GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 5:2-4
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2 While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, and also his wives and his concubines could drink from them. 3 So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. 4 As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.
Daniel calls Nebuchadnezzar the “father” of Belshazzar, but in the same sense that father is used in the books of Moses for any blood ancestor. Nebuchadnezzar was actually Belshazzar’s grandfather.
Here we see this princeling of Babylon whooping it up as he throws a party. In a drunken moment of taking things too far, he calls for the goblets or vessels of the Jews, captured by Nebuchadnezzar, to be brought in so that he and his guests can use them for their party. Then he and his party guests show their foolish idolatry by toasting “the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone” (verse 4). We can well imagine the guests taking turns holding up whatever kind of cup, goblet, vessel or bucket they were drinking from as each god was proclaimed. We could point out here that stone cups or drinking vessels were not unknown in ancient times, but the reference in this case is more likely to be clay or ceramic. So everyone with a golden goblet toasted the god of gold, and the folks with bronze goblets toasted the god of bronze, and the ones with wooden cups or goblets toasted the gods of the forest and of the trees, and so one. How much of that was the wine, and how much of that was real idolatry?
There are at least seven kinds of idolatry.
1, The idolatry that dismisses the idea of God or gods altogether without any knowledge or information from the Scriptures. This is the idolatry of ignorance.
2, The idolatry that worships a god or gods apart from the true God and is ignorant of the true God. This was the religion of many indigenous cultures before the Age of Exploration. This we might term true heathenism.
3, The idolatry that accepts the true God but also all or some other god or gods. Such people might pay lip service to the Lord, but do not truly worship him. Or they might just want to add worship to worship– which the Lord forbids (Leviticus 19:4). This is syncretism; it was the religion of Nebuchadnezzar for most of his life and reign (Daniel 3:14; 3:28-29).
4, The idolatry that rejects the true God but does not oppress or object to those who worship him. This is rare; it is still sinful, but allows God’s people to live and worship in peace. This might be what Paul encountered at Lystra (Acts 14:11-13). Many of America’s founding fathers were Deists who expressed this attitude about true Christianity.
5, The idolatry that rejects religion altogether and objects to or attacks those who have faith. Modern atheists often behave this way, sometimes imagining that one or another scientific pursuit proves that they are right, and allows them to be intolerant of everyone else.
6, The idolatry that worships a god or gods apart from the true God yet has knowledge of the true God, but does not worship the true God. This is the religion of the Philistines in the Bible (1 Samuel 5:2-7; Judges 16:23). A variation of this is the non-religion of Satan, who has direct knowledge of God but does not worship him and who would elevate himself above God (Matthew 4:9; James 2:19).
7, The idolatry that accepts a polytheism of many gods but specifically attacks the true God and his worshipers. This last idolatry seems to be what Belshazzar was doing, whether he fully realized it or not. His evening soiree of goblets turned from a regular Babylonian holiday celebration into an attack on the religion of the Jews.
One of the main themes of this book of Daniel is to show God’s superiority over the nations. He is the one who is truly in power. He will not tolerate idolatry. He told his people before they entered the Promised Land, “When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places” (Numbers 33:51-52).
Luther also says: “God guards his name so zealously that he will not even have it blasphemed in the idols, since all idols bear the name ‘god.’ They let themselves be called gods. Yet they who mock the false gods or blaspheme them are often punished, as pagan books report. This inspired people with such awe that they feared also the false gods. This does not imply that idolatry is right and blameless, but it shows that a heart which is coarse and insolent enough to mock a false god will be just as prone to mock the true God because of the name ‘God.’ For it is not actuated by faith, as Christians are, but by a wicked disposition and by arrogance. So God permits the devil to punish and to plague them.” (LW 19:207)
So this passage continues to preach the law, as God allowed this celebration to get so out of hand that the king and his people showed what was truly in their hearts, which was a total disregard for the true God. They mocked God by using the sacred vessels, cups, and goblets from his holy temple to be used in a pagan feast. It was a distasteful, disgusting foreshadowing of the “abominable thing that causes desolation,” which Daniel will foresee later in the book (9:27; 11:31; 12:11) and which Jesus would also proclaim (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14). This scene of idolatry and of a filthy disregard for the Lord, the God of Heaven, was permitted by the Lord only because he was, as our saying goes, “giving them enough rope to hang themselves.” That is, he was letting them get completely out of hand with their sin, and then he would bring his judgment crashing down on them, and the destruction would follow soon after, on this very night.
And so the Lord proclaims his Gospel to us as well, by showing us that he keeps his promises. Just as he will certainly punish sin, he will also forgive the sins of all those who put their trust in him– even the terrible sins like these of the Babylonian goblet-party people. To all, he says, “Let them put away the lifeless idols of their kings, and I will live among them forever” (Ezekiel 43:9). To everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness, freedom, and grace, he welcomes them into his paradise, forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 5:2-4 Goblets