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Belshazzar’s Feast: Babylon’s last night
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mighty men. And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake,’
says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.”
Jeremiah 51:8, 56,
57
.
So “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the
Chaldeans’ pride,” became like Sodom and Gomorrah—a place
forever accursed. “It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled
from generation to generation; nor will the Arabian pitch tents there,
nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. But wild beasts
of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of owls;
ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there. The hye-
nas will howl in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces.”
Isaiah 13:19-22
.
Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter Babylon!
Sit on the ground without a throne... .
You said, “I shall be mistress forever,”
so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their
end.
Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures,
who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”—
both these things shall come upon you in a moment, in one
day:
the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full
measure... .
You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees
me.”
Isaiah 47:1, 7-10, NRSV
Prophecy has outlined the rise and progress of the world’s great
empires—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. With each,
as with nations of less power, history has repeated itself. Each has
had its period of test; each has failed, its glory faded, its power
departed. Nations have rejected God’s principles and have brought
about their own ruin, yet a divine, overruling purpose has been at
work throughout the ages.