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236
Royalty and Ruin
numbered your kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL: You have been
weighed in the balances, and found wanting; PERES: Your kingdom
has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”
God’s Restraining Hand Removed
In that last night of insane folly Belshazzar and his lords had
filled up the measure of the Chaldean kingdom’s guilt. No longer
could God’s restraining hand hold off the impending evil. “We would
have healed Babylon,” God declared of those whose judgment was
now reaching unto heaven, “but she is not healed.”
Jeremiah 51:9
.
God had finally found it necessary to pass the irrevocable sentence.
Belshazzar’s kingdom was to pass into other hands.
When the prophet stopped speaking, the king commanded that
he be awarded the promised honors.
More than a century before, Inspiration had foretold that “the
night of ... pleasure” (
Isaiah 21:4
, KJV), during which king and
counselors would blaspheme God, would suddenly be changed into a
time of fear and destruction. And now, while still in the festival hall,
the king is informed that “his city is taken” by the enemy.
Jeremiah
51:31
. Even while he and his nobles were drinking from the sacred
vessels and praising their gods of silver and gold, the Medes and
Persians, having diverted the Euphrates out of its channel, were
marching into the heart of the unguarded city. The army of Cyrus
now stood under the walls of the palace. The city was filled with the
soldiers of the enemy, “like a swarm of locusts” (verse 14, NRSV),
and their triumphant shouts could be heard above the despairing
cries of the astonished party-goers.
“That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain,”
and a foreign king sat on the throne.
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Prophecy Fulfilled
The Hebrew prophets had spoken clearly concerning the manner
in which Babylon would fall:
“Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed.” “The Lord
is the God of recompense, He will surely repay. ‘And I will make
drunk her princes and wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her