• Cyrus captures Astyages, the king of the Medes. Cyrus and Darius
  begin the empire of the Medes and the Persians.
• Egypt, Persia and Media resume good relations.

• Medes cross the  Tigris and overrun eastern Babylon.
• Elamites overrun southern Babylonia.

• October, Nabonidus returns to Babylon to carry out work on the shrines to the gods and to bring the Babylonian gods from the other cities into Babylon for protection.
• Babylon is economically weak and is not able to defend itself.

• Nabonidus flees Babylon and goes 11 miles south to Borsippa, the site of the famous ziggurat which still stands today and is identified in the Talmud as the actual Tower of Babel.
• September, Cyrus defeats Babylon at Opis and Sippara. Only the double wall of the city of Babylon remains.
• October 10, Nabonidus marches against Cyrus, surrenders and flees back into his fortified city of Babylon.
• October 12, (Daniel 5) Belshazzar is having a drunken feast when the Lord writes on the plaster of the banquet hall wall: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin”.
  • Belshazzar’s mother Nitocris (Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter) hears the noise and enters the banquet hall and suggests that Belshazzar send for a man named Daniel.
  • Daniel interprets the writing to mean: "God has numbered your days, you have been weighted on teh scales and your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians."
  • The Persian military, under the leadership of Darius the Mede, enter Babylon that night, killing Belshazzar and taking over the city of Babylon.
• October 29, Cyrus enters Babylon himself. Cyrus is presented as a gracious libertor. Cyrus reverses the policies of the Assyrians and the Babylonians by sending the captured people back to their homelands.
• Daniel is 84 years old if he was taken captive at the age of 18 in 605
• Daniel prays the prayer in Daniel chapter 9 and receives a visit from Gabriel explaining the "seventy 'sevens' " (Daniel 9:24)
• Daniel may have shown Cyrus
  • Isaiah 41:2-7, 25
  • Isaiah 44:28
  • Isaiah 45:1
  • Jeremiah 25:11-12.
• Josephus says Cyrus read these prophecies and an "earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was written."
• 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 says, "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word spoken by Jeremiah the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm..."
• The Jews are given permission to return to Jerusalem and other peoples are sent back to their homelands.

Daniel 5

Babylon Falls
to Darius

Cyrus Arrives
in Babylon

Daniel 9

Jews sent back to the land of Judah

• Darius appoints 120 satraps to rule the kingdom with three administrators over them. One of the administrators is Daniel.
• Darius plans on putting Daniel over the whole kigdom (Daniel 6:3)
• King Darius is tricked into putting Daniel, age 85, into the lions den
• Cyrus allows any Jews to return and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
• The Cyrus Cylinder confirms the biblical account of Cyrus liberating the people after he conquered Babylon. See details:
  • Wikipedia
  • The text on .pdf
  • British Museum
  • Image 1
  • Image 2
  • Image 3 (large)

Daniel in the
Lion's Den

Daniel 6

Ezra 1:2