(length approx. 15')
The Hebrews were taken into captivity and lived for generations in Babylon until their liberation and return to Jerusalem.
The scenes are of battle, chariots and soldiers of Babylon sacking Jerusalem. As the people are taken away, they carry their most precious possessions, their children and of course the Sacred Scriptures, the Torah. (They take with them whatever they can: the donkey, the lamb, the dog, bundles of perhaps useless objects which they can use to hold onto a disappearing past). This of course is evocative of another time, another place, being " ... taken away ...", the recurring experience of Jews as well as other subjugated nations. "How can we sing the songs of our home in a foreign land?" So the harps are hung on the willows (by the rivers of Babylon).
The prayers of the people (spiral) rise to God, and the Prophet remembers Jerusalem, even while surrounded by the evils of Babylon.
While the Hebrews live in captivity, they do ordinary things of life, washing their children, caring for their old people and sharing their food. In the great and wealthy city of Babylon, Belshazzar stages a party to entertain his soldiers, surrounded by his wives, concubines and great treasures. The sacred vessels from the Temple of Jerusalem are brought out from the Treasury and desecrated by Belshazzar, who not only drinks from them, but even toasts the god-idol of gold, silver and iron.
A hand writes on the wall mysterious words which are interpreted as "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. You will be killed and your kingdom divided." Belshazzar and the other revellers fall down in terror at this sight.
That same night Belshazzar the king is slain and his kingdom divided. The dead king is pictured trying to hold together his kingdom. The tension in the music is conveyed by the swirling shapes and colours of the divided kingdom. The Hebrews wait in darkness, then sing their alleluias, dance and play music, praying to God in gratitude for their coming deliverance.