The author of Daniel, in his story of the writing upon the wall, proves himself almost a modern psychologist by his wonderful insight into the workings of the human mind and conscience. When he tells how Belshazzar, flushed with wine and inflated with pride, gave impious orders to insult the God of Israel by using the sacred vessels of the Jewish Temple in a riotous banquet, he was doubtless thinking of the profane and half-mad monarch of his own day, who “entered presumptuously into the sanctuary, and took the golden altar, and the candlestick of the light, and all that pertained thereto, and the table of the shewbread, and the cups to pour withal, and the bowls, and the golden censers, and the veil, and the crowns, and the adorning of gold which was on the face of the temple, and he scaled it all off. And he took the silver and the gold and the precious vessels; and he took the hidden treasures which he found” (1Ma_1:21-23).
The thought of the profanation of the holy vessels filled the Hasidim with an indignation and horror which created the assurance that God must interpose to punish such a reckless and insolent blasphemy. The calm and lofty words of the prophet Daniel, sounding in the ears of the flushed banqueters upon whom a silence as of death had suddenly fallen, were like the voice of personified Justice, who holds in one hand a pair of scales and in the other a glittering sword. Men great and small know in their conscience that there is a writing on the wall for them, that they must be weighed in the balance, and that if they are found wanting the sword will do its work. “In that night Belshazzar the Chaldæan king was slain.”
Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne!1 [Note: Byron, Hebrew Melodies.]
“The Lord is a God of knowledge,” says a solemn Scripture, “and by him actions are weighed.” That is to say, you will be weighed in those scales of God by means of which He gets at the very heart's blood of all your actions. Till He has got at the very heart's blood, till He has got at the thoughts and intents of an action, at its most secret motive, He is not yet a God of knowledge. But after that He is. You deceive us, you and your actions both pass with us for what at your heart you are not. But God is not mocked. He knows your exact weight and worth; and the exact weight and worth of all your words and all your deeds. He knows down to the bottom why you did this; and down to the bottom why you did not do that. He has known it all the time, only He has numbered your kingdom, and He lets you go on, deceiving and being deceived, till the Persian is at your gate.2 [Note: A. Whyte.]
