PA Daniel (Bab 6), Tulisan Tangan Di Dinding

Daniel 5

Jangan pernah meremehkan pengaruh kehidupan seorang saleh! Ketika pasal 5 ini terjadi, Daniel sudah tua – lebih dari delapan puluh usianya. Raja yang menggantikan Nebukadnezar memandang sebelah mata padanya. Daniel dipindahkan ke bagian yang tak berarti dalam struktur birokrasi Babel. Namun ketika raja menemui masalah, ia memanggil hamba Allah ini. Daniel menunjukkan pada kita bagaimana hidup berpegang teguh pada Allah ini. Daniel menujukkan pada kita bagaimana hidup berpegang teguh pada Allah selama masa pembuangan yang panjang.


1. Alkitab penuh dengan teladan yang baik dan yang buruk. Mengapa belajar dari pengalaman orang lain itu sangat penting ?


2. Baca Daniel 5. Pasal ini dimulai dengan sebuah perjamuan yang besar! Menurut anda, perbuatan dan sikap yang mana dari Belsyazar dan tamu-tamunya yang telah memancing murka Tuhan ?


3. Peristiwa-peristiwa dalam pasal ini terjadi pada tahun 539 SM, tahun (dan malam) jatuhnya Babel oleh pasukan Media-Persia dipimpin oleh Koresy Agung. Bangsa Babel menganggap kota mereka tidak dapat dikalahkan. Mereka memiliki persediaan makana untuk masa 20 tahun dan air segar sungai Efrat yang mengalir melalui jantung kota. Dengan kondisi kota seperti itu, menurut anda apa yang mendorong Belsyazar mengadakan perjamuan itu?


4. Apa reaksi anda jika anda berada disebuah pesta dan melihat sebuah tangan muncul serta menulis di dinding (ay 5) ?


5. Tiga kali Daniel mencatat kegagalan ”orang-orang bijak” dari Babel menafsirkan pesan dari Allah. Hal apa yang sebenarnya ingin dikemukakan Daniel ?


6. Menurut anda, mengapa Daniel mengingatkan Belsyazar tentang Allah memperlakukan Nebukadnezar (ay 18-21) ?


7. Pengertian mendalam apa yang dapat anda temukan dalam ayat 22-23 mengenai sifat dasar dosa-dosa Belsyazar ?


8. Dalam hal-hal apa kita dapat tergoda untuk menjadi orang congkak atau angkuh ?


9. Bagaimana kata-kata Daniel pada Belsyazar dapat menolong kita menjadi lebih rendah hati dan bersyukur kepada Allah (ay 18-24) ?


10. Berdasarkan ayt 29-30, apa anda mengira Belsyazar menerima tafsiran Daniel sebagai pesan berotoritas dari Allah yang sejati ? Jelaskan.


11. Mengapa Daniel menekankan bahwa ”Pada malam itu juga” kota Babel jatuh dan Belsyazar terbunuh (ay 30)?


12. Bagaimana pasal ini menunjukkan bahwa tujuh puluh tahun hidup dibawah pengaruh Babel tidak mematahkan keyakinan Daniel ?


13. Apa yang dapat kita pelajari dari teladan Daniel yang dapat menolong kita menghadapi tekanan untuk mengkompromikan keyakinan hidup kita ?


Sumber : Buku 7 Bahan PA Daniel, Douglas Connelly, Penerbit Perkantas Jakarta, hal 30-33

Lampiran :

John Gill :

Daniel 5 - INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL 5

This chapter gives an account of a feast made by King Belshazzar, attended with drunkenness, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels taken out of the temple at Jerusalem, Dan_5:1, and of the displeasure of God, signified by a handwriting on the wall, which terrified the king, and caused him to send in haste for the astrologers, &c. to read and interpret it, but they could not, Dan_5:5, in this distress, which appeared in the countenances of him and his nobles, the queen mother advises him to send for Daniel, of whom she gives a great encomium, Dan_5:9, upon which he was brought in to the king, and promised a great reward to read and interpret the writing; the reward he slighted, but promised to read and interpret the writing, Dan_5:13 and after putting him in mind of what had befallen his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar, and charging him with pride, idolatry, and profanation of the vessels of the Lord, Dan_5:18 reads and interprets the writing to him Dan_5:24, when he had honour done him, and was preferred in the government, Dan_5:29 and the chapter is concluded with an account of the immediate accomplishment of ancient prophecies, and of this handwriting, in the slaying of the king of Babylon, in the dissolution of the Babylonish monarchy, and the possession of it by Darius the Mede, Dan_5:30.

Henry :

Daniel 5 -
The destruction of the kingdom of Babylon had been long and often foretold when it was at a distance; in this chapter we have it accomplished, and a prediction of it the very same night that it was accomplished. Belshazzar now reigned in Babylon; some compute he had reigned seventeen years, others but three; we have here the story of his exit and the period of his kingdom. We must know that about two years before this Cyrus king of Persia, a growing monarch, came against Babylon with a great army; Belshazzar met him, fought him, and was routed by him in a pitched battle. He and his scattered forces retired into the city, where Cyrus besieged them. They were very secure, because the river Euphrates was their bulwark, and they had twenty years; provision in the city; but in the second year of the siege he took it, as is here related. We have in this chapter, I. The riotous, idolatrous, sacrilegious feast which Belshazzar made, in which he filled up the measure of his iniquity (Dan_5:1-4). II. The alarm given him in the midst of his jollity by a hand-writing on the wall, which none of his wise men could read or tell him the meaning of (Dan_5:5-9). III. The interpretation of the mystical characters by Daniel, who was at length brought in to him, and dealt plainly with him, and showed him his doom written (v. 10-28). IV. The immediate accomplishment of the interpretation in the slaying of the king and seizing of the kingdom (Dan_5:30, Dan_5:31).

Adam Clarke :

Daniel 5 -
In the commencement of this chapter we are informed how Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, when rioting in his palace, and profaning the severed vessels of the temple, Dan_5:1-4, was suddenly terrified with the appearance of the fingers of a man’s hand, which wrote a few words on the wall before him, Dan_5:5, Dan_5:6. The wise men and astrologers were immediately called in to show the king the interpretation; but they could not so much as read the writing, because (as Houbigant and others have conjectured) though the words are in the Chaldee tongue, yet they were written in the Samaritan or ancient Hebrew characters, with which the wise men of Babylon were very probably unacquainted, as the Jews were at that time a despised people, and the knowledge of their language not a fashionable attainment, Dan_5:7-9. Daniel, who had been so highly esteemed by Nebuchadnezzar for his superior wisdom, appears to have been altogether unknown to Belshazzar, till the queen (the same who had been the wife of Nebuchadnezzar according to the general opinion, or the queen consort according to others) had informed him, Dan_5:10-12. Upon the queen’s recommendation, Daniel is called in, Dan_5:13-16; who boldly tells this despotic king, that as he had not benefited by the judgments inflicted on his grandfather, but gave himself up to pride and profanity, and had added to his other sins an utter contempt for the God of the Jews by drinking wine out of the sacred vessels of Jehovah in honor of his idols, Dan_5:17-23; the Supreme Being, the Ruler of heaven and earth, had written his condemnation in three words, Mene, Tekel, Peres, Dan_5:24, Dan_5:25; the first of which is repeated in the copies containing the Chaldean original; but all the ancient Versions, except the Syriac, are without this repetition. Daniel then gives the king and his lords the fearful import of the writing, viz., that the period allotted for the duration of the Chaldean empire was now completed, (see Jer_25:12-14), and that the kingdom was about to be transferred to the Medes and Persians, Dan_5:26-28. However unwelcome such an interpretation must have been to Belshazzar, yet the monarch, overwhelmed with its clearness and certainty, commanded the prophet to be honored, Dan_5:29. And that very night the prediction was fulfilled, for the king was slain, Dan_5:30, and the city taken by the Medes and Persians, Dan_5:31. This great event was also predicted by Isaiah and Jeremiah; and the manner in which it was accomplished is recorded by Herodotus and Xenophon.