Page Content (OCR)
197 Figure 62 when in his dreams he experienced an actual, physical touch and voice of "a god." Continuing his narrative, Daniel wrote that as he fell asleep facedown, Suddenly a hand touched me and pulled me up, to be upon my knees and the palms of my hands. The divine person then revealed to Daniel that he was to be shown the future. Overwhelmed, with his face still down, Daniel was speechless. But then the person—"of the appear- ance of the sons of Man"—touched the lips of Daniel, and Daniel was able to speak. When he apologized for his weak- ness, the divine person touched him again, and Daniel "re- gained his strength." All that had taken place while Daniel was seized by a trancelike sleep. More memorable than the dream-visions of Daniel is the Twilight Zone incident of the MHandwriting-on-the-Wall. It took place in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's successor as regent in Babylon, Bel-shar-utzur ("Lord, the Prince pre- serve") whom the bible calls Belshazzar, circa 540 B.C. As related in chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar made a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and was feasting and drinking wine—a scene known from several Babylonian and Assyrian depictions of royal banquets (Fig. 62). Drunk with too much wine, he gave orders to fetch the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had seized from the Tem- ple in Jerusalem, so that "he and his nobles, his concubines and his courtesans might drink from them. So the vessels of Visions from the Twilight Zone