Simply teaching the Bible, simply

As we move into chapter five we find that Belshazzar is now king (not to be confused with Belteshazzar – the Babylonian name for Daniel). About 23 years have passed since Nebuchadnezzar died and the kingdom of Babylon has gone through a turbulent time. Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Evil-Merodach, succeeded his father and reigned for almost three years (cf 2 Kings 25:27 / Jer 52:31). His brother, Neriglissar, then reigned for about five years being succeeded by his son, Labashi-Marduk, who, being very young reigned for just a few months before being murdered. Finally, Nabonidus who had married Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter became king. History records that Nabonidus did not get on well with the people of Babylon, nor even with the priests of Marduk (the Babylonian god). As a result of this, after three years, Nabonidus appointed his son Belshazzar as king of Babylon while he himself took an army to Arabia, presumably to build sandcastles and keep out of the limelight! All of this political turmoil was just the invitation that a brilliant young military leader by the name of Cyrus needed. The Meads and the Persians were two great adjacent empires that had been steadily growing in power; however when Cyrus came along with one of his parents Persian and the other a Mead, it was the smoothing oil that was required to unite two fairly strong empires into one all conquering one. Belshazzar would have been aware that the newly formed Medo-Persian Empire was in the ascendancy and was also no doubt aware that Cyrus’ army (under the command of his general – Gubaru (later to be crowned Darius)) was heading toward Babylon. So what do you do when you’re the king of Babylon and an invading army is approaching? Throw a party! Evidently Belshazzar was so sure that Babylon was impregnable that he simply shut the gates of the city and gave a great feast to a thousand of his lords to demonstrate his undeniable, if not foolhardy, confidence. After all, he was the king of the great Babylon, excellency of the Chaldeans and capital of the known world. If over-confidence was his first mistake, his second was soon to follow…