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Lesson 42 Hope of Israel Ministries BIBLE Correspondence Course 15

BELIEVER, in his book Modern Research as
Illustrating the Bible:
“There was NO SIEGE of Babylon by
Cyrus...he...entered it without striking a blow...
the account of Herodotus...of the waters of the
Euphrates having been diverted by Cyrus, and
his troops then entering it while the inhabitants
were feasting, is a romance;...Belshazzar also
was never king of Babylon...Nor is there any
room for ‘Darius the Mede,’ as king of Baby-
lon."
This is the intellectual nonsense being
taught our children in school. The Bible tells the
TRUTH about the fall of Babylon. Let’s ex-
amine!
1. Does Daniel 5:24-30 say that the king
of the Chaldeans -- the Babylonians -- would be
slain and his kingdom taken? And wasn’t this
conquered kingdom later passed from Darius,
the Mede, to Cyrus? Daniel 6:28.
COMMENT: Here are the facts, exactly
in order as they occurred, preserved in the
writing of Xenophon.
Xenophon, the Greek historian who
wrote the Cyropaedia in the fourth century be-
fore the Messiah, says that “when Cyrus reached The reconstructed Ishtar Gate of Babylon with
Babylon" in 539 B.C. he dug channels for the animals embossed on brick wall. Greek histori-
dispersal of the water in the river Euphrates ans verify that Babylon was captured and the
which ran under the gates of Babylon. Then he king killed as the Book of Daniel relates.
and the Medo-Persian army secretly entered the
river bed, climbed stealthily through the gates Cyrus turned aside to visit [his uncle] Cyaxares.
along the river and rushed to the palace “when he When they had embraced each other, Cyrus first
heard that there was a festival in Babylon, in told Cyaxares that there was a private house, and
which all the Babylonians drank and reveled the palaces, set apart for him in Babylon; that when
whole night." Upon reaching the palace where he came thither" -- when Cyaxares would go to
Belshazzar had seen the handwriting on the wall, Babylon -- “he might take up his abode in his
they “burst in, and, pursuing those who fled, and own home.”
dealing blows amongst them, came up to the Who was this Cyaxares? Josephus wrote
king, and found him in a standing posture with that he was DARIUS the Mede! (Antiquities of
his sword drawn...[they] mastered him." SO the Jews, x, 11:4.) DARIUS the Mede, the uncle
BELSHAZZAR THE KING IN BABYLON of Cyrus, “received the kingdom” while Cyrus
WAS KILLED THAT NIGHT EXACTLY AS returned to Persia to see his own father.
DANIEL SAID. History again proves the Bible true.
Then, when peace had been restored, Cy- Darius the Mede DID receive the kingdom from
rus determined to see his father in Persia. Cyrus. It was while Cyrus was with his father in
“When,” wrote Xenophon, “they came to Media, Persia that his uncle Darius WAS “made [TEM-

Archaeology and the Bible