The message of judgment has been written and now read by Daniel. Belshazzar and the Babylonian kingdom had been weighed and come up short, so they would be overthrown by the Medo-Persian empire.
Only two things remain: Belshazzar rewarding Daniel and Belshazzar taking his last breath.
Belshazzar fulfilled his promise to the handwriting analyst, but it was the last thing he did!
Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. (Dan. 5:29)
Daniel, however was unimpressed with the king’s promises. They were worthless. The God of Israel had already written the word bankrupt over Belshazzar and all that he had. Daniel had everything he needed, for he had God (Psalm 73:25-26).
30 That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
“The most famous military tactic in history may be the Greeks’ use of a giant wooden horse to sneak soldiers into the city of Troy. But ranking right up there with the Trojan horse is the story of how the Medo-Persian armies captured Babylon. Scholars debate whether the Trojan horse is fact or legend, but Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon is a certified fact” (David Jeremiah, Agents of Babylon, p. 162).
After conquering numerous other enemies, Cyrus faced his greatest challenge— the huge walled city, 24 square kilometres of Babylon. Xenophon records the following surmising of Cyrus, “But I am sure I cannot see how any one could take by storm, walls so massive and so high.”
Both Herodotus and Xenophon record that Cyrus resolved to lay siege on Babylon and wait until the people within the walls ran out of food. He was informed (perhaps by Gadatas and Gobryas—two defectors from Babylon) that the great city had more than 20 years of food supplies. Cyrus became frustrated, but then a plan came to him, perhaps from one of his advisers or perhaps from his own design. The walls were too thick to break. The gates were too strong. There was only one fathomable way to get in—the Euphrates River, which went through the middle of the city.
The highly regarded Greek historian Herodotus wrote a full account of the event:
“Cyrus, having thus stationed the bulk of his army near the passage of the river where it enters Babylon, and again having stationed another division beyond the city, where the river makes its exit,…gave orders to his forces to enter the city as soon as they should see the stream fordable. Having thus stationed his forces and given these directions, he himself marched away with the ineffective part of his army, and having come to the lake, Cyrus…diverted the river, by means of a canal, into a lake, which was before the swamp, he made the ancient channel fordable by the sinking of the river.
When this took place, the Persians who were appointed to that purpose close to the stream of the vier, which had now subsided to about the middle of a man’s thigh, entered Babylon by this passage….It is related to the people who inhabited this city, that…the Babylonians who inhabited the centre knew nothing of the capture (for it happened to be a festival)l but they were dancing at the time, and enjoying themselves….And thus Babylon was taken for the first time. (Herodotus, vol. 1, trans. Henry Carey, pp. 190-191).
So on the night of October 11, 539 B.C., the Medo-Persian army slipped beneath the wall of Babylon and put Belshazzar to death. “Daniel 4 marks the end of Nebuchadnezzar, the builder of Babylon. Chapter 5 marks the end of Belshazzar and Babylon. The head of gold on the colossus was now defeated by the chest and arms of silver. Babylon was absorbed into the inferior empire of the Medes and Persians” (David Jeremiah, Agents of Babylon, p. 163).
Grant Jeffrey comments: “Despite Cyrus’ brilliant strategy of diverting the Euphrates River to allow his army to breach the city gates, his plan of attack would not have succeeded without the misplaced confidence of the Babylonian army. Babylonian soldiers were so confident in their city’s defenses that they minimized the threat of the Persian army while it remained outside the city. In addition, many of the Babylonian troops were drunk from joining in the spirit of the king’s wine-fueled banquet. Once the Persian armies joined forces in the center of Babylon, they [easily] overran the city’s key defenses” (Countdown to the Apocalypse, p. 88).
As we close this chapter, we need to heed the words of John F. Walvoord:
The downfall of Babylon is in type the downfall of the unbelieving world. In many respects, modern civilization is much like ancient Babylon, resplendent with its monuments of architectural triumph, as secure as human hands and ingenuity could make it, and yet defenseless against the judgment of God at the proper hour. Contemporary civilization is similar to ancient Babylon in that it has much to foster human pride but little to provide human security. Much as Babylon fell on that sixteenth day of Tishri (Oc. 11 or 12) 539 B.C., as indicated in the Nabonidus Chronicle, so the world will be overtaken by disaster when the day of the Lord comes (1 Th 5:1-3). The disaster of the world, however, does not overtake the child of God; Daniel survives the purge and emerges triumphant as one of the presidents of the new kingdom in chapter 6.
And in the words of Isaiah:
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
The doom of Babylon here foreshadows the doom of Babylon the Great, the most of harlots (Rev. 17:5). People today may laugh when we tell them that our modern civilization is doomed, but I’m certain that Belshazzar never conceived in his mind that his mighty empire would be overthrown as well.
A hymn by Knowles Shaw entitled “The Handwriting on the Wall,” has this for the first and fourth verses:
At the feast of Belshazzar, and a thousand of his lords,
While they drank from golden vessels, as the Book of Truth records;
In the night as they revel in the royal palace hall,
They were seized with consternation,– ’twas the hand upon the wall.
So our deeds are recorded, there’s a Hand that’s writing now;
Sinner, give your heart to Jesus, to His royal mandate bow;
For the day is approaching, it must come to one and all,
When the sinner’s condemnation will be written on the wall.
The chorus goes:
‘Tis the hand of God on the wall, (on the wall,)
‘Tis the hand of God on the wall; (on the wall;)
Shall the record be, “Found wanting,” or shall it be, “Found trusting!”
While that hand is writing on the wall? (writing on the wall.)
This is not fiction. It is not a fairy tale. It is the consistent truth of God throughout the ages. We will be held accountable for how we’ve lived our lives, and most particularly what we have done with Jesus Christ. “[He who] has the Son has life” (1 John 5:12)
John Phillips finishes with this insight into prophecy:
“Immediately after the flood, Noah made a remarkable prophecy regarding his sons (Gen. 9:18-27). He passed over his second son, Ham, in silence because of his misbehavior. He prophetically cursed Ham’s son, Cannan, because he would be the father of the foul and wicked Canaanite nations who so filled and defiled the Promised Land. He blesses his youngest son, Shem—from him would come the Semitic people, particularly Abraham and, above all, the Lord Jesus Himself. Finally, he blessed his oldest son, Japheth. To him he promised enlargement, political domination, and a prominent place in ‘the tents of Shem.’
Satan immediately set about the task of proving Noah to be a false prophet. The first great empires were Hamitic and Semitic—the Egyptian Empire was Hamitic, and the Assyrian and Babylonian empires were both Semitic. But, with the death of Belshazzar, world empires passed into the hands of Japheth—where it has been ever since, and where it will remain until the Antichrist comes to revive the Old Roman Empire, rule the world, and be swept away by the returning Christ” (John Phillips, Exploring the Book of Daniel, pp. 95-96)
History is “his story,” the story of God and His determination to be glorified among the nations. He glorifies himself in salvation through judgment. Over and over again throughout history God rescues his people by judging other nations. Everything is set up now for the fulfillment of God’s promise through Jeremiah and Isaiah that Cyrus would allow the exiled Jews to return to their homeland (Ezra 1:1-5).
Babylon was being judged. Babylon was the instrument that God used to discipline His own people, but like many others, they have overplayed their stewardship with cruelty and harshness and blasphemy. Now it was time for Babylon to fall.
Our salvation also comes through judgment. Although we deserve to die for our sins, God sent His one and only Son, His dearly loved Son, to die on the cross, to receive our judgment in his body on the tree.
This is the only way that salvation comes, through judgment. Now, you can stand there in your sins, proud of yourself for being your own person, and you will die in your sins and face eternal judgment, or you can accept the judgment of God’s Son on the cross as payment for your sins.
When some people approached Jesus, assuming that some recent tragedies meant that God was judging them, we read
1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)
Jesus’s message: Any time we hear of a tragedy, or someone experiencing terrible things, it is a message to us that we need to repent.
One of the most amazing things I found about the history of World War II is that as Berlin was about to fall and Hitler and all his leaders were down in a concrete bunker and the whole city was surrounded by the Red Army and the forces were crumbling at that moment, even after Hitler had committed suicide, the Nazi officials had a party, a big celebration.
We all have a tendency to try to dull the pain, to soften the blow and it is easy to try to party our way into ignoring the realities around us.
And so from the Scripture comes this slogan, “Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” And nothing could have ever been said more truthfully about Babylon. Actually, it wasn’t tomorrow, it was tonight.
What should they have been doing? They should have been taking the time repenting. They should have been on their faces before God, seeking His forgiveness, not drinking from His vessels and praising idols of gold and wood and stone, getting drunk. But you know, it’s not very different in God’s own people either.
In Isaiah 22, writing about the fall of Jerusalem they did the same thing. This is what Isaiah says about the fall of Jerusalem,
12 In that day the Lord God of hosts
called for weeping and mourning,
for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
13 and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
14 The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,”
says the Lord God of hosts.
Sure, there are biblical reasons to celebrate and the appropriate times to celebrate. But beware of using anything—parties, drugs, alcohol, sex—whatever, to avoid the necessity of dealing with our inner evils and repenting of them.
Scripture identifies a distinction between true repentance and a worldly sorrow. “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor. 7:10). Paul goes on to describe the characteristics of true repentance. “For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter” (2 Cor. 7:11). Scripture gives examples of some, like David, who repented from the heart (Ps. 51) and others, like Cain and Saul, who hated the consequences of their sin, but not the sin itself (Gen. 4; 1 Sam. 15).
Repentance should become a regular spiritual discipline in our lives, a practice that we engage in daily, or every time we need it. Any time we are conscious of having sinned, we should practice biblical repentance and confession (1 John 1:9).
Don’t end up like Belshazzar. Listen to God’s reproof and repent of your sins.
Grace Still Amazes 