The Handwriting on the Wall

Daniel 5 presents one of the Bible’s most colorful stories, set at a feast given by the Babylonian ruler Belshazzar. The king was drinking from vessels plundered from the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. During the feast, a strange disembodied hand appeared and wrote mysterious words on the palace wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

Belshazzar was so terrified that “his knees knocked against each other.” The faithful Jew Daniel appeared and interpreted the message, which meant that God had brought the Babylonian Empire to an end and given it over to the Medes and Persians. That very night Belshazzar, king of Babylon, was killed, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom.

Artists have delighted in capturing this story on canvas, and the great Rembrandt’s painting Belshazzar’s Feast is only one of many.

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Praise Resounds Throughout Creation

Timothy Keller

The Praise Of Creation. Praise comes to God from all he has made. It begins in the highest heaven (verses 1–4). It comes from the sun and moon and stars (verse 3), from the clouds and rain (verse 4).

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

True Worship that Pleases the Lord

Timothy Keller

A little boy left his toys out and went in to practice the piano, using hymns for his lesson. When his mother called him to pick up his toys, he said, “I ca n’t eat; “I’m singing praise to Jesus.” His mother responded: “There's no use singing God's praises when you're being disobedient.”

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

From Heavenly Greatness to Inexhaustible Love

Timothy Keller

The number of stars is still uncountable by human science, yet God knows them by name (verse 4; cf. Isaiah 40:26). Job speaks of the creation, when “the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” (Job 38:7).

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

The Gift of Himself

David Jeremiah

Long ago, there ruled a wise and good king in Persia who loved his people and often dressed in the clothes of a working man or a beggar so he could visit the poor and learn about their hardships.

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Healing Time

J. Stephen Lang

1868: On this date a political leader who grew up poor, had no formal education and was illiterate until his wife taught him to read and write, issued Proclamation 179 “granting full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States during the late Civil War.”