The King in chapter 5 is a very wicked king and is having a feast for his friends. It is a drunken orgy. At the height of this night of foolishness, he orders the holy vessels to be brought in from the temple and they drank out of them, toasting and praising their gods. The ultimate insult to the most high God of the Universe.
At that moment, the finger of a mans hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall. Suddenly, the party is over. When the king sees it, his countenance changed. This proud, arrogant king has been reduced to terrified, knee-knocking puddle of mush. And who can blame him? When was the last time you saw the hand of God appear out of no where with a message just for you. He screamed for all of his "wise men" who could do nothing for him. Finally, the queen mother came in and sent for Daniel.
There is more to this story, but the phrase, see the handwriting on the wall is intriguing to me. It has come to mean that we can tell when things are not going well by the signs that we see around a situation. Like, if the boss hires someone who is younger and brighter and the new go-to guy, you realize that you may be cleaning out your next soon. I often heard this phrase, but never related it to this story. Any way the king is in trouble. Read the rest of chapter five to see what the message was and what it meant.
The straw that broke the camels back, another one of those crazy phrases, was when they messed with God's holy vessels. Today, if you are a child of God, then you are God's holy vessel. Think about that the next time you do anything that harms the body or harms one of God's children.
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