Daniel 5: The Fall Of Babylon
This chapter reveals the overthrow and ultimate fall of Babylon by the army of the Medo-Persian empire around October 539 BCE. Daniel is approximately 80 years old. Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, Belshazzar, is in power and judgment falls on the third generation as promised by law. He rejects the witness and legacy of his grandfather and leads Babylon to rebel against the true God.
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The Abomination In The Sanctuary.
Belshazzar the king held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God which was in Jerusalem; and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. (Daniel 5: 1-4)
Belshazzar commits the ultimate sin. He takes the holy objects from God's sanctuary and defiles them in his Pagan party. This is the abomination that brought desolation.
Wine. He provides the wine for a drunken party using God's vessels. In every fall, people are tempted and corrupted with wine and are cursed.- Adam and Eve. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought nakedness and a curse (Genesis 3: 6-7,14).
- Noah. He gets drunk and naked and his son makes a fool of him and is cursed (Genesis 9: 21-22, 25).
- Lot. He gets drunk and naked and is raped.
- Babylon the Great. They drink wine and corrupt the nations before it falls (Revelation 17: 2-5 and Revelation 18: 2-3).
- The Concubines. Belshazzar is involved in illicit sexual relationships. In Revelation 17, Babylon is the woman with wine who is the mother of harlots and makes the kings drunk with wine of her fornication. Isaiah's condemnation of the last watchmen is that they are drunk, love to party, blind, sleeping and their watchdogs cannot bark! (Isaiah 56: 10-12)
- Idols: The Gods of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron, Wood and Stone. He prophetically praises the human kingdoms and gives tribute to man's ingenuity and pagan beliefs about time.
The fall of ancient Babylon parallels the fall of end time Babylon in many ways.
- Corrupted with Wine. In the end Babylon corrupts the whole world with the "wine of her fornication".
- Judgment. The handwriting on the wall announced the outcome of a judgment against Babylon. End time Babylon is punished by the seven last plagues and this is preceded by a judgment which started in 1844.
- Euphrates. The river protecting the city is dried up so that the conquering forces from the east can enter the city.
Judgment: The Handwriting On The Wall.
Suddenly the fingers of a man's hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. 6 Then the king's face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together. (Daniel 5: 5-6)
Here we have a picture of the sanctuary. The lamp is on one wall and the table of bread on the opposite wall. The handwriting or Word of God appears opposite the sacred lamp stand used in the Holy Place.
» Exodus 25: 30-31. The lamp stand faced the table of shewbread.
» Deuteronomy 8: 3. The bread is a symbol of the word of God.
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Daniel interprets the meaning. It duplicates the issues at the end of time.
"Now this is the inscription that was written out: "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN." "This is the interpretation of the message: "MENE" God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. "TEKEL" you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. "PERES" your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. (Daniel 5: 25-28)
( מן מן תכל אופרשן ) "counted and counted, weighed and divided."
MENE ( מן ). This comes from the Aramaic word to count or to number. He has been numbered. This reminds us of the number of the man in Revelation 13. His number is 666. As the head of his house or kingdom, he has been counted and is found deficient. In contrast, the righteous are counted and their number is a perfect 144,000. One wonders if the repetition of this word coincides with the double fall of Babylon and the repetition in Revelation 18, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen". TEKEL ( תכל ). This comes from the word "to weigh". Ancient Babylon has been judged and condemned. Babylon the Great has been weighed in the judgment that began in 1844. UPHARSIN (PERES) ( אופרשן ). Peres means share or portion. Upharsin is the plural and it means pieces. The kingdom will be shattered. Those without the mark of God will be shattered by the executioners from God.
... six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand ... (Ezekiel 9: 2)
» Judged. If we look at the poetic pattern of the words we see that they have the same structure as the time given to evil Babylon. "Two counts, weigh and divide" sounds very similar to "time, two times and the dividing of time". Both are judgments. One is the length of time given to operate and be judged. The other is the number of times and methods used to judge. From our study of the coverings on the sanctuary, we find that evil is given this period.
» The Pattern of Judgment. It is no coincidence that Babylon fell on Tishri 16, 539 BCE. That is the period of God's judgment which follows the same pattern as the handwriting on the wall.
- Tishri 1-10: Counted and Counted ("Numbering the People"). God begins to count and seal His people. The double reference to counting points to the two groups of people that are separated at the end. As God counts the righteous, the wicked are automatically separated or counted in another pile.
- Tishri 10: Weighed ("Judgment Sealed"). Judgment is confirmed on Yom Kippur because it is the last day to change the outcome. Having rejected the atonement of Jesus Christ or the God of Israel, the wicked are judged by their own standards. They are weighed on the basis of their works and found deficient.
- Tishri 21: Divided ("Judgment Delivered"). God separates the righteous from the wicked. Judgment is delivered on Hosannah Raba to both groups. As God rescues the righteous, the kingdom of the wicked is also divided and scattered by mutiny, conquest and destruction.
The Desolation (The Euphrates Dried Up).
That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two. (Daniel 5: 30-31)
The prophecy was fulfilled that very night. The Medes under Darius and the Persians under Cyrus attacked Babylon and overthrew it on October 12, 539 BCE (Tishri 16). They "dried up" the Euphrates by stopping the flow of the water. Then at night they entered the city by going under the unguarded gates that were above the river. In the night of the wild party, the head of gold falls in a blood bath as the silver empire takes its place.
A similar drying of the Euphrates occurs in the sixth plague to prepare for the kings from the east who overthrow Babylon the Great (Revelation 16: 12).
Judgment For 2520 Years Begins.
While searching for others who may have discovered the Great Tree time prophecy, I found the following interpretation of a prophecy that seemed to also indicate that the fall of Babylon would last for 2520 years. However, I found several problems which I cannot resolve. If I could, then it is another example of prophetic repetition that confirms the prophecy of the Great Tree. The three words, mene, tekel and upharsis, were converted to their weight in gerahs, which is 2520.
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- Units of Measurement. How or why did they substitute these words from currency to weights? In the ancient trading systems, weights were often equivalent to money. So the assumption that these could be related to money is reasonable. And, the switch from Hebrew to Aramaic to Chaldean words is probably also acceptable if the words have the same meanings.
- Mene or Maneh. Apparently, both have a similar meaning and come from the same root word.
- Tekel or Shekel. Tekel means to be weighed or to balance. Shekel, a type of currency, also means to weigh.
- Maneh (Mina). My first objection is the value of the maneh in shekels.
» 50 Shekels. Some sources say that the maneh was equal to fifty shekels in Babylon. So that value was used because the prophecy was given to Babylon. It appears to be a fact that different civilizations had different valuations for weights and money. But the biblical references do not support this value.
» 60 Shekels (20 + 25 + 15). In a just balance, it is equal to sixty shekels.
The shekel shall be twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels, twenty five shekels, and fifteen shekels shall be your maneh. (Ezekiel 45: 12)
» 100 Shekels. A comparison of two bible verses also show that the minah was 100 shekels.
He made 300 shields of beaten gold using 300 shekels of gold on each shield ... (2 Chronicles 9: 16)
He made 300 shields of beaten gold using 3 minas of gold on each shield ... (1 Kings 10: 17)
The King James version says "three pounds of gold". But the translated word is the one that means mina or maneh.
Whichever biblical value is correct, sixty or one hundred, it is not fifty. This indicates a possible problem with our understanding of the usage of the word. Since Ezekiel is teaching about fair weights we could choose sixty as the most likely value. However, the conclusion that the Babylonian value of fifty should be used because it was a prophecy to Babylon is just as valid, because God used their own symbols to communicate prophecy in the metallic image and the great tree of life. - Peres. My biggest problem is with this word. The claim that it is a Hebrew unit of weight is not documented in scripture. The correct value seems to be an even bigger problem. The word means "to divide or to break apart in pieces". However, I cannot tell how they decided what was divided. The selection of the word maneh as the thing divided seems to be an arbitrary decision with no clear basis.
- Maneh. The consistent argument is that it is half a maneh. But I can find no proof of this.
- Tekel. Since the shekel was the standard, why was it not half a shekel? (Leviticus 27: 25)
- Sum of Mene, Mene and Tekel. Why was the division not applied to this sum?
- Gerah. This is a minor point, but the conversion to gerahs does not follow the strict usage of prophetic symbols that I have come to trust. The shekel was used for evaluation, not the gerah.
Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be after the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs. (Leviticus 27: 25)
I cannot go beyond my two major objections. But, if there is no basis for my objections, then the implications are interesting and support the previous interpretation that the fall of Babylon would continue for 2520 years.
Comparison Of The Fall Of Ancient Babylon And Babylon The Great
| Crime and Punishment | Ancient Babylon | Modern (End Time) Babylon | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corrupts People | Drunk | Belshazzar made his subjects drunk. Daniel 5: 1 | End time Babylon makes the kings of the earth drunk. Revelation 17: 2 |
| 2 | Immoral | Belshazzar induced his nobles and subjects to immorality. Daniel 5: 2,23 | Induces the kings of the earth to commit spiritual fornication. Revelation 17: 2 | |
| 3 | Unholy | Belshazzar and his guests drink from golden goblets. Daniel 5: 3 | Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17 drinks from the golden cup. Revelation 17: 4 | |
| 4 | Destroys Religion | People | Babylon Persecuted God's people. Daniel 1:1-4 | Babylon will persecute God's people. Revelation 17: 5,6 |
| 5 | Temple | Ancient Babylon attacked God's Sanctuary and people. Daniel 1:2 | End time Babylon will attack God's Sanctuary and people. Revelation 13: 6, 17: 6 | |
| 6 | Idolatry | Belshazzar dishonored God in the worship of false gods. Daniel 5: 4,23 | Blasphemes God and challenges his authority. Revelation 17: 3 | |
| 7 | Pagan Ideas | Babylon mixed the treasures of God's sanctuary with pagan revelry. Daniel 5: 1-4 | Babylon mixes worship with paganism and spiritualism. Revelation 18: 2-3, 9: 14,20-21 | |
| 8 | Governs and Controls | Euphrates (People) | Ancient Babylon was built over the river Euphrates. Isaiah 44: 27,28 | End time Babylon will be built over the symbolic river Euphrates. Revelation 16: 12; 17: 6,15 |
| 9 | City (Property) | Ancient Babylon's power revolved around a mighty city. Daniel 4: 29-30 | End time Babylon's power will revolve around a mighty city. Revelation 17:18 | |
| 10 | Kings | Ancient Babylon ruled the kings of the earth. Daniel 2:37-38; 4: 22 | End time Babylon will also control the kings of the earth. Revelation 17: 5,18 | |
| 11 | Punished | Judged | Judgment was pronounced upon ancient Babylon. Daniel 5: 26-28 | Judgment will be pronounced upon end time Babylon. Revelation 17: 1 |
| 12 | 3½ Times | It was measured 3½ times (Weigh, two counts and divide) (Daniel 5: 25) | Babylon was judged during 3½ times (Time, times and dividing times) Revelation 12: 14-15 | |
| 13 | Destroyed | From the East | Ancient Babylon was defeated by the Kings of the East - Darius and Cyrus. Isaiah 45: 1-5, Daniel 5: 30; 6: 28 | End time Babylon will be defeated by the heavenly Kings of the East. Revelation 16: 12, Matthew 24: 27 |
| 14 | One Night | Ancient Babylon fell in a single night. Daniel 5: 30-31 | End time Babylon will fall in a single hour. Revelation 18: 10,20 | |
| 15 | Dried Up | Ancient Babylon fell when the river Euphrates was dried up. Isaiah 44: 27,28 | End time Babylon will fall when the symbolic river Euphrates dries up. Revelation 16:12,19 | |
| 16 | Sealed | Ancient Babylon fell because of God's prophetic word written by a bloodless hand. Daniel 5: 24-30 | Babylon will fall because of God's Prophetic word as found in Daniel and Revelation. Daniel 12: 4,7; Revelation 18: 1-2; 14: 8 | |
