Category: The Book of Daniel
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Look Who’s Talkin’
One of the unusual features of the story of Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall (Dan 5) is the amount of space it devotes to people talking. There are three unusually long speeches by three different characters. The first is by the queen (vv. 11-12), who is followed by the king (vv. 13-16). Finally…
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A Howling Good Time
Belshazzar may not have finished swallowing his first sip of wine from God’s goblets when a disembodied hand appeared, writing on the palace wall. The narrator bothers to tell us that the hand was opposite the lampstand. Maybe he wants to explain why the king could see it (though that seems unnecessary) or, more likely,…
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Drink, Drank, Drunk
A twisted source of pride for many students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (and a source of chagrin and consternation for administration) is its ranking as one of America’s top party schools. I can assure you that although I spent six years at this, um, prestigious school, the liveliest party I ever attended may have…
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Who’s Your Daddy?
The villain of Daniel 5 is Belshazzar, who only appears in this chapter. Who is this flash-in-the-pan character, Belshazzar? You might consider this a gimme question since the text says pretty clearly who he is: he’s Nebuchadnezzar’s son. The narrator says as much in 5:2, when he sends for the goblets that “Nebuchadnezzar his father”…
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The Worst Penmanship Lesson Ever
Bye-bye Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Hello, Belshazzar. Welcome, everyone else, to a new chapter in Daniel! The bad guy of Daniel 5, Belshazzar is just a blip in the Bible. This chapter is the only place he appears (and he’s a pretty hard-to-find guy in the ancient Near East altogether), but he makes a big impression.…
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A Slow Learner Is Still a Learner
It’s (past) time to bring Daniel 4 to a close and bid fond farewell to Nebuchadnezzar. (He actually does show up posthumously in the next chapter, but he’s a distant memory there, which turns out to be part of Belshazzar’s problem. But, I am getting ahead of myself.) I rather like the pompous, short-fused, crazy…
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Prophets, Pride, and Pay-Up Chocolate
On Friday afternoon the FedEx man showed up at my door, bearing gifts of chocolate from a far-away friend admitting he was wrong. Jeff hadn’t done anything hurtful to me or anyone else, but his pound and half of chocolate was acknowledgment that (at least this time) my interpretation of Daniel was better than his.…
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Care To Be a Daniel?
In my Baptist Sunday school, we sang a song called “Dare To Be a Daniel.” It was all about taking a stand and standing alone. Daniel showed great gumption when he stood alone (or with his three friends) against the pervasive perversity of Babylon. He dared! But Daniel also cared, and sometimes that’s even harder.…
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Schadenfreude
I’ve tried numerous times to learn German (not for fun…because it definitely isn’t), but the vocabulary kills me every time. Seriously, when a language allows the ad infinitum gluing together of words already-too-long to make new-out-of-control-longer words, it pretty much guarantees failure for people with short attention spans. I’ve made up an English word for…
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The Taller They Are, the Harder They Fall
I live in the Evergreen State, and a line of towering pines across my parking lot reminds me of this whenever I sit at my desk. If any of them decides to fall eastward, I’ll be really glad to have renter’s insurance. When my sister and I drove through nearby forested mountains, she summarized things…
Three Rubies Press 