Friday, October 25, 2013

The Bible Challenge: Day 298

The scriptures read are Daniel 5-6, Psalm 94 and Revelation 18.

Daniel 5. The second of the kings Daniel served under, Balshazzar, serves his friends drinks in sacred chalices taken from the Jewish temple. So a ghostly hand writes a cryptic message on the wall. None can decipher it but Daniel. The words, "Mene mene tekel upharsin" are actually the names of 3 different units of measure in Aramaic. They are also puns. They sound like "to number, to weigh, to divide." The Bible is full of plays on words that we don't even realize are there, because they are lost in translation.

Anyway, Balshazzar ends up dying that night so the prophesy was fulfilled post haste!

Daniel 6. King Darius' advisers set a trap for Daniel and it succeeds. Daniel is thrown in the lion's den for disobeying his king. But even the king is anxious and doesn't get a wink of sleep. (Spoiler! The lions don't eat Daniel.)

Psalm 94. Everything about this video of Psalm 94 is just right: the poetry of the King James version, the Anglican chant by the choir, the font of the words.

Revelation 18. The great city Babylon has fallen and we get a picture painted of all the people affected. The list of goods the city traded includes "the bodies and souls of men." (verse 13) Slaves?

And provided the stuff said about Babylon isn't hyperbole, it sure sounds like imperial Rome.

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