This Is the Way... Four Little Words With Big Meaning
by Robin Webber
During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave one the shortest yet most meaningful speeches in history. The two-minute address spoke to a crucial moment in the nation's history. Lincoln spoke in a redemptive tone about the judgment of God upon a single nation and what might yet be accomplished.
Today that speech is known as the Gettysburg Address. It was so short that it was only afterward that people would begin to recognize the gravity of what was spoken.
In the annals of human history is there any more poignant and crisper message than the Gettysburg Address? If so, where?
Yes, there is a shorter message given long ago that also came to jolt a nation. Actually only four words were conveyed to those assembled. This message changed the course of not only a nation, but the entire world. It, too, would have to be later interpreted for its significance. Its meaning comes down to our day and has incredible prophetic implications for the future.
Far from the dirt roads and fields of Gettysburg, we enter a different time and place at the royal court of Babylon as described in Daniel 5:1-5.
It is here we discover the actions of Belshazzar, the coregent of Babylon and grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, staging a gigantic banquet for 1,000 of his closest cohorts. Many of us are familiar with this biblical event, but what is the story behind the story?
Oh, those walls!
Extrabiblical literature can help set the stage for this particular night. Herodotus, the Greek historian, offers this interesting detail of what may have preceded the great banquet:
"A battle was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the Babylonians were defeated by the Persian king, whereupon they withdrew within their defenses. Here they shut themselves up, and made light of his siege, having laid in store for many years in preparation against this attack" (Persian Wars, Book 1, Sec. 190).
