77. Cyrus Captures Babylon

King Belshazzar's Famous Feast

Belshazzar the king made a great feast (feasts of this nature were not over and done within one evening, they could go on for months at a time.  When Xerxes had one of these parties it lasted for a hundred and eighty days.) Esther 1:4.  That is for half a year! 

to a thousand of his lords.  It is believable that the number, "thousand" is an unspecified number which simply means very many; in the same way, we might use that number without bothering to count.  In this verse, one text says, two thousand men. Pulpit commentary. 

At that feast, Belshazzar mocked the religion of the Jews and blasphemed the God of Israel.  The king saw fingers writing on the wall; they wrote, you have been tested and you fall short of what is required.  Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians; ... Darius the Mede took the kingdom. In that night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was killed. Dan 5:28-31.

Cyrus, king of Persia 

The ancient name for modern Iran is Persia.  History books tell us that Cyrus, king of Persia, captured Babylon, but the Bible says, Darius the Mede took the kingdom.  This discrepancy is explained like this.  Darius was the king of Medo-Persia and he sent his nephew, Cyrus, of Media, to invade Babylon.  In a political sense, it was Darius who captured Babylon even though it was Cyrus who led the army.

Belshazzar is also known as Neriglissar or Niricassolassar.  He is said to be the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.  Scholars insist that Babylon fell in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Nabonidus, not in the reign of Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson.  What we do know for certain is that in October 539, the Persian king, Cyrus, took Babylon and captured its king Nabonidus. Livius.org-Articles on Ancient History.  This discrepancy, however, need not bother us.  In the Bible, it is not unusual for a male descendant to be called the son of his grandfather.

In preparing to write this post I was trying to make some sense of the genealogy involved in the lives of these leaders.  Then I ran across this statement, The statements in regard to this monarch, it is well understood, are exceedingly confused, and the task of reconciling them is now hopeless. Barnes Bible Commentary.  That made me feel better.  Regardless of who is who, the moral and the spiritual lessons, in the Book of Daniel, remain unchanged.

If the king and his lords had not been so busy getting drunk, they would surely have noticed the Medo-Persian army rerouting the Euphrates and gathering at their gates.   If they had noticed what was going on, they could have taken action against them and probably saved their kingdom.  Not only that, but their situation, safe inside the walls of Babylon, was much more favourable than that of the invading army.  However, a thousand of his lords were in no condition to lead their legions into the fray.

The capture of the city was easy, but the aftermath of the battle appears to have been violent: the Nabonidus Chronicle uses the expression iduk, "to kill, to massacre" to describe what happened to the defeated. 

The Babylonian Empire had been large, and Cyrus, by capturing the Babylonian empire, now became ruler of Syria and Palestine as well. According to the Biblical book of Ezra, Cyrus allowed the Jews, who were exiled to Babylon, to return home. Livius.org-Articles on Ancient History.

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, (In 538 BCE: In the first year after he captured Babylon) Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, ... saying, So says Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by Jehovah God.  As far West as Macedonia on the Aegean Sea and Libya which is West of Egypt; East all the way into India.  That is all the world that the ancients knew.  He has commanded me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May Jehovah his God be with him, and let him go up. 2 Chron. 36:22-23

These are the ones who came with Zerubbabel: Ezra 2:2.   Zerubbabel was the leader of the first of two such expeditions.  Cyrus, may not have been as benevolent as he seems.  He may have wanted the Jews to return to their homes in Judah so that they would be a buffer between the army of Egypt and Cyrus's home in Persia.  This may have been an attempt to fortify the empire's western border against possible Egyptian attacks. Livius.org-Articles on Ancient History.  Surely the Israelites must have thought that by living at home they could help keep the Egyptians from invading their country.

It was not until after Zerubbabel and his followers had settled in Judah and started rebuilding Jerusalem that Persia invaded and conquered Egypt.