Josippon

When God remembered all that He had spoken unto his servants, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, regarding the future of Babylon, He stirred up against her two kings of great and noble nations, Darius, king of Madai (Media), and Cyrus (Coresh), king of Paras (Persia); and Cyrus became Darius's son-in-law by taking his daughter as his wife. The two joined forces and, betraying the king of the Kasdim (Chaldeans), rebelled against King Belshazzar, and a great war ensued. At the beginning of the war, the Chaldeans prevailed; but they had more dead than the Medes and Persians. These two kings reinforced their position and refilled their ranks and again challenged the Chaldeans to another great and mighty war; many died on both sides, and souls were spilled without number. The Chaldeans fled; Cyrus and Darius pursued them and smote them and crushed them unto a place one day's march from Babylon, and there Cyrus and Darius encamped with all their forces.

When King Belshazzar saw this, he sent forth the entire army of men of war and their thousand chiefs and with them a large and very great and mighty band of savage retainers from the palace of the king of Babylon. They went out from Babylon toward dusk and walked all night. By the morning watch, they began to smite in the camp of Cyrus and Darius; and the army became frightened. The Mede force fled. But Cyrus stood with his forces against the Chaldeans and fought with them, keeping them from pursuing the Medes. When night came, the fighting ceased, though the Medes and Persians continued to suffer many dead, for the officers of Belshazzar had defeated them.

These officers came to King Belshazzar in triumph, and he gave them a banquet and offered them many gifts of silver and gold. King Belshazzar was quite pleased with his thousand chiefs and sat with them to eat and drink, and they continued to sit all that day and all night. Now Belshazzar drank too much. When he was drunk, he commanded to bring forth all the golden vessels that were in the Temple of our God in Jerusalem. These were all the holy utensils that the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar took away with those whom he exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. The king profaned the holy vessels and drank wine in them, he and his thousand chiefs, his consorts, and his concubines. Our God saw and was angry and became jealous for His vessels, and He sent the scribe from His throne to write a harsh epistle to the king informing him of the decree that the Lord our God had decreed against him, his life, and his kingdom. The writer came and wrote on the wall in vermilion by the king's candelabrum. These were the words that he wrote: CALCULATED, WEIGHED, AND DIVIDED, but the letters were in the holy script and the epistle in Aramaic language. The king saw the fingers writing, but the rest of the body he saw not, for the fingers were beautiful and terrible. Thereupon the king became very scared and frightened; all his limbs trembled, and his heart and all his bones rattled.

Daniel was brought before the king. He read him the letter and interpreted the words for him, saying to the king: "You acted very foolishly when you profaned the vessels of our God's house. Therefore, our God was jealous for His vessels and His temple and sent His messenger to write these words for you. These are the words that are in the letter: HISHEV SHAKAL VE-HIPHRISH, and this is their interpretation. HISHEV: our Lord counted the number of His enemy's days and curtailed them. SHAKAL: He weighed His enemy on the scales, and he was found wanting. VE-HIPHRISH: our Lord took away the kingdom from His enemy and gave it to Darius and Cyrus, who are warring with you, so that they share the kingdom between them."

When the king's officers heard this interpretation from Daniel, a man greatly beloved, a servant of God, the men became greatly afraid, and they rose and went each one to his home. The king remained alone with his eunuchs and household. He was agitated and frightened; sleep overcame him, but slumber haunted him; he slept like one of the dead in his nightmarish fright.

In the king's palace was a eunuch, the doorkeeper, one of the oldest servants of Nebuchadnezzar, honored and exalted. He thought to himself: "Is this not Daniel who interpreted to Nebuchadnezzar his dreams and was correct in all his words and none of his words failed? Now behold he has spoken against my lord King Belshazzar. I will cut off his head and with it appease Cyrus and Darius, kings of Media and Persia." That night, while King Belshazzar lay on his bed, the eunuch arose and smote the king, killing him, and he cut off his head and, carrying the head, fled to the camp of Cyrus and Darius, kings of Media and Persia; and giving them Belshazzar's head, he told them all that King Belshazzar did to the vessels of the House of God when he profaned them with wine at the banquet: how God sent his messenger, who wrote the letter, and Daniel, the greatly beloved, interpreted the letter, and how he chastised Belshazzar for the things that he did in daring to profane all the vessels of the House of God; therefore, God became angry and brought upon him the evil that your eyes see this day.

When Cyrus and Darius heard these words that the eunuch spoke, they bowed and prostrated themselves to God, Lord of the Heavens. King Cyrus said: "Blessed be God, Lord of these vessels and Lord of the temple that was in Jerusalem and in Judah, who exacted vengeance on the man who profaned his vessels, for since I heard that He is Lord of all the earth and Lord of all the creatures and creator of all the world, so now I know that God is greater than all the gods and in His hand is the dominion to remove kings and to raise up kings." King Cyrus vowed to build the temple of our Lord that is in Jerusalem and to send the exile from Babylon to Jerusalem and to restore all the vessels to the temple in Jerusalem.

After these events, Cyrus and Darius arose and went with a very great army and destroyed the land of the Chaldeans. They besieged Babylon and fought against her; they captured her and smote her with the sword: men and women, infants and babes, all the same; her young men they slew, and her virgins they trod under the hooves of horses; and all her princes and elders they strangled with ropes. All her pregnant ones they split open, and all her nurslings they shattered with stones. So, our God had vengeance on Babylon and the Chaldeans for the spilled blood of His servants and revenged His people and His Temple and His city.

The two kings divided the whole kingdom of the Chaldeans. Darius took Babylon and its surrounding villages and the king's palace. He sat upon the throne of King Belshazzar and ruled in Babylon. King Cyrus took the entire kingdom of Chaldea outside of Babylon. At this juncture, the kingdom of Chaldea came to an end, and the kingdom of Media and Persia arose.