30. Forborn to fight. Both the cuneiform records of the fall of Babylon and the Biblical account indicate that the Babylonians made no determined effort to withstand the Medo-Persian conquest. The cuneiform account, as contained in the so-called Nabonidus Chronicle, records only one real battle, that at Opis, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, a site identified with the later Seleucia (Tell Umair). Another cuneiform document, known as the Cyrus Cylinder (see III, illustration facing 64), declares that “without any battle, he [Marduk, the god of Babylon] made him [Cyrus] enter his town Babylon” (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, J. B. Pritchard, , 315). There is some indication also that Cyrus, who led the attack, may have had contact with the priests of Marduk within the city, who thoroughly disliked the reigning king, Nabonidus. In this case treachery may have played a definite part in the fall of the city.
The Biblical narrative depicts the king, Belshazzar, at a drunken feast the night the city was taken (Dan. 5; see on Jer. 50:43).
Their holds. That is, their strongholds. The city of Babylon was extraordinarily well fortified. Excavations have shown that there was an extensive double outer wall, possibly with a rubble fill between, all with a total base width of 96 (about 29 ); also around the Inner City a double wall and a moat formed by water from the river. Also within the latter wall was the royal citadel, further fortified (see 796).
The Greek historians Herodotus (i. 190, 191) and Xenophon (Cyropaedia vii. 5. 1-36) both state that when attacked by the Medes and Persians, the Babylonians took refuge within their walls, thinking themselves able to withstand a protracted siege.
They have burned. That is, the invading armies have burned.