A49: Belshazzar,
co-regent of the Babylonian Empire, watched as these words were
supernaturally written on the palace wall the very night his kingdom
fell (probably October 13, 539 BC). What a
frightening experience that must have been for him and his festive
guests!
Each of the words the
fingers inscribed on the wall is a measure of weight (like our ounce,
pound, and ton, or milligram, gram, and kilogram). The basic
Babylonian unit of weight was the gold shekel (tekel in this
verse). The mena equaled 50 shekels; the upharsin (half
a mena) equaled 25. The four words, therefore, stood for: mena,
50 shekels; mena, 50 shekels; tekel, 1 shekel; upharsin,
25 shekels. The total equaled 126 shekels.
In addition, each shekel
can be divided into even smaller units (as a pound can be divided into
ounces, for example). The shekel was equal to 20 gerahs (Ezekiel
45:12). The 126 shekels of Daniel
5:25 is equivalent to 2,520 gerahs.
The words of the
handwriting on the wall symbolize that God had "weighed"
Belshazzar's kingdom and found it wanting (Daniel
5:26-27). The empire would be given to the Medes and the Persians,
who entered and captured the city of Babylon that same night. God was
about to punish Belshazzar's realm for 2,520 years.
This is confirmed by
another prophecy found in Daniel 4. Through Daniel, God told King
Nebuchadnezzar that a total of "seven times" of punishment
would befall Babylon (verses 16, 25). In prophecy, a "time"
equals a year of 360 days. This can be seen by noting that 3 1/2
"times" equals 42 months or 1,260 days (Revelation
12:6, 14; 13:5).
"Seven times," therefore, equals 2,520 days, and
Nebuchadnezzar himself spent seven years without his human reason,
living like a beast (Daniel
4:31-37). In certain prophecies, however, such as in Daniel 5,
each day represents a year in fulfillment (Numbers
14:34; Ezekiel
4:6). These back-to-back prophecies in Daniel 4-5 show the type (Nebuchadnezzar)
and anti-type (Babylon) fulfillment of many biblical prophecies. This
is the prophetic principle of duality.
So, then, from the
experiences of both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, it is evident
Babylon would be punished for a period of 2,520 years.
After that time, it will
rise again, as symbolized by the tree that sprouted and grew after the
iron band was removed (Daniel
4:10-16, 19-26).
Since this period of 2,520 years expired in 1982, we can expect to see
the rise of modern Babylon in this present generation (also foretold
in Revelation
18). It may even now be forming as the final revival of the Roman
Empire in Europe.
