Daniel 5:30 That very night Balshazzar, the Babylonian king,was killed. And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of sixty-two. I had a couple of observations about this chapter… First, Daniel has now outlived two Babylonian kings. This is either a testament to Daniel’s good health (and perhaps his faith in God) or to the danger of being the king of Babylon. Either way, when Darius takes over, he’s king number three for Daniel, and in each case, God acts to bring Daniel to prominence and make His name known. Second, God does act fast sometimes. Here we have Balshazzar partying and using the gold cups from the Temple. This angers God and He sends a hand to write on the wall that Balshazzar hasn’t learned from the lessons of his predecessor and therefore will lose the kingdom. That very night Balshazzar is killed when the Persians invade. One (well, probably more than one) stupid, prideful act took Balshazzar from being the life of the party to being dead. It’s also interesting that nobody realized they were about to be invaded by the Persians! You’d think a lookout or someone would have noticed a vast army approaching and alerted the king. Or maybe they did and the king was partying as an act of defiance. Who knows. Either way, God acted fast, and Balshazzar died. Just a couple of thoughts…
Jeremiah 38:28 And Jeremiah remained a prisoner in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured. I have a couple of thoughts about chapter 37-38. First, why would the Egyptians come to help the Israelites? In chapter 37, Babylon temporarily abandons its siege of Israel because the Egyptian army appears at the southern border of Israel. I don’t know much about the relationship between these two countries, but I didn’t realize they were friendly enough to help each other our in times of war! Second, King Zedekiah seems like an incredibly wishy-washy king! He puts Jeremiah in prison because Jeremiah asks not to be put in the dungeon again. Then, he listens to an official who speaks against Jeremiah and throws him in a cistern (a deep well that was out of water). Then another official came to ask the King to think again about what he’d done, so the King throws Jeremiah back in prison after allowing the official to put Jeremiah out of the cistern. Talk about easily swayed! He was also pretty scared. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d spoken to Jeremiah, and later, instead of surrendering like Jeremiah said he should, he tries to flee the city. I don’t know what the lesson is from this… but it was interesting to me. Oh, and one last thing… Jeremiah stayed in prison for two more years until the Babylonians captured the city. I was thinking that it must have been pretty scary to have been in the city when the Babylonians finally did break through. The end time of anything can be frightening and uncertain. But Jeremiah knew that God loved him, so he knew God would take care of him. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t scared, but I’ll bet he spent a lot of time praying, and I’d imagine that God talked back.