MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

 

Strong's concordance identifies the word "Upsharin"�as (6537) meaning split apart, or divided.  It is used only once in the Bible, in Daniel 5:25.   But it is the same as the word "Peres" (verse 28), meaning "divided".

 

The words "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" had suddenly appeared written on the wall of  King Belshazzar's palace during a great feast to a thousand of his lords while they were all drinking wine and praising "the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone" from vessels taken out of the temple of the house of God at Jerusalem.  "At the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another". (Daniel 5:5-6)

 

Belshazzar called in his astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers to interpret the writing, but none "could read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation".  It was the queen who suggested the king call in Daniel, whom she remembered as the one his father (King Nebuchadbnezzar) turned to for interpretion of his dream.

 

Can we not see the similarity of God using the dream of Pilate's wife to warn him about the impending crucifixion of Jesus?

 

Belshazzar, the son of King Nebuchadnezzar, was well aware of what had happened to his father (5:22), how he temporarily lost his mind and was driven to live as a wild man eating grass, his hair grown "like eagle's feathers" and his nails "like claws".  This lasted for seven "times" (or years) until Nebuchadnzzar was humbled to know that 'the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomever He will". (32). Now was returned the same Daniel to the palace to issue an interpretation of MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

 

The meaning was the same as his father's: “You have not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and brought the vessels of his house before thee and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines... and praised the gods of silver, gold, brass, iron, wood and stone, which see not, not hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.  God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. You are weighed in the balances and found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians".

 

That same night was Belshazzar, the king of theChaldeans slain (5:30) and Darius the Median took the kingdom.

 

 

ANOTHER WRITING ON "THE WALL?"

 

America: You too knew this story; having rehearsed it from your pulpits for hundreds of years.  Those warnings, you now dismiss as irrelevant to your “enlightened generation”.  Such old Bible stories could not apply to this world’s greatest, richest and most powerful nation, “under God?”.  The “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” could not possibly be “weighed in the balances and found wanting”.

 

Or could it?

 

To whom much is given, much is required.  Belshazzar knew what had happened to his father, and the cause of it.  It was a story handed down and remembered, even by his own wife, and the warning was clear.  How much more would be required of a nation already knowledgeable of the consequences? 

 

 

Elections do not determine who wins or loses.  It is God who determines...and this country is at a crossroads.  Having already rejected His rule in so many ways, there is a definite warning which “deaf ears” are not hearing, and “hearing ears” not obeying.  The gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood and stone are being worshipped just as they were at Belshazzer’s banquet table some 2500 years ago.  The question is: just how soon we might receive the fateful prophecy of Daniel in our days?

 

IF AMERICA CRIPPLES ITSELF to the degree it is no longer the world’s only superpower, then this fits squarely with prophetic scripture that forecasts the rise of the Antichrist.

 

As the Bible’s outline for the last days continues to develop, more and more of the handwriting on the wall begins to come into focus. ...for us!  According to Scripture, in the very last days, the tiny nation of Israel will face the assembled might of the world’s collective armies alone. Without the protective umbrella of the United States as it presently enjoys)

 

And America? Will it too fall in one night and the Medes and Persians take over its’ vacated throne?

 

Never happen?  Don’t be so sure...

 

I’m not.

 

 

MARY E ADAMS