30 That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
While the king and his friends had been having their drunken feast, the Medes and the Persians were camped outside.
History tells us that the Medes and the Persians diverted the river Euphrates to expose a dry river bed leading into the city under the wall.
The historian Xenophon in telling the story confirms several of the details that we see here in Chapter 5.
He wrote that “the whole city that night seemed to be given up to revelry.”
He also said that the king was killed the night the city was taken.
The historian Herodotus, writing about 80 years after these events, explained what happened on that night:
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 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 about 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 tells us that Belshazzar was killed that very night and verse 31 tells us that Darius the Mede took over after Belshazzar. Who was Darius the Mede? Recall our earlier comments on this subject:
One critic (Professor H. H. Rowley of England) has written:
The references to Darius the Mede in the Book of Daniel have long been recognized as providing the most serious historical problem of the book. … The claim of the Book of Daniel to be a work of history, written by a well-informed contemporary, is shattered beyond repair by this fiction of Darius the Mede. … So far as Darius the Mede is concerned, we have seen that there is no way of reconciling the Book of Daniel with assured history, and all the efforts of the apologists, of whom the present century has seen a new and plentiful crop, definitely fail.
The truth of the matter is that this learned professor is dead wrong. (In fact, later work has shown that much of his supposed evidence was flawed.) Listen to what he had to say about this supposed historical inaccuracy in Daniel.
Its very historical mistakes add to the fulness of its religious message to our hearts, for the God Who maketh the wrath of men to praise Him can also convert the mistakes of His servants, whose hearts are consecrated to His service, to rich use.
If the book of Daniel has no historical reliability then it has no religious message at all.
What does Jesus think about the historical reliability of Daniel?
O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! (Luke 24:25)
In any event, Darius the Mede presents no difficulty at all.
Daniel never claims that the Medes conquered the Chaldeans all by themselves – in fact he said just the opposite in Daniel 6:12.
Darius was a governor who was subject to Cyrus, the king. In fact, in Daniel 9:1, we read explicitly that Darius ruled the kingdom of the Chaldeans – that is, Cyrus gave him that specific newly conquered territory to govern. (Notice Daniel does not say that Darius ruled the kingdom of the Medes!)
It is interesting to note that Daniel gives far more information about the personal background of Darius than he does for Belshazzar or even Nebuchadnezzar .
Daniel 5:30 says that Darius was 62 when he began to reign. (This use of a very particular detail does not sound like a vague recollection about a forgotten or imagined king.)
Daniel 5:30 also tells us his nationality – Darius was a Mede.
Daniel 9:1 says that Darius was the son of Ahasuerus.
Thus, unlike even Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel tells us the age, the nationality, and the parentage of Darius.
The late-date proponents claim that:
The author of Daniel believed that a Median kingdom, under Darius, conquered Babylon and subsequently gave way to the Persian empire under Cyrus.
Darius the Mede never actually existed but was a confused reflection of a later Persian ruler, Darius I (Hystaspes).
The four kingdoms in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 are thus Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece.
Five reasons why this view is wrong:
(1) The book of Daniel never claims that Darius was the king of Media but only that he was of Median descent.
(2) The author of Daniel says that Darius and Cyrus had different ancestries (Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede), NOT that they ruled separate kingdoms.
(3) Daniel 6:12 says that Darius was subject to the law of the Medes and Persians. If Darius ruled an independent kingdom of Media then why was he subject to the law of the Persians?
(4) Daniel’s interpretation of the handwriting on the wall in this chapter indicates that the Persians would be the main element of the empire that succeeded the Babylonians.
(5) The vision in chapter 8 depicts a combined Medo-Persian empire as a single ram with two horns. The horn depicting Persia comes up last, but BEFORE the ram sets out to conquer.
But couldn’t the author of Daniel have been referring to Darius I, a later Persian king? No, for the following five reasons:
1. Darius I was Persian (a cousin of Cyrus) and not a Mede.
2. Darius I was in his 20’s when he began to reign, not 62.
3. Darius I began to reign 7 years after the death of Cyrus, whereas Darius the Mede and Cyrus were both in power when the Chaldeans were conquered.
4. In Daniel 5:31 we read that Darius received the kingdom and in Daniel 9:1 we read that he was made king. These passages imply that Darius’ power to rule came from a higher earthly authority (Cyrus). This was not true of Darius I who took control after the death of Cambyses.
5. The liberals would have us believe that Daniel was written in the second century BC and that Daniel mistakenly thought Darius I preceded Cyrus.
Any such author would have been laughed to scorn. Every schoolboy of the time would have read the Greek historians and would have known that such was not the case.
The Jews would never have let enter the canon a book containing such a grievous error.
Just because the name ‘Darius the Mede’ has not been found in any ancient inscriptions does not mean that he did not exist.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The critics made similar claims about Belshazzar and archaeology later proved them wrong. (We wait in vain for their apology…)
Who then was Darius? We suggested in our introductory comments that Darius the Mede was an early governor of Babylon under Cyrus.
The references to Darius in Daniel do not say that he ruled the Persian empire – only that he took control of the conquered Chaldean empire.
It was a well known practice of Cyrus to appoint Medes to high positions in order to foster goodwill and loyalty.
Which governor was he? John Whitcomb in his book Darius the Mede wrote the following:
Gubaru the Governor of Babylon fits the Biblical description of Darius the Mede so remarkably that the writer believes he will be recognized in due time as the monarch who played such an important role in the life of Daniel and the fall of Babylon.
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