Weighed in the Balance

When Daniel was taken to Babylon the king was Nebuchadnezzar.  Daniel lived for some time there under his rule, and then according to Daniel chapter 5 Belshazzar—the son of Nebuchadnezzar—was made the king.  The first that we read of him he “made a great feast to a thousand of his lords” in which they drank wine.  The king “commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem.”  These had been taken from the temple when Jerusalem had been captured and it appears that the Babylonian king was mocking the Israelites and their God.  We read that after they retrieved the sacred vessels, “they drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone” (Daniel 5:1-4).  One commenter said this of the scene: “The use of these vessels in the drinking of wine at a festival, amid the singing of songs in praise of the gods, was accordingly a celebrating of these gods as victorious over the God of Israel.”  Clearly the Babylonians were, at least figuratively speaking, trampling underfoot the God of the Israelites.

               The Lord surely does not respond immediately whenever He is mocked by the children of men, but in this case He did.  In response to this reveling, “In 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.”  Ultimately Daniel translated the writing with these condemning words: “And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.  This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. UPHARSIN; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians” (Daniel 5:5, 25-28).  Belshazzar clearly believed Daniel because he rewarded him for his words, but it didn’t make much difference since “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain” (Daniel 5:30).  In this circumstance, with the sacred emblems of the temple being ridiculed, the Lord intervened illustrating this teaching of President Kimball: “Remember, God is in his heavens. He knew what he was doing when he organized the earth. He knows what he is doing now. Those of us who break his commandments will regret and suffer in remorse and pain. God will not be mocked.  Man has his free agency, it is sure, but remember, GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED.”  In modern scripture the Lord put it this way: “I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days” (D&C 63:58).  We don’t know all the reasons why sometimes the wicked seem to go punished immediately (such as this case) and why other times those who mock the Lord and His commandments seem to prosper for a time.  But we know that eventually all of us will stand before God accountable for our actions and words: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt 12:36).  If that’s true of all of our words then surely the same goes for all of our actions.  We must live our lives knowing that ultimately good will triumph over evil and work so that when the Lord weighs us in the balances, we are not found wanting.