The Bible further revealed the very name of the leader of the Medes and the Persians who would conquer Babylon:

“This is what Jehovah has said . . . ‘For [Israel’s] sakes I will send to Babylon and cause the bars of the prisons to come down,’ . . . ‘the One saying of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out”’ . . . Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of, to subdue before him nations.”​—Isa. 43:14; 44:28; 45:1.

Two hundred years later that very Cyrus conquered Babylon and fulfilled that prophecy.

Cyrus’ men were inside the city now, but were by no means out of danger as they crept along the riverbed. High walls flanked the river. Alert Babylonian sentries could close the bronze gates of those walls and the Persians would be trapped and subjected to a hail of missiles from above. But, distracted by their festival, the Babylonians had not secured those vital gates! Again, it was just as the Bible had foretold:

“This is what Jehovah has said to his anointed one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of . . . to open before him the two-leaved doors, so that even the gates will not be shut.”​—Isa. 45:1.

Entering the city through the river gates, the invaders encountered very little resistance from the stunned Babylonians.