The fall of Babylon began with a friendship and ended with a finger. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, God raised up two kings to destroy the Chaldean empire: Darius of Media and Cyrus of Persia. Cyrus married Darius's daughter, binding them into an alliance, and together they marched against Belshazzar, king of Babylon.
The first battles went badly for the alliance. The Chaldeans launched a devastating night attack, and the Medes fled in confusion. Only Cyrus and his Persians held their ground. The casualties among the Medes and Persians were enormous. But Belshazzar made the fatal mistake of celebrating too soon. Believing he had won, he threw a great feast for his thousand princes and rewarded them with silver and gold.
As the wine flowed, Belshazzar grew drunk and reckless. He ordered his servants to bring the golden vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from the Temple in Jerusalem. These were the sacred vessels of God's own house. Belshazzar, his princes, his wives, and his concubines drank wine from them, defiling what had been consecrated to the God of Israel.
God's response was immediate. He sent a scribe from His throne. A disembodied hand appeared by the lamplight and wrote on the palace wall in red ink, using Hebrew characters but Aramaic words: "He thought, He weighed, He separated." Belshazzar saw only the fingers, and the sight was enough to make every bone in his body tremble. The message meant that God had measured Belshazzar's kingdom, weighed it, and found it wanting. That night, Darius and Cyrus attacked again. This time Babylon fell, and Belshazzar's kingdom was divided between the Medes and the Persians, exactly as the writing had declared.