LECTURE SEVENTH.

THE DOOM OF SACRILEGE; OR, BELSHAZZAR'S

THIS

FEAST.

Daniel 5:1-31.

HIS chapter introduces us to a new personage in Babylonian affairs, though one almost unknown to history except in connection with the scenes which are here narrated. Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as his "father," but he was the son of Nebuchadnezzar only in the second generation, as Jesus was the "son of David" in a still remoter generation. There is no word in Hebrew or Chaldaic for grandfather or grandson.

From certain cylindrical records found in 1854 in the ruins of Um Ghier (the Ur of the Chaldees, whence Abraham came), it appears that Belshazzar was the son and co-regent of Nabonnedus, who was the probable husband of one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters, and who, through conspiracy, had succeeded in becoming the king of Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar died, his only son, Evil-Merodach, took the throne; but he reigned only two years, when he was murdered and supplanted by his brother-inlaw, Neriglissar, who reigned four years. After him his son, a mere boy, was made king. He held his

place for only nine months, when he fell a victim to the conspiracy of Nabonnedus, who, together with his own son, Belshazzar, whom he made co-regent with himself, were the last kings of Babylon.

Na

It was while this father and son were on the throne that the Medo-Persian invasion occurred. bonnedus, at the head of the army, went forth against Cyrus, but was worsted in an engagement with him. Taking refuge in the Borsippa temple, he was there surrounded by the Medo-Persian army, and held until he surrendered; whereupon he was honorably retired to Carmania, where he died.

When the father thus went out with the army, Belshazzar the son was left in charge of affairs in Babylon, where the scenes narrated in this chapter were enacted, and he and the Babylonian dominion. came to a sudden end together.

This Belshazzar was a young, dissolute and unworthy prince. A recent writer says of him that "he was addicted to the lowest vices of self-indulgence, and felt no restraint whatever in the gratification of his desires. With all this there was combined an arrogance of the haughtiest kind, which would brook no interference with his designs, and would submit to no expostulation in the interests of morality. The severe lesson read by Jehovah to his grandfather in that mysterious malady was entirely lost on him, and he went on to greater and greater excesses, as if to show that he had no regard whatever either for God or man." Daniel shows nothing of that sympathy or liking for him which he felt for Nebuchadnezzar.

Even the heathen historian Xenophon pronounces him an "impious" man, and instances his passionate cruelty in slaying one of his nobles for anticipating him in striking down the game in a hunt, and in mutilating a courtier at a banquet because one of the women said he was handsome.

The attitude in which he appears in the matter now before us is quite in keeping with just such a character. With his father a captive, the armies scattered, and himself a prisoner within the besieged walls of Babylon, not knowing what hour he and his empire might fall, only the most infatuated and reckless of sovereigns would have thought of venturing upon such demonstrations as marked the last night of his life and empire. A proud sensualist, however, is always impervious to serious reflection so long as opportunity remains for the gratification of his passions or the indulgence of his selfish gayety.

We read that "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords." There has been much learned surmising as to the nature of this "feast." Some think it was meant to be an expression of a vain-glorious contempt for Cyrus and his besieging army. Some think it was the celebration of some repulse of the invaders. Others think it was an anniversary occasion, meant to commemorate the king's birth or coronation, or some victory on which he prided himself, or the founding of the kingdom. Others think it was a stated religious festival in honor of the gods, perhaps of the kind of the Jewish Purim or the Roman Saturnalia.

I doubt

Belshazzar was hardly

if it was either of these. serious, devoted or patriotic enough to warrant the supposition of anything historical, traditional or commemorative in the business. The record says he made it. It was most likely the suggestion and outbirth of his own arbitrary, reckless and vain-glorious sensuality, looking only to that sort of display, enjoyment, revelling and defiance of all care or fear in which his debased soul most delighted. Daniel says he made it “to his lords," leaving us to infer that it was rather in royal compliment to them than to the honor of the gods. Drinking to the gods was the usual concomitant of heathen banquets. Cyrus was quite as likely to hear of it whether it was a religious or state festival, or a mere prank of the pleasure-loving king. Belshazzar certainly laid himself out to make "a great feast," which would naturally be very loud in its preparations as well as in its actual observance. At any rate, it was made an occasion of general license and carousing from the lordly court down through all classes. Gobryas in the camp of Cyrus, when the command for making the furtive assault was given, said, "I should not be surprised if the doors of the palace are now open, for the whole city seems to-night to be given up to revelry." (Xenophon.) Cyrus had received intelligence of a grand royal frolic to be held in Babylon. He anticipated that the night would be spent in revelling and drunkenness. And the facts prove that he was not mistaken in his calculations.

Such excesses, at such a time, betray the utmost

recklessness and infatuation. It can be explained only on the old maxim, "Whom the gods mean to destroy, they first make mad." Such a king deserved to be dethroned, and such folly well merited the calamities which it invited and facilitated. The sin was not so much in the festival, for festivals, holidays and banquets are not necessarily wicked, though apt to degenerate into all sorts of excesses. The grand banquet is here brought into the foreground, not as the one lone and particular offence for which these sore judgments came, but in illustration of the character and spirit of the man. It was merely the crown or topping-out of a vast pyramid of rottenness, which alone, at such a time, could have brought forth and sustained these proceedings. It was simply the last stone in the edifice of Babylonian degeneracy-the last touch in the dark picture of Babylon's gigantic licentiousness, infatuation and towering impiety.

To say the least, it was a most ill-timed and inopportune festiveness. What if the walls of the city were great and high and its gates strong? What if it had provisions to last it for twenty years? With the army vanquished, the royal father a prisoner in the invader's hands, and the whole army of the Medo-Persian conqueror investing the place on all sides with persistent determination to reduce it to subjection, this was no time to be showing off such pranks of royal voluptuousness. Such mighty thunderings surely called for something different from this proud glee and merrymaking. No man with a grain of proper sense or right feeling left would have thrown