Babylon: Daniel writes the? Book of Daniel in 539 or 538 BCE.
Belshazzar succeeds Nebuchadnezzar.
Belshazzar (profanely) uses sacred golden and silver vessels which had been removed from the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (who had conquered Jerusalem and sacked the Temple in 586 BCE). Belshazzar and his Court blaspheme God by praising the gods of gold and silver.
Immediately the disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and writes on the wall of the royal palace the Aramaic words “Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.”
Daniel, an exile from Jerusalem and formerly of high office under Nebuchadnezzar, is sent for to decipher the cryptic and mysterious writing.
Daniel translates as follows:
Mene Mene = God has numbered the days of your kingdom, which will now be brought to an end.
Tekel = You have been weighed in the balance (of the scales of merit/justice) and have been found wanting.
Upharsin = Your kingdom is (imminently) divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
Belshazzar is, according to lore, slain that night (apparently by his sons).
Cyrus the Mede of Persia (later known as Cyrus the Great) becomes ruler of Babylon and of the general area.
Daniel rises to great prominence as the preeminent of the “Three Presidents” of Babylon, presumably a triumvirate.
Later, temporarily caught in political intrigue, Daniel finds himself imprisoned in a lion’s den. He is apparently protected, however, by the God of Israel.
After Daniel’s deliverance, Cyrus the Great issues a decree encouraging reverence to “the God of Daniel” (6:26).
In the 4000–year history of the Jews, there was no greater friend of the Jews than Cyrus the Great.