The Collective That Cannot Mourn
Belshazzar's feast, the writing on the wall and the grief that proves we are still human
PluribusA unity that cannot grieve cannot recognize what it has lost. Belshazzar's feast carries on while the kingdom is being weighed and divided in the dark, and Pluribus dramatizes a parallel horror: a joined consciousness that is unfailingly content while the human race it has absorbed is, in some real sense, dying. Carol's grief is treated as a defect to be cured, but Daniel 5 treats grief as a sign of the image of God still intact in a person.
By Bea Zalel
Daniel 5
Read in NIV →- Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.
- Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.
- Thus they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king drank from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.
- As they drank the wine, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.
- At that moment the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. As the king watched the hand that was writing,
- his face grew pale and his thoughts so alarmed him that his hips gave way and his knees knocked together.
- The king called out for the enchanters, astrologers, and diviners to be brought in, and he said to these wise men of Babylon, "Whoever reads this inscription and tells me its interpretation will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."
- So all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription or interpret it for him.
- Then King Belshazzar became even more terrified, his face grew even more pale, and his nobles were bewildered.
- Hearing the outcry of the king and his nobles, the queen entered the banquet hall. "O king, may you live forever!" she said. "Do not let your thoughts terrify you, or your face grow pale.
- There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your father he was found to have insight, intelligence, and wisdom like that of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners. Your own father, the king,
- did this because Daniel, the one he named Belteshazzar, was found to have an extraordinary spirit, as well as knowledge, understanding, and the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Summon Daniel, therefore, and he will give you the interpretation."
- So Daniel was brought before the king, who asked him, "Are you Daniel, one of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah?
- I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that you have insight, intelligence, and extraordinary wisdom.
- Now the wise men and enchanters were brought before me to read this inscription and interpret it for me, but they could not give its interpretation.
- But I have heard about you, that you are able to give interpretations and solve difficult problems. Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its interpretation, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."
- In response, Daniel said to the king, "You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the inscription for the king and interpret it for him.
- As for you, O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness, glory and honor.
- Because of the greatness that He bestowed on him, the people of every nation and language trembled in fear before him. He killed whom he wished and kept alive whom he wished; he exalted whom he wished and humbled whom he wished.
- But when his heart became arrogant and his spirit was hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne, and his glory was taken from him.
- He was driven away from mankind, and his mind was like that of a beast. He lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like an ox, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he acknowledged that the Most High God rules over the kingdom of mankind, setting over it whom He wishes.
- But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this.
- Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
- Therefore He sent the hand that wrote the inscription.
- Now this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN.
- And this is the interpretation of the message: MENE means that God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
- TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
- PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians."
- Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
- That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain,
- and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
Inline text: Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. Compare with the Daniel 5 chapter in your preferred translation via the link above.
Theme
Daniel 5 opens on a banquet that Babylonian sources actually corroborate. Belshazzar was co-regent for his absent father Nabonidus, the genuine last king of Babylon, which is why Daniel is offered the THIRD place in the kingdom in verse 16 rather than the second; first and second were already filled by Nabonidus and Belshazzar himself. The feast for a thousand of his nobles is recorded around the time of Babylon's fall. The temple vessels Belshazzar pulls out to drink from in verses 2 through 4 had been carried off by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 and 587 BCE, sacred objects from Jerusalem now turned into party cups. Then comes one of the most cinematically vivid scenes in scripture: a disembodied hand writing on the plaster wall. Babylon fell to Cyrus the Persian's general Gobryas that same night, October 12, 539 BCE per Herodotus and the Cyrus Cylinder, by diverting the Euphrates and walking under the wall.
The writing itself is a genius piece of Aramaic wordplay. "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN" reads on the surface as a list of monetary weights: a mina, a mina, a shekel, half-pieces. The wise men of Babylon could probably read the letters but not the meaning. Daniel reads it as verbs: counted, counted, weighed, divided. Then he puns the last word: "Peres" sounds like both "divided" and "Persian." Your kingdom is finished, you are weighed and found wanting, you are divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Verse 22 names the deeper sin underneath the desecration. "You, his son Belshazzar, have NOT HUMBLED YOUR HEART, even though you knew all this." Belshazzar knew Nebuchadnezzar's seven-year humbling. He knew the cost of pride. He is feasting precisely because he refuses to mourn what his predecessor's downfall should have taught him.
Pluribus stages something hauntingly close to Belshazzar's court in a different key. The Joined cannot grieve, because grief requires a self to lose someone. They have shared themselves so fully into a single consciousness that there is no individual one left to lose, and so no death registers as a death. That is the deepest horror the show is exploring, not malice and not violence but the inability to mourn. Carol's grief is treated by them as a malfunction to be fixed, a bug in her wiring, something kindly to be smoothed away so she can be content with the others. The chapter argues the opposite. Her refusal to be content is the very thing protecting her humanity. The hand writing on her wall, so to speak, is her tears. They are evidence she still has a self capable of recognizing loss as loss.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 says it bluntly: "the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." Lamentations is an entire book canonizing grief as a faithful posture before God, weeping for a fallen city without rushing to resolve the weeping. Modern Western culture, like Belshazzar's court, prefers feasting. We medicate grief, we time-box it, we treat people who linger in the house of mourning as people who need to move on. The collective that cannot mourn, whether a hive mind or a church that bypasses lament or a person who suppresses their own losses, eventually loses the capacity to recognize loss at all. And once you cannot see loss you cannot see the kingdom slipping away in the dark. Where in your life are you tempted to feast past a grief you should be sitting with?
Supporting cross-references
Discussion questions
- Belshazzar is offered to Daniel as the THIRD place in the kingdom because Nabonidus and Belshazzar already held first and second. How does that historical detail change the way you read the chapter's politics, and what does it tell you about the kind of leader who throws a feast while his father is away losing the empire?
- Verses 2 through 4 describe the temple vessels being used as drinking cups for Belshazzar's nobles. What does it look like in your own life when something sacred is repurposed for entertainment, and how do you usually notice it has happened?
- The Aramaic words "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN" double as monetary weights and as verbs of judgment. Why do you think God chose a piece of wordplay the king's wise men could read but not interpret, and what does that suggest about the difference between literacy and wisdom?
- Verse 22 indicts Belshazzar specifically because "you knew all this" about Nebuchadnezzar's humbling and still refused to humble your heart. What do you know about previous generations' failures that you are at risk of repeating, and what would humbling your heart actually look like this week?
- Ecclesiastes 7:4 says the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. When was the last time you spent real time in a house of mourning, and what did it teach you that the house of mirth could not?
- Pluribus, working from publicly known premise, depicts a collective that treats Carol's grief as a defect to be cured. Where in your own community is grief quietly treated as a problem to be solved rather than a posture to be honored?
- Lamentations 1:1-3 describes Jerusalem as a widow weeping in the night with no one to comfort her. Why do you think scripture preserves a whole book of unresolved lament, and what does that say about God's tolerance for our own unresolved grief?
- Belshazzar's feast continues even as the kingdom is being weighed and divided that very night. What feasts in your life or your church might be carrying on while something underneath is already being weighed?
- The chapter ends with Belshazzar honoring Daniel and then dying that same night anyway. Recognition of the truth came too late to change the outcome. What grief or warning are you currently postponing that, if delayed too long, will arrive only as an obituary?
- If grief is a sign of the image of God still intact in a person, what practices, rhythms or relationships in your life keep your capacity to mourn alive, and which ones quietly erode it?