Cyrus stayed in Asia Minor till he had entirely subdued all the nations
that inhabited it, from the Ægean sea to the river Euphrates. Thence
he proceeded to Syria and Arabia, which he also subjected. After which
he entered Assyria, and advanced towards Babylon, the only city of the
East that stood out against him.
The siege of this important place was no easy enterprise. The walls
of it were of a prodigious height, and appeared to be inaccessible,
without mentioning the immense number of people within them for its
defence. The city was said to be stored with sufficient provisions
for twenty years. But Cyrus was not a leader to be discouraged by
difficulties. Despairing of taking the city by assault, he made the
Babylonians believe that he meant to reduce it by famine. To this
end, he caused a line of circumvallation to be drawn quite round
the city, with a wide and deep ditch, and, that his troops might
not be over-fatigued, he divided his army into twelve bodies, and
assigned each of them its month for guarding the trenches. The
besieged, thinking themselves free from all danger on account of their
fortifications and magazines, insulted Cyrus from the top of their
walls, and laughed at all his attempts, and all the trouble he gave
himself, as so much unprofitable labour.
As soon as the ditch was completed, he began to think seriously of
his vast design, which he had communicated to nobody. Providence soon
furnished him with as fit an opportunity for this purpose as he could
desire. He was informed that a great festival was to be celebrated in
the city, and that the Babylonians, on account of that solemnity, would
pass the whole night in drinking and debauchery.
Belshazzar, the king, took more interest in this public rejoicing than
any other person, and gave a magnificent entertainment to the chief
officers of the kingdom and the ladies of the court. When flushed with
wine, he ordered the gold and silver vessels which had been taken from
the temple of Jerusalem to be brought out; and as an insult to the God
of Israel, he, his whole court, and all his concubines, drank out of
these sacred vessels. God, who was displeased at such insolence and
impiety, at the instant made him sensible whom it was he offended, by a
sudden apparition of a hand, writing certain characters upon the wall.
The king, terribly surprised and frightened at this vision, immediately
sent for all the wise men, diviners and astrologers, that they might
read the writing to him, and explain the meaning of it. But they all
came in vain, not one of them being able to expound the characters.
The obvious reason of this was that the characters were in the Hebrew
or Samaritan language, which the Babylonians did not understand. The
queen-mother Nitocris, a princess of great merit, coming, upon hearing
of this prodigy, into the banqueting-room, endeavoured to compose the
mind of the king her son, advising him to send for Daniel, with whose
abilities in such matters she was well acquainted, and whom she had
employed in the government of the state.
Daniel was therefore immediately sent for, and spoke to the king with
the freedom and liberty becoming a prophet. He put him in mind of the
dreadful manner in which God had punished the pride of his grandfather
Nebuchadnezzar, and the flagrant abuse he made of his power, when he
acknowledged no law but his own will, and thought himself empowered
to exalt and to abase, to inflict destruction and death, wheresoever
he would, only because such was his will and pleasure. “And thou his
son,” said he to the king, “hast not humbled thine heart, though thou
knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of
heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and
thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in
them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver and of gold, of brass,
iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God
in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou
not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this
writing was written. And this is the writing that was written: MENE,
TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE, God
hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL, thou art weighed in
the balances, and art found wanting; PERES, thy kingdom is divided, and
given to the Medes and Persians.” This interpretation might be expected
to increase the consternation of the company; but they found means to
dispel their fears, probably from a persuasion that the calamity was
not denounced as present or immediate, and that time might furnish them
with expedients to avert it. This, however, is certain, that for fear
of disturbing the general joy of the present festival, they put off the
discussion of serious matters to another time, and sat down again to
their banquet, and continued their revellings to a very late hour.
Cyrus, however, well informed of the confusion that was generally
occasioned by this festival, both in the palace and the city, had
posted a part of his troops on that side where the river entered into
the city, and another part on that side where it went out; and had
commanded them to enter the city that very night, by marching along the
channel of the river as soon as ever they found it fordable. Having
given all necessary orders, and exhorted his officers to follow him, by
representing to them that he marched under the guidance of the gods,
in the evening he made them open the great receptacles or ditches, on
both sides of the city, above and below, that the water of the river
might run into them. By this means, that part of the Euphrates was, for
a time, emptied; and its channel became nearly dry. Then the two bodies
of troops, according to their orders, went into the channel, the one
commanded by Gobryas, and the other by Gudatas, and advanced without
meeting any obstacle. The invisible guide, who had promised to open all
the gates to Cyrus, made the general negligence and disorder of that
riotous night subservient to his design, by leaving open the gates of
brass which were made to shut up the descents from the quays to the
river, and which alone, if they had not been left open, were sufficient
to defeat the whole enterprise. Thus did these two bodies of troops
penetrate into the very heart of the city without any opposition, and
meeting together at the royal palace, according to their agreement,
surprised the guards, and cut them to pieces. Some of the company that
were within the palace opening the doors to ascertain the cause of the
noise they heard without, the soldiers rushed in, and quickly made
themselves masters of it. Meeting the king, who came towards them sword
in hand, at the head of those that were in the way to succour him, they
killed him, and put all that attended him to death. The first thing
the conqueror did was to thank the gods for having at last punished
that impious king. These words are Xenophon’s, and are very worthy of
attention, as they so perfectly agree with what the Scriptures have
recorded of the impious Belshazzar.
The taking of Babylon put an end to the Babylonian empire, after a
duration of two hundred and ten years, from the beginning of the reign
of Nabonassur. Thus was the power of that proud city brought low
just fifty years after she had destroyed the city of Jerusalem and
her temple. And herein were accomplished those predictions which the
prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel had denounced against her. There
is still one more, the most important and the most incredible of them
all, and yet the Scripture has set it down in the strongest terms,
and marked it out with the greatest exactness; a prediction literally
fulfilled in all its points: the proof still actually subsists, is the
most easy to be verified, and indeed of a nature not to be contested.
What[4] I mean is the prediction of so total and absolute a ruin of
Babylon, that not the least remains or traces should be left of it.
In the first place, Babylon ceased to be a royal city, the kings of
Persia choosing to reside elsewhere. They delighted more in Susa,
Ecbatana, Persepolis, or any other place, and did themselves destroy
a great part of Babylon. We are informed by Strabo and Pliny, that
the Macedonians, who succeeded the Persians, did not only neglect it,
and forbear to embellish it, or even repair it, but that, moreover,
they built Seleucia in the neighbourhood, on purpose to draw away its
inhabitants, and cause it to be deserted. Nothing can better explain
what the prophet had foretold: “It shall not be inhabited.” Its own
masters endeavour to make it desolate. The new kings of Persia, who
afterwards became masters of Babylon, completed the ruin of it by
building Ctesiphon, which carried away all the remainder of the
inhabitants; so that from the time the curse was pronounced against
that city, it seems as if those very persons who ought to have
protected it had become its enemies.