Question: Why could not the Chaldeans read the hand writing on the wall? (Dan. 5).
Answer: It was a warning, solemn, immediate, and before all. The language was Chaldean, and those who saw the hand, and the characters were Chaldeans. We might have judged then, that the mere letters must be more familiar to the Chaldeans than to Daniel. It is not the way of God, when He communicates anything, to put it in an obscure form. It would be a monstrous theory, that God, in giving a revelation, makes it impossible to be understood by those for whom it is intended.
What is it that renders all Scripture so difficult? It is not the language. Neither are the thoughts enigmatical or full of foreign allusions. The difficulty of Scripture lies herein, that it is the revelation of Christ, for the ones that have their hearts opened to receive and value Him. The real difficulty of Scripture, then, consists in its thoughts being so infinitely above our natural mind. We must give up self in order to understand the Bible.
To return, then, to the inscription upon the wall, the words were plain enough. All ought to have been intelligible, and would have been, had the souls of the Chaldeans been in communion with the Lord. I do not mean that there was not the power of the Spirit of God needed to enable Daniel to understand it; but it is an immense thing, for the understanding of the Word, that we have communion with the God who is making known His mind to us.
Daniel was outside the revelings and debauchery. He was a stranger to those who were at home there. He was called in from the light of the presence of God to see this scene of impiety and darkness; and coming therefore fresh from the light of God, he reads the writing upon the wall, and all was bright as the day. And nothing is more solemn,
“This is the interpretation of the thing” (Vers. 25-28). He at once sees God in the matter. The king has insulted God in what was connected with His worship.
“Tekel; thou are weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”
“Peres; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”
It was not that anything appeared then; nothing was seen at the time that made it even probable. It was God's last warning before the blow fell, and the interpretation was given before the Persians broke into the city—when there was not a sign of ruin, but all was gaiety and mirth.
“In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about three score and two years old.” In short, Babylon was judged.