Handwriting on the Wall

A Father’s Day Reflection on Pride and Humility

Daniel 5

On June 12, 2025, Commander Hossein Salami of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared with absolute certainty that his country was ready for any attack. He expressed complete confidence in the capabilities of Iranian military forces, stating with unwavering assurance, “We are fully prepared for any scenario under any circumstances.” By dawn the next day, he was dead, becoming yet another public demonstration of the vanity of a characteristic hidden in the heart of every single person.

Human pride imagines that we can take care of our own affairs. We all share that sense of self-reliance, although we may not be quite as outspoken about it. Even those of us who by God’s grace are striving to get victory over pride know it keeps showing up.

Daniel chapter 5 exposes the folly of such self-deception by telling a story of another Middle East leader from long ago. Belshazzar was the acting king of Babylon. His father, Nabonidus, son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, was the real king. Oddly, he preferred to live in the remote areas of the empire and had no interest in administration. He left everything in the hands of his son, and things were not going very well.

In October 539 BC, the Persians defeated the Babylonian army on the field of battle. Although his situation would seem to have been quite precarious, Belshazzar seemed unfazed (or perhaps he tried to appear so). He was in a fortified city with a deep moat all around it and walls up to 50 feet thick. He decided it would be a good time to throw a party.

During that party, he openly expressed what lies concealed behind every instance of human pride: defiance against God. With alcohol-fueled bravado, he publicly defiled the holy vessels that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem. In response, God sent a very personal message to Belshazzar, a message that was at the same time designed for all of us and recorded for us in Daniel 5.

That message is that the Lord is sovereign over your life. Whether you like that or not, whether you want to acknowledge that or not, he is sovereign over every aspect of your life. The implicit exhortation in this passage is that you must decide to give him all the honor that he alone truly deserves.

The Lord Controls the Conditions of Your Life (18–21)

During Belshazzar’s party celebrating human self-confidence, a hand suddenly appeared on the wall opposite a lamp stand, where it was clearly visible. As the hand moved, it left behind a message on the wall that none of the wise men of Babylon could read.

Daniel’s ability to interpret messages from God had been known but was now ignored, and Daniel apparently was no longer in a position of responsibility in the government. The queen (likely the queen mother, Belshazzar’s mother) reminded Belshazzar that Daniel might be able to help, and Daniel was summoned.

The message wasn’t discernible simply by reading the words on the wall: it also required interpretation. The message begins with a reminder of who God is, so Daniel laid the foundation by reviewing an episode in the life of Belshazzar’s grandfather that had revealed an important truth about God. (The Old Testament often uses the same terminology for fathers and grandfathers, sometimes referring to ancestors even further back with the term father.)

God Has Bestowed All You Have (18–19)

Daniel declared that “the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar kingship and greatness and glory and majesty.” God had given everything that Nebuchadnezzar possessed. The same is true for every person. The Lord controls the conditions of your life, and he has bestowed on you all you have. Every possession, every family member, every ability that you possess, he has entrusted all that on you. Every individual is the recipient of God’s gifts.

He Entrusts You with Abilities (18)

Whether an individual acknowledges God as the giver or not, God is on the throne. God entrusts you with abilities, and according to Daniel, even kings depend upon him. They serve under his authority. He assigns positions of responsibility to both government leaders and every other individual. We are all recipients of grace according to God’s sovereign will.

He Entrusts You with Privileges (19)

God also entrusts you with great privileges, and Nebuchadnezzar’s were indeed great. “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.”

Rightly understood, all must acknowledge that God has been very generous. Everything we have comes from him, and he has given much. What great privileges! All gifts of his grace! He provides everything necessary to fulfill your role and even more than is necessary because he is so generous.

God Can Withdraw All You Have (20–21)

The message moves on to what Nebuchadnezzar did not yet understand: that God can also withdraw his gifts. Are things going okay in your life right now? God has the authority and ability to change that. He can withdraw all you have because it all still belongs to him.

He Responds to Human Arrogance (20)

In his pride, Nebuchadnezzar was brought down from his royal throne and his glory was taken from him in a very dramatic way. “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 he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will.”

He Exposes Human Vanity (21)

God does not need you. That you have a place in his world right now is a matter of his gracious hand upon you. All you have, all your abilities, all your privileges—he could take it all away. Nebuchadnezzar saw God take it all away, reducing him to an animal-like existence for a period. Chapter four tells us that seven seasons passed, likely describing seven years of time, until he finally looked up to heaven and acknowledged a simple truth: You are God. I am a mere human being. Everything comes from you.

Once he acknowledged that truth, God restored his position. When his mind came back to him, God also worked in the lives of all those around him and his kingdom so that they wanted to return him to his position. God gave it back. That’s a rare occurrence. Usually when God decides to remove his gifts, they are gone forever.

For most of Nebuchadnezzar‘s life, he was setting a very bad example as a father and grandfather. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we are at best imperfect fathers. We’re almost embarrassed that there is a day on the calendar marked Father’s Day. We are all aware that we don’t deserve that kind of recognition. We don’t deserve people telling us how great we are. We know the truth. We know the failures. God does too, and he still decides to use fathers.

However, as bad as Nebuchadnezzar started out and as many wrong decisions and horrible examples he left for his family early on, fatherhood is a matter of on-the-job training. Fathers can grow. Fathers can learn. By God’s grace, fathers can change. It’s not just what fathers have done at one period of their lives. You may have had an unsaved father and think, “Well, there was nothing for me to learn there. Everything is negative.” You can learn from negative examples as well. The father you had was the father God planned for you. With all his failures, even unsaved fathers are useful in God’s hands. Even they can learn and can pass on invaluable lessons to their children.

To truly honor God begins by confessing your need for the salvation he provides through his Son. To hear that God is responsible for all you have, all you are, and that he can take it all away raises a question: How do I honor that God? You honor him first by acknowledging that you need the salvation that he alone can provide through Jesus Christ. His Son died in your place. It’s a gift of salvation that God offers to you, and that can be the beginning of you now honoring him with the rest of your life.

God expects children to learn the lessons that he taught their fathers. He expects fathers to rehearse those lessons for their children and even their grandchildren. But children are responsible to listen—not just to listen and get facts and to know history and what happened in a father’s life, but to decide to apply those lessons to life.

The Lord Decides the Duration of Your Life (22–28)

At this point, the message from God through Daniel shifts its focus from the past to the present. Daniel looks the king right in the eye and declares, “You, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this.”

God Can See the Evidence of Pride (22–23)

Isn’t that fascinating? Belshazzar was aware of his grandfather’s humbling experience before the God of heaven. Belshazzar could nod in agreement to all that Daniel has just related. Apparently, his grandfather had told him the story, perhaps multiple times, but Belshazzar had not learned the lesson.

He Discerns the Heart (22)

Where had Belshazzar failed? He did not apply the message to his own life. It was a deliberate rejection of revealed truth. That continues to be a danger today. People may know certain facts but fail to apply them to daily life. They possess knowledge of the truth but respond in pride rather humble submission to God. That response increases the personal responsibility.

He Observes the Life (23)

Through Daniel, God reveals to Belshazzar that he can see his pride. “You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house you have brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know.”

What a great characterization of everything that we strive to put in God’s place. They neither see nor hear nor know anything. And that’s what we choose when we don’t acknowledge that the Lord is God. “But the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways,” the one who’s in control, “you have not honored.” That’s a tragic failure in our day as well as in the life of Belshazzar.

Notice at the beginning of verse 23 that pride is against God. It’s a very bad substitution to try to replace the God who controls everything with gods that can control nothing. How foolish to honor emptiness and futility instead of the sovereign God.

God Will Judge the Sinfulness of Pride (24–28)

All of this is Daniel’s prelude. Belshazzar and all his friends and family are eager to know what the writing on the wall says. But you see, all of the preceding is also part of God’s message. The message is much more than just knowing the meaning of the words written on the wall. The message includes the testimony of a father. It includes the exposure of the life. God sees your heart. God knows how you are living. God sees what you did last week. And God will judge the sinfulness of pride.

He Determines the Outcome of One’s Life (24–26)

Daniel finally turns his attention to the writing on the wall. In response to Belshazzar’s pride, the hand was sent from God’s presence to write an ominous message on the wall for all to see. The message is just four Aramaic words, and the first two are the same, a repetition. The words are mene, mene, tekel, and pharsin. (In Daniel 5:25 the last word is upharsin, but the u at the beginning of that word is simply the Aramaic conjunction and.)

First, God determines the last day of your life. Mene simply means numbered. Daniel interprets that as “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.” It was Belshazzar’s last day on earth. Why repeat mene? Apparently, because it was so certain. One of the saddest aspects of this story is that on this occasion Daniel cannot add, “If you repent, God will forgive and change this plan.” Mene is repeated; Belshazzar has exceeded the patience of God. God’s grace has a limit.

He Assesses the Value of One’s Life (27)

Tekel means weighed, as in weighed in a balance. “You have been weighed, Belshazzar, and found wanting.” God assesses the value of a life, and in this case, he declares it to be deficient. Lacking any real substance, he had focused on himself, and that has no lasting value. What a waste of an opportunity. What privileges, what abilities, what opportunities this man had had, and there was no value to any of it. Such a sad determination.

He Distributes the Assets of One’s Life (28)

Finally, the word parsin means broken or severed. “Your kingdom has been broken.” The translation divided is good as well, but that might imply a division into two, as if Belshazzar might get to keep some power. The whole kingdom was going to the Medes and Persians.

Your kingdom is broken, Balshazzar. Everything that you thought you possessed, every aspect of your life and what you could have done with it, is now broken. You thought it was yours by right. Now you find out you don’t own any of it. It’s severed from you and distributed to your archenemy, the hated Medes and Persians.

The Sequel

Daniel records a brief sequel to the story. As Belshazzar had promised, Daniel received a purple robe and a chain of gold and was proclaimed the third ruler of the kingdom. For many years, that was a point of ridicule by critics of the Bible. “Why would he be the third ruler? Who was number two?” Then someone discovered documents explaining that Belshazzar was number two: his father was still living.

The Medes and Persians now surrounded the city, having defeated the army in battle. They decided to dig a canal that would divert the water out of the moat. While the feast was going on inside, the Medes and Persians were digging outside. Then they were able to enter the city gates without a battle.

The other remarkable thing is that whenever there’s a regime change, all the previous rulers are executed. Daniel was just made the third ruler of the kingdom and was wearing a robe that signaled his authority. Instead of being put to death, however, Daniel was elevated to a position of authority in the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. What a God we serve! He can do what he wants, accomplishing his purpose.

What Should We Do About It?

How should we respond to this passage? If you have already trusted Christ as your Savior, right now you might be thinking, “Yes, I need to do a better job of honoring the Lord as God. What could I change? How could I serve him better?” Here are some suggestions.

Start each day giving honor to him. Acknowledge that he is God in that new day, and that it is your desire to give him the honor he deserves. In other words, devote yourself to him. Daily prayer, devotion, and acknowledgement of God’s lordship increase the likelihood that you will honor God in your choices that day.

Begin each day telling the Lord, “You are God. I’m here to serve you today. My goal is to please you. I don’t need to be pleased.” You may need to repeat that prayer through the day as the default self-service mode creeps back in again as pride. The next chapter tells us that Daniel’s practice was to pray three times each day. What was he praying for? Daniel honored God with his life, not because he was such a good person, but because he depended on God’s grace. Whatever else he included in his prayer three times each day, he likely was praying for God’s honor: “God, would you help me glorify you in all I do today?”

God offers that same grace to you, and he’ll answer that prayer. Commit yourself to him. It was too late for Belshazzar, but by God’s grace it’s not too late for you. It is not too late for his grace. You can have it right now if you ask him.

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Gary Reimers is the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greenville, SC. This article reproduces a sermon preached on June 15, 2025, which you can listen to here. We used Claude.AI to turn the transcript into the article. Pastor Reimers has reviewed and approved the final form of this article.

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Belshazzar’s Feast, by Rembrandt, is from Wikimedia Commons and is deemed in the public domain.