Daniel’s Reward
(5:29)
Verse 29 describes the king’s response, which, like his life and administration, was found wanting. Belshazzar’s response to Daniel imply two sad realities.
First, the king’s response indicates he believed Daniel had given him the true interpretation of the writing on the wall. He rewarded Daniel as he had promised to anyone who could interpret the writing on the wall. When he rewarded Daniel, he gave testimony to the truth of the interpretation Daniel had given. Surely he would never have rewarded Daniel for an interpretation he believed to be inaccurate.
Second, the king’s response is sadly deficient. While Daniel is not said to have urged the king to repent, as he did with Nebuchadnezzar (4:27), prophecy affords sinners the opportunity to repent.14 Daniel does not indicate how much time is left for the king. We know from the final verses of the passage that the night would not pass before the king was put to death. For him, there were only minutes—at the most hours—to repent, and he did not do so.
The End of Belshazzar
(5:30-31)
30 That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. 31 So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.
The Medo-Persian troops were stealthily moving along the exposed riverbed under cover of darkness and climbing the walls of the defenses while revelry was going on throughout the city. Some eighty years later, Herodotus (1.191) recorded the following:
Hereupon the Persians who had been left for the purpose at Babylon by the river-side, entered the stream, which had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a man's thigh, and thus got into the town. Had the Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus was about, or had they noticed their danger, they would never have allowed the Persians to enter the city, but would have destroyed them utterly; for they would have made fast all the street-gates which gave upon the river, and mounting upon the walls along both sides of the stream, would so have caught the enemy as it were in a trap. But, as it was, the Persians came upon them by surprise and took the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of the central parts (as the residents at Babylon declare), long after the outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced, but as they were engaged in a festival, continued dancing and revelling until they learnt the capture but too certainly.
Verse 30 tersely reports that Belshazzar was slain that same night. As translated in Barton (p. 483), the Nabonidus-Cyrus Chronicle states that after Cyrus had entered Babylon on 3 Marcheswan (Oct./Nov.), "in the month Marcheswan, on the night of the 11th, Gobryas into ... the son of the king was killed." On the basis of this rendering, which was actually dependent on questionable conjectures filling in gaps in this fragmentary inscription, it could be argued that v. 30 was in error when it stated that Belshazzar (who would presumably have been "the king's son") was killed the very night the city was taken. But the corrected translation in ANET 306 reads: "In the month Arahshamnu [Marcheswan] on the night of the 11th day, Gobryas [i.e., Ugbaru] died. In the month of (Arahshamnu, the ... nth day, the wife of the king died." In other words, the cuneiform traces of the word "of the king" suggest "wife" rather than "son." Hence the charge of inaccuracy cannot be sustained on the basis of this text.
Verse 31 (which MT quite justifiably takes as v. 1 of ch. 6) indicates that the government of Babylon was entrusted to a Darius the Mede at the age of sixty-two. This marked the fulfillment of Daniel's prediction that the Babylonian Empire would pass under the yoke of the Medo-Persian Empire, as kingdom number two in the four-kingdom series. As explained in the Introduction (pp. 16-17), this "Darius the Mede" is in all probability to be identified with the Gobryas of Herodotus's account, though Herodotus seems to have confused two different generals bearing similar names: Ugbaru and Gubaru. The Nabonidus Chronicle clearly distinguishes between the two, as Whitcomb (p. 11) brings out:
The 15th day (of Tashritu or Tishri), Sippar was seized without a battle. Nabonidus fled. The 16th day Ugbaru, the governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without a battle ... In the month of Arahshamnu, the 3rd day, Cyrus entered Babylon, green twigs were spread in front of him--the state of peace was imposed upon the city. Cyrus sent greetings to all Babylon. Gubaru, his governor, installed sub-governors in Babylon ... In the month of Arahshamnu, on the night of the 11th day, Ugbaru died.
Because of the resemblance between Ugbaru and Gubaru, earlier Assyriologists supposed that they referred to the same man. But the syllable GU is written quite differently from UG in Akkadian cuneiform. Thus the passage just quoted makes it quite clear that while it was Ugbaru who engineered the capture of Babylon, he lost his life to a fatal illness less than a month later (Babylon was taken on 12 October 539, and Ugbaru died on 6 November). It was not Ugbaru, then, but Gubaru whom Cyrus appointed vice-regent of the Chaldean domains on 29 October. The Nabonidus Chronicle and other cuneiform texts of that era indicate that he continued on as governor of Babylonia for at least fourteen years, even though Cyrus may have taken over the royal title at a solemn public coronation service two years later. Presumably urgent military necessity drew Cyrus away from his newly subdued territories to face an enemy menacing some other frontier. Until he could get back and assume the Babylonian crown with appropriate pomp and ceremony, it was expedient for him to leave control of Babylonia in the hands of a trusted lieutenant like Gubaru. A.T. Olmstead (The History of the Persian Empire [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948], p. 71) puts it thus: "In his dealings with his Babylonian subjects, Cyrus was `king of Babylon, king of lands.' ... But it was Gobryas the satrap who represented the royal authority after the king's departure."
The name "Darius" may have been a title of honor, somewhat as "Caesar" or "Augustus" became in the Roman Empire.
It is apparently related to "dara" ("king" in Avestan Persian); thus the Old Persian Darayavahush may have meant "The Royal One."
It was only natural that this honorific title be used of the official viceroy of the Medo-Persian Empire in this account, rather than his personal name.
We can not even entertain the idea that Daniel mistakenly called Darius the Mede as a garbled confusion with Darius I, the son of Hystaspes, sometimes called "the Great," who began to reign in 522.
Darius I was obviously a young man, under thirty, at the time he took over the throne (IDB, 4:769, indicates that he was about twenty-eight by 522, having been born in 550);
Darius the Mede was sixty-two when he began his rule.
Darius I was of a Persian royal line because his father, Hystaspes, was of the Achaemenid dynasty; the vicegerent Darius was a Mede, Ahasuerus.
Darius I won the throne in a coup d'etat;
Darius the Mede "received" (Aram. qabbel; NIV, "took over") the royal authority from one who was empowered to invest him with it--presumably Cyrus himself.
All this fits Gubaru perfectly, and it is only reasonable to conclude that he was the one referred to in Daniel 5:31 as "Darius the Mede." Or Lord of the middle land’. The ‘Middle Ground’ is the mountains near Lebanon, halfway between Babylon and Caspian Sea.
This makes sense!
The Nabuna’id - Cyrus Chronicle states this:
On the 14th Sippar was taken without a battle. Nabuna’id fled. In the 16th Gobryas, governor of the land of Gutium -( this is Media, or the Middle ground between Babylon and The Caspean Sea,) and the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon”
thus Darius the Mede is ‘the Royal one of the Middle Ground (Gutium), or Mede, - how do I know this?
In 3002 bc the dynasty of Gutium controled the Media area, northeast of the Tigris and uncompasing Lebanon15! Remember the Cedars of Lebanon! This land became known as Media and was still referred to as the land of Gutium or the Middle Land.
Mede - Son of Japheth - Wide spreading: "God shall enlarge Japheth" (Heb. Yaphat Elohim le-Yephet, #Ge 9:27 Some, however, derive the name from _yaphah_, "to be beautiful;" hence white), one of the sons of Noah, mentioned last in order#Ge 5:32 6:10 7:13 perhaps first by birth#Ge 10:21 comp. #Ge 9:24 He and his wife were two of the eight saved in the ark #1Pe 3:20 He was the progenitor of many tribes inhabiting the east of Europe and the north of Asia#Ge 10:2 -5
With the above inscription, It may well be that ‘Darius’ the Mede or Gutiumite joined with Cyrus’ army and was acting ‘king’ for a time, until Cyrus came to Babylon and appointed him govenor.
As Whitcomb (p. 35) points out, the statement in 6:28--"and the reign of Cyrus the Persian"--may very well imply that both of them ruled concurrently, with the one subordinate to the other (i.e., Darius subordinate to Cyrus).
It would seem that after he had taken care of more pressing concerns elsewhere, Cyrus himself later returned to Babylon (perhaps a 6mo’s to 1 year afterward) and formally ascended the throne in an official coronation ceremony.
It was in the third year of Cyrus's reign (presumably as king of Babylon) that Daniel received the revelations in chapters 10-12.
Yet it is also evident from the cuneiform records referred to above that Gubaru continued to serve as governor of Babylon even after Cyrus's decease.
The tablets dating from 535 to 525 contained warnings that committing specified offenses would entail "the guilt of a sin against Gubaru, the Governor of Babylon and of the District beyond the river [i.e., the regions North of the Tigris]" (Whitcomb, p. 23).
Secular history fills in much detail here showing how the Babylonian king felt secure within the walls of that great city and how Darius managed to lower the level of the River Euphrates which flowed through the city so that his army could enter the city unhindered. Daniel omits these details, perhaps because they diminish the impact of the swift and devastating fulfillment of prophecy.
Daniel intends for us to grasp this one thing: the Word of God is sure. God brought about the downfall of Babylon and Belshazzar, its king, just as He said.
Much of our society today can be compared to the great Babylon, and many feel destruction is imminent.
Those in Babylon thought they were protected - they were partying.
Today, people believe the world is uniting - the cry is peace and safety - disarm , etc.
I Thess. 5:1-11
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