watchers, and the demand by the word of
the holy ones: to the intent that the living
may know that the most High ruleth in the
kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom-
soever He will, and setteth up over it the
basest of men.” Daniel 4:17.
The church of God should be watching
events, to be ready to take advantage of
every opening of God’s providence. They
should acknowledge this message that
God sets the basest of men over kingdoms.
It is not for anyone to judge His ways, for
no one fully discerns the powerful temporal
and spiritual forces of the enemy which
are at work mn the world. These powers
are the fountainhead of wars, famines,
pestilences, and death. It is for all to sit
in the watchtower and see God working
behind the scenes to do His good pleasure.
There were cruel and base tyrants in the
days when Daniel recorded the above
message from God. In recent years their
palaces have been excavated. Their ter-
rible exploits were written, inscribed upon
the albaster slabs on the walls. Now they
can be read. Said one king:
“I captured many of their soldiers alive;
I cut off the hands and feet of some; of
others I cut off their noses, the ears, and
the fingers; I put out the eyes of many
soldiers. I built up a pyramid of the living
and a pyramid of heads. On high I hung
up their heads on trees in the neighbor-
hood of their city. Their young men and
their maidens I burned with fire. The
city I overthrew, dug it up, and burned it
with fire. I annihilated 1t.”—“National
Geographic Magazine,” February, 1916,
page 147.
The time came when the cruel Baby-
lonian kingdom filled up its cup of iniquity.
Then the “hammer” itself was broken.
PUBYE BY YF ARMY SHARE LTH
JANUARY, 1942
“A sound of battle is in the land, and of
great destruction. How is the hammer of
the whole earth cut asunder and broken!
How is Babylon become a desolation
among the nations!” Jeremiah 50: 22, 23.
This came about in the days of Nebu-
chadnezzar’'s grandson, Belshazzar. Bel-
shazzar and his court had an opportunity
to see a little of how a nation’s account is
kept in the record books of heaven, and
what is written there. This view is also
for us today.
The army of Cyrus the Persian was out-
side Babylon's impregnable walls. The
king and his people felt perfectly safe. To
show their disdain for the invading army
outside, Belshazzar prepared a great feast
for a ““thousand of his lords.” They wor-
shiped their idols and insulted the God of
heaven by drinking wine before them, out
of the golden vessels taken from the sanc-
tuary of God in Jerusalem.
Suddenly the curtain was drawn aside,
and that drunken company saw an uner-
ring scribe recording the history of the
final hours of their once great kingdom.
The fingers of a man’s hand, writing like
the flash of lightning, moved along the
wall of the palace. ““Mene, Mene, Tekel,
Upharsin,” were the words; numbered,
weighed, and divided, was the interpreta-
tion. “Thy kingdom is divided, and given
to the Medes and Persians. . . . In that
night was Belshazzar the king . . . slain.”
Historians give their explanations of the
rise and fall of nations, but only the
prophets of God reveal the real truth re-
garding the forces behind the events.
More than a hundred years before Cyrus
was born, the prophet Isaiah gave his
name and told how he would capture the
city of Babylon: “Thus saith the Lord to
His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand
I have holden, to subdue nations before
him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to
open before him the two leaved gates; and
the gates shall not be shut.” Isaiah 45:1.
Among the royal treasures excavated in
the East is a “cylinder of Cyrus.” This
15 a record of how Cyrus took the city of
Babylon:
“Cyrus, king of Anshan, he [Marduk,
the god of Babylon], called by name; to
sovereignty over the whole world he ap-
pointed him. . . . Marduk, the great
lord, guardian of his people, looked with
joy on his pious works and his upright
heart; he commanded him to go to his
city Babylon, and caused him to take the
roud to Babylon, going by his side as a
friend and companion. . . . Without «
battle he permitted him to enter Babylon.”—
“National Geographic Magazine,” February,
1916, page 161.
®
In commenting on this statement, the
writer in the Geographic says: “In other
words, the priests of Marduk intrigued with
Cyrus, inviting him to advance against
Babylon at first, and then on his arrival
delivering the city into his hands.”
While the deductions of the writer
quoted may be true, that ‘the priests of
Marduk intrigued with Cyrus,” thus act-
ing as we would expect the modern ‘fifth
columnists,” yet Herodotus, Greek his-
torian called the “father of history,” who
was born only fifty-four years after the
fall of Babylon (see the Americana) and
Xenophon, Greek historian and general,
born only 104 years after its fall (see the
same encyclopedia) attest to the fulfillment
of Isaiah 44: 24-28 and 45: 1-18, a prophecy
uttered more than a hundred years before
the birth of Cyrus. Says Humphrey
Prideaux, in his “Old and New Testament
Connected,” printed in two volumes, by
John J. Harrod, Baltimore, 1833, “This
account Herodotus and Xenophon both
give of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus;
and herein they exactly agree with the
scripture.” — Vol. 1, Book 2, page 137,
paragraph 2. We quote from that account:
“He [Cyrus] sent up a party of his men
to the head of the canal leading to the
great lake above described, with orders, at
a time set, to break down the great bank
or dam, which was between the river and
that canal, and to turn the whole current
that way into the lake. In the interim,
getting all his forces together, he posted
one part of them at the place where the
river ran into the city, and the other where
it came out, with orders to enter the city
that night by the channel of the river, as
(Continued on page 17)
ALA. VIII
rr AN)
¥ A medium tank, M3, which has been con-
structed for our government in preparation to
meet aggressive totalitarianism. As men be-
hold the havoc wrought throughout the earth,
natural vs the question, “Why does not God do
something?’ By reading Mr. Holmes’s article
it will be clear that God has His own plans for
the future of this world.
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