King of Babylon. His history, which is very awful, we have, (Dan. v.) His name is compounded of Baal, lord; and Otzer, treasure; intimating, no doubt, his great riches and power. See Mene.
the last king of Babylon, and, according to Hales and others, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan 5:18. During the period that the Jews were in captivity at Babylon, a variety of singular events concurred to prove that the sins which brought desolation on their country, and subjected them for a period of seventy years to the Babylonish yoke, had not dissolved that covenant relation which, as the God of Abraham, Jehovah had entered into with them; and that any act of indignity perpetrated against an afflicted people, or any insult cast upon the service of their temple, would be regarded as an affront to the Majesty of heaven, and not suffered to pass with impunity, though the perpetrators were the princes and potentates of the earth. Belshazzar was a remarkable instance of this. He had an opportunity of seeing, in the case of his ancestor, how hateful pride is, even in royalty itself; how instantly God can blast the dignity of the brightest crown, and reduce him that wears it to a level with the beasts of the field; and consequently how much the prosperity of kings and the stability of their thrones depend upon acknowledging that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” But all these awful lessons were lost upon Belshazzar.
The only circumstances of his reign, recorded, are the visions of the Prophet Daniel, in the first and third years, Dan 7:1; Dan 8:1; and his sacrilegious feast and violent death, Dan 5:1-30. Isaiah, who represents the Babylonian dynasty as “the scourge of Palestine,” styles Nebuchadnezzar “a serpent,” Evil Merodach “a cockatrice,” and Belshazzar “a fiery flying serpent,” the worst of all, Isa 14:4-29. And Xenophon confirms this prophetic character by two atrocious instances of cruelty and barbarity, exercised by Belshazzar upon some of his chief and most deserving nobles. He slew the only son of Gobryas, in a transport of rage, because at a hunting match he hit with his spear a bear, and afterward a lion, when the king had missed both; and in a fit of jealousy, he brutally castrated Gadatus, because one of his concubines had commended him as a handsome man. His last and most heinous offence was the profanation of the sacred vessels belonging to the temple of Jerusalem, which his wise grandfather, and even his foolish father Evil Merodach, had respected. Having made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, he ordered those vessels to be brought during the banquet, that he, his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink out of them, which they did; and to aggravate sacrilege by apostasy and rebellion, and ingratitude against the Supreme Author of all their enjoyments, “they praised the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, and stone, but the God in whose hand was their breath, and whose were all their ways, they praised or glorified not.” For these complicated crimes his doom was denounced in the midst of the entertainment; a divine hand appeared, which wrote on the plaister of the wall, opposite to the king, and full in his view, a mysterious inscription. This tremendous apparition struck Belshazzar with the greatest terror and agony: “his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote against each other.” This is one of the liveliest and finest amplifications of dismay to be found throughout the sacred classics, and infinitely exceeds, both in accuracy and force, the most admired of the Heathen; such as “et corde et genibus tremit,” of Horace, and “tarda trementi genus labant,” of Virgil.
Unable himself to decypher the writing, Belshazzar cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers, promising that whosoever should read the writing, and explain to him its meaning, should be clothed with scarlet, have a chain of gold about his neck, and be the third ruler in his kingdom. But the writing was too difficult for the Magi; at which the king was still more greatly troubled. In this crisis, and at the instance of the queen mother, the Prophet Daniel was sent for, to whom honours were promised, on condition of his explaining the writing. Daniel refused the honours held out to him; but having with great faithfulness pointedly reproved the monarch for his ingratitude to God who had conferred on him such dignity, and particularly for his profanation of the vessels which were consecrated to his service, he proceeded to the interpretation of the words which had been written, and still stood visible on the wall. They were, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. “This is the interpretation of the thing, Mene, ‘God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it;’ Tekel, ‘thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting:’ Peres, ‘thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” In that very night, in the midst of their mirth and revelling, the city was taken by surprise, Belshazzar himself put to death, and the kingdom transferred to Darius the Mede. If the character of the hand-writing was known to the Magi of Babylon, the meaning could not be conjectured. Perhaps, however, the character was that of the ancient Hebrew, or what we now call the Samaritan; and in that case it would be familiar to Daniel, though rude and unintelligible to the Chaldeans. But even if Daniel could read the words, the import of this solemn graphic message to the proud and impious monarch could only have been made known to the prophet by God. All the ideas the three words convey, are numbering, weighing, and dividing. It was only for the power which sent the omen to unfold, not in equivocal terms, like the responses of Heathen oracles, but in explicit language, the decision of the righteous Judge, the termination of his long suffering, and the instant visitation of judgment. See BABYLON.
Belshaz´zar is the name given in the book of Daniel to the last king of the Chaldees, under whom Babylon was taken by the Medes and Persians. Nothing is really known of this king except from the book of Daniel.
Prince of Bel, the Chaldean name given to Daniel at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan 1:7 4:8.\par
Belshaz’zar. (prince of Bel). The last king of Babylon. In Dan 5:2, Nebuchadnezzar is called, the father of Belshazzar. This, of course, need only mean, grandfather or ancestor. According to the well-known narrative, Belshazzar gave a splendid feast in his palace, during the siege of Babylon, (B.C. 538), using the sacred vessels of the Temple, which Nebuchadnezzer had brought from Jerusalem. The miraculous appearance of the handwriting on the wall, the calling in of Daniel to interpret its meaning, the prophecy of the overthrow of the kingdom, and Belshazsar’s death, accorded in Daniel 5.
Contracted from Belsharezar: from
Nabonedus, defeated by Cyrus in the field, fled to Borsippa, and survived. Belshazzar fell in the last assault of Babylon. Xenophon calls the last king of Babylon "impious," and illustrates his cruelty by the fact that he killed a courtier for having struck down the game in hunting before him, and unmanned Gadates a courtier at a banquet, because one of the king’s courtiers praised him as handsome. His reckless infatuation is marked by his making a feast when the enemy was thundering at his gates; compare 1Th 5:3-7 for the lesson to us. He set at nought eastern propriety by introducing women and even concubines at the feast. His crowning guilt, which made the cup overflow in vengeance, was his profaning the vessels of Jehovah’s temple to be the instrument of revelry to himself, his princes, wives, and concubines, drinking out of them in honor of his idols.
Security, sensuality, and profanity are the sure forerunners of the sinner’s doom. Intoxicating drinks tempt men to daring profanity, which even they would shrink from when sober. To mark the inseparable connection of sin and punishment, "the same hour" that witnessed his impious insult to Jehovah witnessed the mysterious hand of the unseen One writing his doom in full view of his fellow transgressors on the same palace wall which had been covered with cuneiform inscriptions glorifying those Babylonian kings. Compare Pro 16:18. His daring bravado was in an instant changed into abject fear; conscience can turn the most foolhardy into a coward. His promise that whosoever should read the writing should be "third ruler in the kingdom" is probably an undesigned coincidence with the historic truth now known that Nabonedus was the chief king, Belshazzar secondary, and so the ruler advanced to the next place would be THIRD (Dan 5:7).
Daniel having been summoned at the suggestion of Nitocris, the queen mother, probably wife of Evil Merodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, faithfully reproved him for that though knowing how God had humbled his forefather Nebuchadnezzar for God-despising, self-magnifying pride, he yet "lifted himself against the Lord of heaven"; therefore
(Heb. and Chald. Belshatstsar’ [on the signif. see below],
The Scriptural narrative states that Belshazzar was warned of his coming doom by the handwriting on the wall that was interpreted by Daniel, and was slain during a splendid feast in his palace. Similarly Xenophon (Cyrop. 7, 5, 3) tells us that Babylon was taken by Cyrus in the night, while the inhabitants were engaged in feasting and revelry, and that the king was killed. On the other hand, the narratives of Berosus in Josephus (Apion, 1, 20) and of Herodotus (1, 184 sq.) differ from the above account in some in important particulars. Berosus calls the last king of Babylon Nabonnedus or Nabonadius (Nabu-nit or Nabo-nahit, i.e. Nebo blesses or makes prosperous), and says that in the 17th year of his reign Cyrus took Babylon, the king having retired to the neighboring city of Borsippus or Borsippa (Birs-i-Nimrud), called by Niebuhr (Lect. on Anc. Hist. 12) “the Chaldaean Benares, the city in which the Chaldaeans had their most revered objects of religion, and where they cultivated their science.” Being blockaded in that city, Nabonnedus surrendered, his life was spared, and a principality or estate given to him in Carmania, where he died. According to Herodotus, the last king was called Labynetus, a name easy to reconcile with the Nabonnedus of Berosus, and the Nabannidochus of Megasthenes (Euseb. Praep. Evang. 9, 41). Cyrus, after defeating Labynetus in the open field, appeared before Babylon, within which the besieged defied attack and even blockade, as they had walls 300 feet high and 75 feet thick, forming a square of 15 miles to a side, and had stored up previously several years’ provision. But he took the city by drawing off for a time the waters of the Euphrates, and then marching in with his whole army along its bed, during a great Babylonian festival, while the people, feeling perfectly secure, were scattered over the whole city in reckless amusement. These discrepancies have lately been cleared up by the discoveries of Sir Henry Rawlinson; and the histories of profane writers, far from contradicting the scriptural narrative, are shown to explain and confirm it.
In 1854 he deciphered the inscriptions on some cylinders found in the ruins of Um-Kir (the ancient Ur of the Chaldees), containing memorials of the works executed by Nabonnedus (Jour. Sac. Lit. 1854, p. 252; Jan. 1862). From these inscriptions it appears that the eldest son of Nabonnedus was called Bel-shar-ezar, and admitted by his father to a share in the government. This name is compounded of Bel (the Babylonian god), Shar (a king), and the same termination as in Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, etc., and is contracted into Belshazzar, just as Neriglissar (again with the same termination) is formed from Nergal-sharezar. In a communication to the Athenaeum, No. 1377, Sir Henry Rawlinson says, “We can now understand how Belshazzar, as joint king with his father, may have been governor of Babylon when the city was attacked by the combined forces of the Medes and Persians, and may have perished in the assault which followed while Nabonnedus leading a force to the relief of the place was defeated, and obliged to take refuge in Borsippa, capitulating after a short resistance, and being subsequently assigned, according to Berosus, an honorable retirement in Carmania.” In accordance with this view, we arrange the last Chaldaean kings as follows: Nebuchadnezzar, his son Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, Labrosoarchad (his son, a boy, killed in a conspiracy), Nabonnedus or Labynetus, and Belshazzar. Herodotus says that Labynetus was the son of Queen Nitocris; and Megasthenes (Euseb. Chr. Arm. p. 60) tells us that he succeeded Labrosoarchad, but was not of his family. In Dan 5:2, Nebuchadnezzar is called the father of Belshazzar. This, of course, need only mean grandfather or ancestor. Now Neriglissar usurped the throne on the murder of Evilmerodach (Beros. ap. Joseph. Apion,1): we may therefore well suppose that on the death of his son Labrosoarchad, Nebuchadnezzar’s family was restored in the person of Nabonnedus or Labynetus, possibly the son of that king and Nitocris, and father of Belshazzar. The chief objection to this supposition would be, that if Neriglissar married Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter (Joseph. c. Revelation 1, 21), Nabonnedus would through her be connected with Labrosoarchad. This difficulty is met by the theory of Rawlinson (Herod. Essay 8, § 25), who connects Belshazzar with Nebuchadnezzar through his mother, thinking it probable that Nebu-nahit, whom he does not consider related to Nebuchadnezzar, would strengthen his position by marrying the daughter of that king, who would thus be Belshazzar’s maternal grandfather. A totally different view is taken by Marcus Niebuhr (Geschichte Assur’s und Babel’s seit Phul, p. 91), who considers Belshazzar to be another name for Evilmerodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar. He identifies their characters by comparing Daniel v with the language of Berosus about Evilmerodach (
Belshazzar (bel-shăs’zar), Bel’s prince, or may Bel protect the king, was the son or grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, and the last Assyrian king of Babylon. Dan 5:1; Dan 5:18. During the siege of the city of Babylon he gave a sumptuous entertainment to his courtiers, and impiously made use of the temple furniture (of which Nebuchadnezzar had plundered the temple at Jerusalem) as drinking-vessels. In the midst of the festivities, to the terror of the king, a hand miraculously appeared to be writing upon the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Daniel was called in to explain the mystery, which, interpreted, proved to be a prophecy of the king’s death and the kingdom’s overthrow, which took place in the course of the succeeding night, when Darius the Median captured the city. Dan 5:25-31.
[Belshaz’zar]
The last king of the Babylonish empire, who, at a festival, when he desecrated the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, was warned of God by the fingers of a man’s hand writing upon the wall. He had been weighed by God and was found wanting. Though remonstrated with by Daniel he showed no signs of repentance, and in the midst of the festivities the city was taken by Cyrus or one of his generals and the king was slain. The monuments record that it was taken by Gobryas. The queen, probably the queen-mother, was not at such a scene of revelry, and she could tell of one who would be able to interpret the writing on the wall. See MENE
For a long time Daniel’s account of the taking of the city and of Belshazzar being the last king, was held to be contradicted by history, which names several kings between Nebuchadnezzar and the close of the empire. Of these, two are mentioned in scripture: Evil-merodach, 2Ki 25:27; Jer 52:31; and Nergal-sharezer. Jer 39:3; Jer 39:13. Two others are also named in history, Laborosoarchod and Nabonadius or Labynetus: the former reigned only nine months, and the latter cannot be made to agree with Belshazzar; but happily Col. Rawlinson in A.D. 1854 at Mugheir, the ancient Ur, found an inscription on a monument to the effect that Nabonadius associated his son Bel-shar-eser with himself on the throne. Some tablets also have been discovered bearing the record of certain contracts made by Bilu-sarra-utsur, son of the king, which is also believed to refer to Belshazzar.
Nabonadius was elsewhere, and Belshazzar was slain. This agrees with his saying to Daniel that if he could interpret the writing he should be the third in the kingdom. Belshazzar is called the son of Nebuchadnezzar, but this in scripture often means grandson, and Nabonadius is supposed to have married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. He is said to have been a usurper, and by such a marriage would have consolidated his position on the throne. Dan 5:1-30; Dan 7:1; Dan 8:1.
By: Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ira Maurice Price, Marcus Jastrow, H. M. Speaker
—Biblical Data:
King of Babylon mentioned in Dan. v. and viii. as the son of Nebuchadnezzar and as the last king before the advent of the Medes and Persians. The Greek form 
(ib. vii. 1), and for "Belteshazzar" (
, Dan. i. 7). The name appears also in Baruch i. 11 as "Balthasar" (R. V. "Baltasar"). There can be no doubt, however, that the allusions to this personage in Baruch and elsewhere in extracanonical literature are all based on the data given by Dan. v. and viii.
Belshazzar's Festival.
It is stated in Dan. v. that Belshazzar gave a banquet to the lords and ladies of his court, at which the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple, which had been brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar at the time of the Judean captivity in 586 B.C., were profaned by the ribald company. In consequence of this, during the turmoil of the festivities, a hand was seen writing on the wall of the chamber a mysterious sentence which defied all attempts at interpretation until the Hebrew sage Daniel was called in. He read and translated the unknown words, which proved to be a divine menace against the dissolute Belshazzar, whose kingdom was to be divided between the Medes and Persians. In the last verse we are told that Belshazzar was slain in that same night, and that his power passed to Darius the Mede.
—In Rabbinical Literature:
The chronology of the three Babylonian kings is given in the Talmud as follows: Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-five years, Evil-merodach twenty-three, and Belshazzar was monarch of Babylonia for two years, being killed at the beginning of the third year on the fatal night of the fall of Babylon (Meg. 11b).
The references in the Talmud and the Midrash to Belshazzar all emphasize his tyrannous oppression of his Jewish subjects. Several passages in the Prophets are interpreted as though referring to him and his predecessors. In the passage, "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him" (Amos v. 19), the lion represents Nebuchadnezzar, and the bear, equally ferocious if not equally courageous, is Belshazzar (Esther R., Introduction). The three Babylonian kings are often mentioned together as forming a succession of impious and tyrannous monarchs who oppressed Israel and were therefore foredoomed to disgrace and destruction. The verse in Isa. xiv. 22, "And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant and son and grandchild, saith the Lord," is applied to the trio. "Name" refers to Nebuchadnezzar, "remnant" to Evil-merodach, "son" is Belshazzar, and "grandchild" Vashti (ib.). The command given to Abraham to cut in pieces three heifers as a part of the covenant established between him and his God, is thus elucidated, "And he said unto him, take unto me three heifers" (Gen. xv. 9 [A. V. "a heifer of three years old"]). This symbolizes Babylonia, which gave rise to three kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach, and Belshazzar, whose doom is prefigured by this act of "cutting to pieces" (Gen. R. xliv.).
Belshazzar's feast, in the course of which the sacred vessels of the Temple in Jerusalem were put to sacrilegious use (Dan. v.), is traced by the Rabbis to his miscalculation in chronology. He well knew that the period of Jewish exile in Babylonia, according to Jeremiah's prophecy, was not to exceed seventy years (Jer. xxix. 10). Belshazzar's starting-point was the accession of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned forty-five years. To this he added the reign of Evil-merodach, which, according to tradition, continued for twenty-three years, and his own reign of two years, making in all seventy. "Jeremiah must be wrong," argued Belshazzar, "for the limit has been reached, and since the Jews have not yet returned to their land, they probably will not return any more." Emboldened by this erroneous calculation, he made impious use of the sacred vessels at the royal feast, where the sound of revelry mingled with hymns to the heathen gods. The miraculous handwriting on the wall, the fall of Babylon, and the king's violent death on that fatal night soon followed. Ahasuerus also erred in his calculation as to the period of the Babylonian exile, though his starting-point is shifted to a later date than that of Belshazzar. The Rabbis assert that the true basis for this reckoning is the destruction of Jerusalem. For the famous prophecy of Jeremiah is properly understood by Daniel when he says (Dan. ix. 2), "In the first year of his [Darius'] reign, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem" (Meg. 11b et seq.).
The Midrash enters into the details of Belshazzar's death. It is stated that Cyrus and Darius were employed as doorkeepers of the royal palace. Belshazzar, being greatly alarmed at the mysterious handwriting on the wall, and apprehending that some one in disguise might enter the palace with murderous intent, ordered his doorkeepers to behead every one who attempted to force an entrance that night, even though such person should claim to bethe king himself. Belshazzar, overcome by sickness, left the palace unobserved during the night through a rear exit. On his return the doorkeepers refused to admit him. In vain did he plead that he was the king. They said, "Has not the king ordered us to put to death any one who attempts to enter the palace, though he claim to be the king himself?" Suiting the action to the word, Cyrus and Darius grasped a heavy ornament forming part of a candelabrum, and with it shattered the skull of their royal master (Cant. R. iii. 4). See Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar in Rabbinical Literature.
The Name "Belshazzar."
—Critical View:
The name "Belshazzar" was previously held to have been invented by the author of the Book of Daniel, which has long been recognized as a Maccabean production (see Daniel). Since the discovery and decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, however, "Belshazzar" is now generally admitted to be the Hebrew-Aramaic equivalent of the Babylonian form "Belsharuṣur" (Bel preserve the king), which has been found in the cuneiform documents as the name of the eldest son of Nabonidus (Nabuna'id), the last native king of Babylon (555-538 B.C.). The most important allusions to Belsharuṣur in Babylonian literature are clearly those in the two inscriptions of Ur (Nabonidus) (see Prince, "Daniel," p. 36), and in the so-called "Annals of Nabonidus" (see Mene), which is the chief document relating to the fall of Babylon at the hands of the Persians. In the Ur records Nabonidus prays that his son may live long and piously, although it is not stated why special mention should be made of the prince here. It may be conjectured, with Tiele ("Gesch. Assyriens," p. 463), that Belshazzar was governor of Ur; or it is possible that the king, who was noted for his strictness in religious matters, may have attached some special importance to the cult of the moon-god practised in Ur. The petition that the king's son may not incline to sin may also imply that Belshazzar had in some way offended the religious classes, who, as is well known, supervised the preparation of the inscriptions. The allusion to the prince in the "Annals of Nabonidus" shows plainly that he remained with the army in northern Babylonia, most probably in the capacity of commander-in-chief, while his father was living in Tema apparently free from the cares of government and applying himself to his favorite study of religious archeology.
Contrast with History.
In the "Annals" the name "Belsharuṣur" does not occur, the reference being merely to the son of the king; but there can be no doubt that the first-born is meant. The references in the contract literature to Belshazzar throw no further historical light on his career (see Prince, ib. pp. 263, 264). That the name was not an unusual one is seen from the fact that certainly two other persons are called by it in the Babylonian inscriptions (Prince, ib., pp. 11, 29, 35).
The following important differences between Belsharusur and the Belshazzar of Daniel are patent. The former was the son of the last king of Babylon, but never reigned, except possibly as coregent with his father; while the latter is distinctly called the last king and the son of Nebuchadnezzar, both of which statements are undoubtedly made in perfectly good faith by the author of Daniel.
It can not be shown that the Belshazzar of Daniel was intended, as some scholars have supposed, for Evil-merodach, son of Nebuchadnezzar, and was used by the Biblical author as a secondary name. Had the author meant this, he would never have made Daniel declare to the Babylonian monarch that his kingdom was about to pass to the Medes and Persians. The prophecy was evidently intended for the last king, as there would have been no point in such a warning delivered a generation before its fulfilment. Besides this, had the author regarded his Belshazzar as Evil-merodach, he would have deliberately passed over in silence the reigns of several Babylonian kings between the death of Evil-merodach and the foreign supremacy. This will appear plainly from an examination of the list of the last kings of Babylon: Nebuchadnezzar, 604-561; Amel-Marduk (Evil-merodach), 561-559; Nergalsharuṣur (Neriglissar), 559-555; Labashi-Marduk, 555, reigned only nine months; Nabonidus, 555-538; Cyrus captures Babylon, 538. There can be no doubt then that the author of Daniel regarded Belshazzar as the last native king of Babylon.
While it is historically possible that Belsharuṣur may have been coregent, it is clear that the writer of Daniel could not have thought this, as he would hardly have given him the unqualified title "king of Babylon" without further elucidation; compare chap. viii., where there is no mention of any overruler.
Illustrations from Cuneiform Documents.
Finally, the statement that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar shows conclusively that the historical data of the Biblical author were at fault. It is impossible also to reconcile this assertion with the facts by supposing that "son" here is to be translated "descendant" or "grandson" (so Pusey, "Daniel," p. 346), which is of course grammatically permissible. The way, however, in which Nebuchadnezzar is referred to in chap. v. shows conclusively that the author could have had no knowledge of the intervening kings, but that he really considered Nebuchadnezzar to be the actual father of Belshazzar. The narrative of the fifth chapter follows directly on the chapters about Nebuchadnezzar, and begins with the statement that Belshazzar was the son of that king; and, furthermore, the remark of Belshazzar in verse 13, "Art thou that Daniel . . . whom the king my father brought from Jewry?" would have had no force if the king were referring to an ancestor. Had such been the author's meaning, the name "Nebuchadnezzar" would certainly have been repeated in order to show to which "father" the king was alluding. In addition to all this, there is no evidence that Belsharuṣur was in any way related to Nebuchadnezzar. Nabonidus, his father, was the son of a nobleman, Nabu-balaṭsu-iḳbî, and was probably a usurper against the older house of Nebuchadnezzar. There is nothing to show that he was connected by blood or marriage with any of thepreceding kings. It is interesting to observe in this connection that in the Chaldean legend given by Abȳdēnus, of doubtful date, the last king of Babylon is spoken of as a son of Nebuchadnezzar (compare Schrader, in "Jahrbücher für Protest. Theologie," 1881, pp. 618-629).
Aim of Daniel v.
It should be remarked that the force of the narrative of the fifth chapter of Daniel would have been materially weakened had the author known and made use of the names of the kings intervening between Nebuchadnezzar and the last king. The whole point of the fifth chapter is a comparison between the great Nebuchadnezzar, the real founder of the Babylonian monarchy, and the insignificant last king who suffered the reins of government to slip from his feeble hands, with a prophetic emphasis on the coming stranger people who should divide among them the empire of Nebuchadnezzar.
There can be no doubt that the son of Nabonidus was the prototype of the Biblical Belshazzar. The author of Daniel simply did not have correct data at hand. We must not be surprised at the incongruity between the historical inscriptions and the Book of Daniel in this instance, but should rather note the very evident points of agreement: first, that while the Belshazzar of Daniel is represented as being the last king, the original of the tradition—whose name is etymologically equivalent to "Belshazzar"—was actually the son of the last king; and secondly, that the son of Nabonidus probably met his death at the time of the capture of Babylon, as has recently been established (compare Prince, ib. p. 103), in partial agreement with the Biblical account of the final feast of Belshazzar.
That such a festival really took place on the eve of the capture of Babylon is not improbable. Although there is no parallel account in the inscriptions, it certainly seems significant that both Herodotus and Xenophon allude to a feast at this time. Thus, according to Herodotus, i. 191, Babylon was captured while the besieged were off their guard during a festival; and Xenophon, alluding to the capture of Babylon, states that Cyrus had heard that a feast was going forward ("Cyropædia," viii. 5, 15). See Daniel, Mene, Nebuchadnezzar.
BELSHAZZAR.—Son of Nebuchadnezzar, last king of Babylon, before its capture by Cyrus (Dan 5:1). The name is somewhat variously given: Baltasar, Bar 1:11 f. [so also LXX
C. H. W. Johns.
(Or, as found in the Septuagint Baltasár.)Baltasar is the Greek and Latin name for Belshazzar, which is the Hebrew equivalent for Bel­sarra­usur, i.e., "May Bel protect the king". Bel was the chief and titular god of Babylon. In Daniel, v, Baltasar is described as the son of Nabuchodonosor (A. V., Nebuchadnezzar) and the last King of Babylon. It is there narrated how the town was invaded–by the Medes under Darius, as would seem from Dan., v, 18, 19–whilst the king was giving a sumptuous feast to his nobles. The king himself was slain. The narrator further informs us that the sacred vessels which Nabuchodonosor had carried with him from Jerusalem were defiled on that occasion. By order of king Baltasar they were used during the banquet, and his wives and concubines drank out of them. In the midst of the revelry a hand is seen writing on the wall the mysterious words Mane, Thecel, Phares (A. V., Mene, Tekel, Peres). The king’s counsellors and magicians are summoned to explain the writing, but they fail to do so. The Queen then enters the banquet hall and suggests that Daniel should be called for. Daniel reads and explains the words: the days of the kingdom had been numbered; the king had been weighed in the balance and had been found wanting; his kingdom would be given to the Medes and the Persians.In the account given by Herodotus of the capture of Babylon by the Persians under Cyrus, Labynitus II, son of Labynitus I and Nicotris, is named as the last King of Babylon. Labynitus is commonly held to be a corruption of Nabomidus. Herodotus further mentions that Cyrus, after laying siege to the town, entered it by the bed of the Euphrates, having drained off its waters, and that the capture took place whilst the Babylonians were feasting (Herod., I, 188-191). Xenophon also mentions the siege, the draining of the Euphrates, and the feast. He does not state the name of the king, but fastens on him the epithet "impious", ànódios. According to him, the king made a brave stand, defending himself with his sword, but was overpowered and slain by Gobryas and Gadatas, the two generals of Cyrus (Cyrop., vii, 5). The Chaldean priest Berosus names Nabonidus as the last King of Babylon and says that the city was taken in the seventeenth year of his reign. We are further informed by him that Nabonidus went forth at the head of an army to oppose Cyrus, that he gave battle, lost, and fled to Borsippa. In this town he was besieged and forced to surrender. His life was spared, and an abode assigned to him in Karmania. (Prof. C. P. Tiele, Babylonisch­Assyrische Gesch., 479; Euseb., Præp Ev., ix, 41; Idem, Chron., i, 10, 3.) Josephus follows the Biblical account. He remarks that Baltasar was called by the Babylonians Naboandelus, evidently a corruption of Nabonidus, and calls the queen, grandmother (è mámme) of the king. He adheres to the Septuagint rendering in making the reward held out to Daniel to have been a third portion of the kingdom instead of the title, third ruler in the kingdom. Rabbinical tradition has preserved nothing of historical value.The cuneiform inscriptions have thrown a new light on the person of Baltasar and the capture of Babylon. There is in the first place the inscription of Nabonidus containing a prayer for his son: "And as for Bel­sarra­asur my eldest son, the offspring of my body, the awe of thy great divinity fix thou firmly in his heart that he may never fall into sin" (Records of the Past, V, 148). It is commonly admitted that Bel­sarra­usur is the same as Belshazzar, or Baltasar. Dr. Strassmaier has published three inscriptions which mention certain business transactions of Bel­sarra­usur. They are the leasing of a house, the purchase of wool, and the loan of a sum of money. They are dated respectively the fifth, eleventh, and twelfth year of Nabonidus. Of greater iimportance is the analytical tablet on which is engraved an inscription by Cyrus summarizing the more memorable events of the reign of Nabonidus and the causes leading up to the conquest of Babylon. The first portion of the tablet states that in the sixth year of Nabonidus, Astyages (Istuvegu) was defeated by Cyrus, and that from the seventh till the eleventh year Nabonidus resided in Tema (a western suburb of Babylon) whilst the king’s son was with the army in Accad, or Northern Babylonia. After this a lacuna occurs, owing to the tablet being broken. In the second portion of the inscription we find Nabonidus himself at the head of his army in Accad near Sippar. The events narrated occur in the seventeenth, or last, year of the king’s reign.–"In the month of Tammuz [June] Cyrus gave battle to the army of Accad. The men of Accad broke into revolt. On the 14th day the garrison of Sippar was taken without fighting. Nabonidus flies. On the 16th day Gobryas the governor of Gutium [Kurdistan] and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without a battle. Afterwards he takes Nabonidus and puts him into fetters in Babylon. On the 3rd day of Marchesvan [October] Cyrus entered Babylon" (Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments; Pinches, Capture of Babylon). In addition to this tablet we have the Cyrus cylinder published by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1880. Cyrus pronounces a eulogy upon his military exploits and assigns his triumph to the intervention of the gods. Nabonidus had incurred their wrath by removing their images from the local shrines and bringing them to Babylon.On comparing the inscriptions with the other accounts we find that they substantially agree with the statement by Berosus, but that they considerably differ from what is recorded by Herodotus, Xenophon, and in the Book of Daniel. (1) The inscriptions do not mention the siege of Babylon recorded by Herodotus and Xenophon. Cyrus says Gobryas his general took the town "without fighting". (2) Nabonidus (555-538 B.C.), and not Baltasar, as is stated in Daniel, was the last King of Babylon. Baltasar, or Bel­sarra­usur, was the son of Nabonidus. Nor was Nabonidus or Baltasar a son or descendant of Nabuchodonosor. Nabonidus was the son of Nebo­baladhsu­ik­bi, and was a usurper of the throne. The family of Nabuchodonosor had come to an end in the person of Evil­Merodach, who had been murdered by Nergal­sharezer, his sister’s husband. The controversy occasioned by these differences between the conservative and modern schools of thought has not yet reached a conclusion. Scholars of the former school still maintain the historical accuracy of the Book of Daniel, and explain the alleged discrepancies with great ingenuity. They assume that Baltasar had been associated with his father in the government, and that as prince­regent, or co­regent, he could be described in authority and rank as king. For this conjecture they seek support in the promise of Baltasar to make Daniel "third ruler" (D. V., "third prince") in the kingdom, from which they infer that he himself was the second. Professor R. D. Wilson, of Princeton, claims that the bearing of the title "King" by Baltasar was in harmony with the usage of the time (Princeton Theol. Rev., 1904, April, July; 1905, January, April). The other discrepancy, namely, that Nabuchodonosor is called the father of Baltasar (Dan., v. 2, 11, 18) they account for either by taking the word "father" in the wider sense of predecessor, or by the conjecture that Baltasar was his descendant on the mother’s side.On the other hand, the school of critics declines to accept these explanations. They argue that Baltasar not less than Nabuchodonosor appears in Daniel as sole and supreme ruler of the State. While fully admitting the possibility that Baltasar acted as prince­regent, they can find no proof for this either in the classical authors or in the inscriptions. The inference drawn from the promise of Baltasar to raise Daniel to the rank of a "third ruler" in the kingdom they regard as doubtful and uncertain. The Hebrew phrase may be rendered "ruler of a third part of the kingdom". Thus the phrase would be parallel to the Greek term "tetrarch", i.e. ruler of a fourth part, or of a small portion of territory. For this rendering they have the authority of the Septuagint, Josephus, and, as Dr. Adler informs us, of Jewish commentators of repute (see Daniel in the Critics’ Den, p. 26). Furthermore, they argue that the emphatic way in which Nabuchodonosor is designated as father of the king leads the reader to infer that the writer meant his words to be understood in the literal and obvious sense. Thus the queen, addressing Baltasar, thrice repeats the designation "the king thy father", meaning Nabuchodonosor: "And in the days of thy father light, knowledge and wisdom were found in him [Daniel]: for King Nabuchodonosor thy father appointed him prince of the wise men, enchanters, Chaldeans, soothsayers, thy father, O King."-----------------------------------SAYCE, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments (London, 1894); KENNEDY, The Book of Daniel from the Christian Standpoint (London, 1898); FARRAR, Daniel (London); ANDERSON, Daniel in the Critics’ Den (London); ORR, The Problem of the O. T. (London, 1906); GIGOT, Special Introduction to the Study of the O. T., pt. II, 366, 367, 369; ROGERS, A History of Babylonia and Assyria (New York, 1902); TIELE, Babylonisch­Assyrische Gesch., (Gotha, 1886).C. VAN DEN BIESEN Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
In addition to Nabunaid II, Belshazzar seems to have had another brother named Nebuchadnezzar, since the two Babylonian rebels against Darius Hystaspis both assumed the name of Nebuchadnezzar the son of Nabunaid (see the Behistun Inscription, I, 85, 89, 95). He had a sister also named Ina-esagilaremat, and a second named probably
Belshazzar had his own house in Babylon, where he seems to have been engaged in the woolen or clothing trade. He owned also estates from which he made large gifts to the gods. His father joins his name with his own in some of his prayers to the gods, and apparently appointed him commander of the army of Accad, whose especial duty it was to defend the city of Babylon against the attacks of the armies of Media and Persia.
It would appear from the Nabunaid-Cyrus Chronicle, that Belshazzar was de facto king of the Babylonian empire, all that was left of it, from the 4th to the 8th month of the 17th year of the reign of his father Nabunaid, and that he died on the night in which Babylon was taken by Gobryas of Gutium (that is, probably, DARIUS THE MEDE (which see)).
The objection to the historical character of the narrative of Daniel, based upon the fact that Belshazzar in Dan 5:11, Dan 5:18 is said to have been the son of Nebuchadnezzar whereas the monuments state that he was the son of Nabunaid, is fully met by supposing that one of them was his real and the other his adoptive father; or by supposing that the queen-mother and Daniel referred to the greatest of his predecessors as his father, just as Omri is called by the Assyrians the father of Jehu, and as the claimants to the Medo-Pers throne are called on the Behistun Inscription the sons of Cyaxares, and as at present the reigning sheikhs of northern Arabia are all called the sons of Rashid, although in reality they are not his sons.
Literature
The best sources of information as to the life and times of Belshazzar for English readers are: The Records of the Past; Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia; Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments; and W. W. Wright’s two great works, Daniel and His Prophecies and Daniel and His Critics.