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Daniel 5

Weighed in the Balances

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Weighed in the Balances

Daniel 5

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Weighed in the Balances

Daniel 5

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About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Daniel collection. 8 recordings are available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Daniel
Collection
Daniel
[Verse 1] Belshazzar feasted with princes and wine, Called for the vessels from Judah's old shrine. Wives and concubines drank from the gold, Praising gods fashioned from metal and stone. Then fingers appeared by the lamp on the wall; The king's knees struck, and his confidence fell. [Refrain] Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, Numbered and finished, divided within. Mene, Mene, the revelry ends; The hand writes judgment no flatterer bends. [Verse 2] No wise man could read what the plaster displayed; The queen named Daniel, unbought and unafraid. He told how the father was humbled by pride, How heaven restored him when pride finally died. "Thou knewest all this, yet lifted thyself, And drank from God's vessels to honor false wealth." [Chorus] Weighed in the balances, Found wanting tonight. The kingdom is numbered, The Medes wait in sight. Gold on the shoulders Could not change the decree; Weighed in the balances, The proud ceased to be. [Final Movement] The purple was placed and the chain hung bright; Daniel was third for a kingdom one night. That same night Belshazzar was slain in the hall; Darius received what the handwriting called.

Named in this songBelshazzarDaniel

About the passage

Daniel 5: The feast is weighed, and the kingdom is wanting

Belshazzar's feast turns captured temple vessels into drinking cups while the room praises gods made of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone. A hand appears and writes where the king can see it, collapsing the confidence of a ruler whose court still possesses wealth, ceremony, and titles but cannot read the message. Daniel is summoned from outside the immediate circle of the feast and refuses to let the interpretation look purchased by royal reward. Before explaining the inscription, he places Belshazzar beside Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation and makes one fact decisive: "thou knewest all this." The king's failure is not innocent ignorance. He has repeated self-exaltation in the presence of remembered warning. The words on the wall announce that the kingdom has been numbered, the king weighed, and the realm divided. Belshazzar still awards Daniel's promised honors, but the gesture has almost no future. The same night the king dies and the kingdom passes to another ruler.

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