From Splendor to Shadow

Chapter 43—Belshazzar's Feast: Babylon's Last Night

This chapter is based on Daniel 5.

Great changes were taking place in the land to which Daniel and his companions had been carried captive more than sixty years before. Nebuchadnezzar had died, and Babylon had passed under the unwise rule of his successors. Gradual but sure dissolution was resulting. SS 272.1

Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, gloried in his power and lifted up his heart against the God of heaven. He had known of his grandfather's banishment by the decree of God from the society of men. He was familiar with Nebuchadnezzar's conversion and miraculous restoration. But he allowed pleasure and self-glorification to efface the lessons he should never have forgotten. He neglected to use the means within his reach for becoming more fully acquainted with truth. SS 272.2

It was not long before reverses came. Babylon was besieged by Cyrus, commanding general of the Medes and Persians. But within its massive walls and gates of brass, protected by the river Euphrates and stocked with provision in abundance, the voluptuous monarch felt safe and passed his time in mirth and revelry. SS 272.3

In his pride and arrogance, with a reckless feeling of security, Belshazzar “made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.” Beautiful women with their enchantments were among the guests. Men of genius and education were there. Princes and statesmen drank wine and reveled under its maddening influence. SS 272.4

With reason dethroned through intoxication and with lower impulses and passions in the ascendancy, the king himself took the lead in the riotous orgy. He “commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which ... Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem.” The king would prove that nothing was too sacred for his hands to handle. “They brought the golden vessels ...; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone.” SS 273.1