Belshazzar and the Fall of Babylon
THE events noted in this lesson occurred about forty-four years after those of the lesson for last week. The great king Nebuchadnezzar had been dead about twenty-three years, and with him had departed the greatness and the real glory of the kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar himself had finally been brought to a full acknowledgment of the true God, and had published a decree to that effect to all the nations of his dominion (see Daniel 4); but it seems to have had no discernible impression on any that followed him in the kingdom, and iniquity culminated in his grandson, Belshazzar, the subject of the present lesson. Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son, Evil-merodach; but "his lusts, and other wickedness made him so intolerable, that at length even his own relations conspired against him and put him to death," after his having reigned two years, and Neriglissar, his brother-in-law, reigned in his stead. Neriglissar reigned nearly four years, and was succeeded, but merely in name, by Laborosoarchod, "a mere boy," who was suffered to remain only a few months when Nabonadius, the father of Belshazzar, took the throne, B. C. 555, and held it till the end of the empire, B. C. 538.