's over god has numbered the days of your kingdom he's brought it to an end you have been waiting the balances and found wanting your kingdom is divided and it's given to the persians so i sure i mean make me third ruler in the kingdom and i will enjoy all five hours

of the remainder of this kingdom, because the end has arrived. I mean, we're like standing beside an open grave of Babylon, and we're just about to tumble in. And in fact, chapter ends by saying, that very night, Belshazzar the Chaldean was killed, and Darius, Darius, some people pronounce it, Darius Darius, the Mede, received the kingdom, being about 62 years old. So that is the end of Babylon. I was thinking about this, I think it was last week, I was doing some prep work on this chapter, the connection between the three Babylonian destructions, we might say, because you go back to genesis 11 genesis 10 11 where you have babylon you have the the genealogy all of that post-flood stuff going on and of course then you have the tower of babel in that

same context well in hebrew babel and babylon are the same word there's not a word for babel than a word for babylon so the tower of babel could also be called the tower of babylon and of course there what happens well you got arrogance you got human pride and you have god stepping in bringing this to an end the tower remains unfinished and one thing i had never really thought about the end of that tower the end of that that phase of babylon was connected with the inability to understand words they couldn't understand each other right god confused their languages. Well, now fast forward to Daniel chapter five, this is the end of Babylon once more. It's going to fall to the Persians. What happens? Well, you got pride, you got arrogance

happening again. You have God stepping in, bringing it to an end. And the way he does this is once more through language, through words that can't be read or understood until, of course, Daniel. Daniel steps forward. It's kind of a neat time between those two things. And then, of course, Revelation describes the fall of Babylon, not the historical Babylon, but Rome as well as just kind of worldly power in general. And what is, what's the situation of Babylon Revelation? Well, she's, of course, full of pride and arrogance and all manner of vice, and God steps in and brings her down as well. So you got three different falls of Babylon that are described in the scriptures genesis daniel and then of course in revelation all of which of course

are different ways of describing the eventual uh destruction of all of all worldly powers to be replaced by by the kingdom of christ yeah yeah that's that's super interesting i was thinking more about this this uh this writing which is off this is like obviously a word of law i mean you've been weighed and found wanting is that's law buddy uh but uh and then of course you take like the ten commandments or something like that uh that's obviously law i assume what jesus writes in the dirt with his finger a lot of people speculate that he's just writing out the decalogue there right uh that's right who knows maybe he's maybe he's writing out this he might be he might be writing uh you've been weighed and found wanting who knows tackle there that would that'd

be quite the judgment yeah could be um but um but what it what it isn't is uh obviously gospel and i don't i don't know what to make of it exactly but uh we don't we do know that the the gospel of course is good news and this is something he puts in your mouth to preach and when jesus has is out there doing ministry or whether or the apostles of the church now uh you're out there preaching speaking uh this word of forgiveness and grace and uh but a lot it seems a lot of times when it comes down to the law like this is going to be written down uh that even paul will say that the law is written on our hearts yeah it's not it's not merely just like spoken uh it's like carved out uh even the times in the old testament where you get like the prophets and

when god will be like all right that's it get it get something and start writing it's not it's not gospel usually yeah yeah when he tells habakkuk like all right find a chisel buddy like it's not good yeah yeah it's like this reality is chiseled onto the very fabric of creation right it's inescapable right and that the law is i mean it's it's inescapable in its in his accusation it's not going anywhere it's not written on water it's chiseled into stone so and because of that there's that kind of a binding quality to it right yeah unlike the gospel which is which is liberating i guess you could say the gospel is written in water in the sense of it's written all over baptism yeah and it's that way and it's just really all these things

are written down, to have delivery from these things, the language of the Psalms, you need a word. You don't just need, like, something else written down, you know, or you need, like, this has to be spoken to you, and that's just the way that God sees fit to do it. Yeah. Well, good place to end. Yes. interesting chapter and we got uh dan on the lion's den coming up next one of the most famous

stories ever right yeah it's like we're revisiting our childhood with sunday school just digging digging a little bit deeper this time yeah love it all right well we'll see you then all right see you then