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Belshazzar’s Feast: Babylon’s last night
This chapter is based on Daniel 5.
Great changes were taking place in the land to which Daniel
and his companions had been carried captive more than sixty years
before. Nebuchadnezzar had died, and Babylon had passed under
the unwise rule of his successors. Gradual but sure decline was
resulting.
Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, gloried in his
power and lifted up his heart against the God of heaven. He had
known that God’s decree had banished his grandfather from hu-
man society. He was familiar with Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion
and miraculous restoration. But he allowed pleasure and self-
glorification to erase the lessons he should never have forgotten.
He neglected to use the means within his reach for becoming better
acquainted with truth.
It was not long before reverses came. Cyrus, commanding gen-
eral of the Medes and Persians, put Babylon under siege. But within
its massive walls and gates of bronze, protected by the river Eu-
phrates and stocked with abundant provisions, the pleasure-seeking
monarch felt safe and passed his time in merriment and partying.
In his pride and arrogance, with a reckless feeling of security,
Belshazzar “made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank
wine in the presence of the thousand.” Beautiful women with their
enchantments were among the guests. Men of genius and education
were there. Princes and statesmen drank wine and partied under its
maddening influence.
With reason dethroned through drunkenness and with lower im-
pulses and passions controlling him, the king himself took the lead
in the riotous orgy. He “gave the command to bring the gold and
silver vessels which ... Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple
which had been in Jerusalem.” The king would prove that nothing
was too sacred for his hands to handle. “They brought the gold
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