God’s Word for You
Daniel 5:22-24 The Meaning of the Hand
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, October 22, 2025
22 “But his son—you, Belshazzar—you have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. 23 Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of Heaven. You called for the goblets from his temple tp be brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you failed to honor the God who holds your breath in his hand, and all your ways. 24 This is why he sent the hand that wrote this inscription.
Daniel has three accusations to bring against the king. He begins with an emphatic pronoun, “You!” The comparison is between Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar, a comparison that perhaps Belshazzar had in his mind quite often. But while the present king was surely worried about the greatness, splendor and glory of his grandfather, Daniel compares their spiritual lives. Perhaps Belshazzar thought he came up short as to his rule and his authority, but he was not prepared for the differences between his grandfather’s sins and his own.
Belshazzar’s sins were not sins of ignorance. “You, Belshazzar. You haven’t humbled yourself, even though you knew all this,” the prophet proclaims. You should have known better.
In addition, he says: “You, Belshazzar, you called for the sacred worship cups and vessels from the Temple of Solomon and you desecrated them.” An additional sin is revealed here as Daniel points out the king’s polygamy, but about this it could be argued that the king was truly ignorant. Yet this does not excuse him in the eyes of God.
Finally, Daniel says, “You, Belshazzar. You praised false gods and worshiped useless idols.” We have already seen that the king and his nobles were drinking to and toasting the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. It’s remarkable that Daniel knew this; the text shows that he was not present for this part of the feast. Rumors in a palace spread quickly, but the identities of false gods would be a strange subject for Babylonian gossip. In fact, Daniel reverses the order of the gods of gold and silver to silver and gold (a detail also noticed by the meticulous Masoretes, the scribes who made detailed notes about variations in the Hebrew text).
After these accusations, Daniel gives his interpretation of the appearance of the hand that wrote the message. How many Sunday school children have wondered about just this point, and perhaps never had the nerve to ask? Why a hand? Why not a whole arm? Why not an entire angel?
Daniel answers this and explains it to Belshazzar. “God holds your breath in his hand. That is why he sent the hand.” The hand, “the very hand of heaven,” all by itself was a warning to the king, and a judgment. Luther explains with apt words: “Daniel says to King Belshazzar (5:23): ‘The God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.’ The breath and the air, says Daniel, without which no one can do for a moment—God owns them; we do not” (LW 2:391-392).
God invites us to praise and thank him for every gift, including the air that we breath, the lungs and body we breathe with, the light that illuminates our eye, the beautiful sounds that delight our ears, the many things that we feel with the flesh of our fingers, whether soft, hard, smooth, rough, plain, strange, dry, wet, warm, cool, small, or large. Each is a blessing; each brings a memory with it. But the air… the air is life (Genesis 1:30), just as the blood of a person is life (Deuteronomy 12:23).
Life and breath are surely caught up in and included with the daily bread we pray for in the Fourth Petition. In those words, “Give us our daily bread,” are “everything that belongs to our entire life in this world… not only food and clothing and other necessities for our body, but also peace and concord in our daily business and in associations of every description” (Large Catechism II:73).
Therefore the very hand that only the king could see, as we were told (5:5), was itself a message of judgment for the king. The time for warning was at an end. The time of judgment had come. God’s judgment and his condemnation of this king were being spoken by the prophet, and nothing would stop this proclamation.
When we listen to God’s holy law and are led to understand his wrath over sin, our sin, we also have the wonderful, soothing, spectacular news that Jesus our Lord loves us, came to rescue us, took all of our foul sins onto his own account, and paid for them with his life and breath and blood. We are free, we are forgiven. And nothing will stop this proclamation, either.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.