Belshazzar

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Prince of Bel, the Chaldean name given to Daniel at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 1:7 4:8 .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Daniel 5:1 Daniel 5:2 Daniel 5:30

The absence of the name of Belshazzar on the monuments was long regarded as an argument against the genuineness of the Book of Daniel. In 1854Sir Henry Rawlinson found an inscription of Nabonidus which referred to his eldest son. Quite recently, however, the side of a ravine undermined by heavy rains fell at Hillah, a suburb of Babylon. A number of huge, coarse earthenware vases were laid bare. These were filled with tablets, the receipts and contracts of a firm of Babylonian bankers, which showed that Belshazzar had a household, with secretaries and stewards. One was dated in the third year of the king Marduk-sar-uzur. As Marduk-sar-uzar was another name for Baal, this Marduk-sar-uzur was found to be the Belshazzar of Scripture. In one of these contract tablets, dated in the July after the defeat of the army of Nabonidus, we find him paying tithes for his sister to the temple of the sun-god at Sippara.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Contracted from Belsharezar: from Βel , the Babylonian idol, and shar , a "king"; zar is a common Babylonian termination, as in Nebuchadnez-zar. His solemnly instructive history is graphically told in Daniel 5. See BABEL; BABYLON, for the remarkable confirmation of the Scripture account of his death on the night of revelry in the siege of Babylon; which is also stated by Xenophon; whereas Berosus in Josephus calls the last king Nabonedus (Nabonahit, i.e. Nebo makes prosperous) and says that in the 17th year of his reign Cyrus took Babylon, the king having retired to Borsippa (the Chaldaean sacred city of religion and science); and that having surrendered there, he had a principality assigned to him in Carmania by Cyrus. The inscription at Umqeer (Ur of the Chaldees), read by Sir H. Rawlinson, strews that Nabonedus admitted his son Belshazzar into a share of the kingdom, just as Nabopolassar admitted Nebuchadnezzar his sort to share in the government, Xerxes admitted his son Artaxerxes, and Augustus his successor Tiberius; so that the discrepancy is cleared.

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 1 Thessalonians 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 Proverbs 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 ( Daniel 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 ΜΕΝΕ , God has numbered thy years of reign and the number is complete, compare Psalms 90:12. ΤΕΚΕL , weighed in the balances of God's truth, thou art found wanting. UΡΗΑRSΙΝ , or ΡΕRΕS , alluding to the similar word "Persians," thy kingdom is divided among the Medes and Persians. Cyrus diverted the Euphrates into a channel, and guided by Gobryas and Gadatas, deserters, marched by the dry channel into Babylon, while the citizens were carousing at an annual feast to the idols ( Isaiah 21:5; Isaiah 44:27; Jeremiah 50:29-35; Jeremiah 50:38-39; Jeremiah 51:36; Jeremiah 51:57). Belshazzar was slain; compare Isaiah 14:18-20.

Holman Bible Dictionary

Daniel 5:1 Daniel 5:28 Daniel 5:30

Apart from the account in the Book of Daniel, little is known about Belshazzar. He was the son of Nabonidus, and reigned as co-regent with his father (553-539 B.C.). Nabonidus travelled to Arabia and left Belshazzar in control according to a Babylonian inscription. From the standpoint of Babylonian history, Belshazzar was not a particularly important personage except that he participated in the decisions and events leading to the fall of the Babylonian empire.

See Babylon .

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

King of Babylon. His history, which is very awful, we have, ( Daniel 5:1-31) His name is compounded of Baal, lord; and Otzer, treasure; intimating, no doubt, his great riches and power.

See Mene

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

BELSHAZZAR . Son of Nebuchadnezzar, last king of Babylon, before its capture by Cyrus ( Daniel 5:1 ). The name is somewhat variously given: Baltasar , Bar 1:11 f. [so also LXX [Note: Septuagint.] and Theod. in Daniel]; and Josephus says he was son of Naboandçlos. There is no doubt that Bçlshar-usur, son of Nabonidus, is meant. He was regent in Babylon during the latter part of his father’s reign. It is probable that he was in command of Babylon on its surrender, as he had been in command of the army in Akkad till the 11th year of his father’s reign.

C. H. W. Johns.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

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, 2 Kings 25:27; Jeremiah 52:31; and Nergal-sharezer. Jeremiah 39:3,13 . 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. Daniel 5:1-30; Daniel 7:1; Daniel 8:1 .

People's Dictionary of the Bible

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. Daniel 5:1; Daniel 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. Daniel 5:25-31.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Belshaz'zar. (prince of Bel). The last king of Babylon. In Daniel 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.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

the last king of Babylon, and, according to Hales and others, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 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, Daniel 7:1; Daniel 8:1; and his sacrilegious feast and violent death, Daniel 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, Isaiah 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 .

Whyte's Dictionary of Bible Characters

NEVER did a military commander attempt a more impossible task than Cyrus attempted when he sat down before Babylon to blockade it. For Babylon was indeed 'Babylon the Great.' Babylon was great in size, in fortified strength, in wide dominion, in wealth, in every kind of resource, and in her proud defiance of all her enemies. But then, to set over against all that, Cyrus was a soldier of the foremost military genius: and, besides that, Almighty God was with Cyrus, and was against Belshazzar.

That was an high day in all the temples and palaces of Babylon. It was the day that Bel had made, and all Babylon was in public worship before Bel their god. And as an evening sacrifice to Bel, a great feast was to be held in Belshazzar's palace that night. But before the sunset, and to prepare his proud heart for his great banquet, Belshazzar rode out in his royal chariot that afternoon on that splendid chariot-drive that his famous father, Nebuchadnezzar, had built round about Babylon. The wall of Babylon was the wonder of the world. The wall of Babylon reached unto heaven; and such a mighty rampart was that wall round the city, that no less than four royal chariots were driven abreast on the top of the wall that afternoon, and all in the sight of Cyrus lying below. And as Belshazzar saw Cyrus and his thin red line lying round the mighty fortress, he mocked at Cyrus, and all Belshazzar's princes laughed with him at that spider's thread laid round a sleeping lion. It was a dazzling spectacle at Belshazzar's supper-table that night. All the grandeur, all the wealth, all the princely blood, and all the beauty of Babylon, drank wine at the king's table, and praised the gods of Babylon. When, just as Belshazzar lifted to his lips that cup of the Lord, which had been carried captive out of the temple of Jerusalem, a man's hand suddenly came out and wrote a writing on the wall over against the king's candlestick. But what is that writing on the wall? Neither the king nor any of his Chaldeans can either read the writing or understand the interpretation thereof. Till Daniel is brought in,-'Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet will I read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. God hath numbered thy kingdom. Thou art weighed in the balances. And thy kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians.' And while Daniel was yet speaking to Belshazzar, Jehovah was at that same moment saying to Cyrus, 'Thou art Mine anointed, and I will loose the loins of kings, and will open before thee the two-leaved gates. I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. I will say to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up the rivers. I am the Lord, and there is none else.' And Cyrus arose, and lifted up the great sluices that he had made in secret, and the Euphrates flowed away into the new bed that Cyrus had dug for it, till the former bed of the river became the broad and open way by which Cyrus led his men into the revelling city. And that night was Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, slain.

Belshazzar's grave is made,His kingdom's passed away,He, in his balance laid,Is light and worthless clay.The shroud his robe of state,His canopy the stone;The Mede is at his gate,The Persian on his throne!

But come back and look at this. Bid you ever think of this? How do you account for this? If King Belshazzar does not know what the words are that are written on the wall, why do his knees smite so, the one against the other, and why is his countenance so changed? Is this not a banquet to Bel tonight? And are not all these princes and lords and queens and concubines all Bel's worshippers tonight? Why, then, is Belshazzar in such a terror? Why does he not salute with joy and assurance that divine hand? That must be Bel's hand. Rise up, Belshazzar, and kiss the great hand of thy god. Rise up and command more wine. Rise up and call for music and dancing. For that must be the mighty arm of thy god denouncing destruction to Cyrus, and sealing down thy victory to thee. What a cold welcome to give to thy god! O unbelieving and unthankful king Belshazzar! But Belshazzar knew better. Belshazzar's conscience had already interpreted the words before they were all written. You can all sympathise with Beshazzar's state of mind as that hand went on with its awful writing over against the candlestick. You have all come through the same thing yourselves. When something shot in upon you without warning. Something when you were at your ungodly feast with your ungodly companions, or when you had just said, Surely the darkness shall cover me. Something sudden and unaccountable. When your heart suddenly stood still, and did not beat again for a moment. When you were in some sudden accident so that your hair has been white ever since. That is God! your conscience whispered to you. That is God come in anger at last. No wonder your knees shook. No wonder you were as cold as a corpse. If a hand came out on the plaster of the wall opposite the pulpit lamp at this moment you would all swoon in your seats. You would know that that hand had come to write your sentence on that wall. Sitting there in your own soft seats you would all, in a moment, be Belshazzar over again.

Belshazzar was as good as dead and at the judgment-seat already. And this was the sentence of the last day upon Belshazzar: 'Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.' What balances! What tremendous balances! Balances with all Belshazzar's power, and riches, and opportunities, and responsibilities in the one scale, and then Belshazzar himself, naked and open, in the other scale. Belshazzar was weighed that night with weights of the most absolute truth and justice. Belshazzar was not weighed with King Saul's weights, nor with King David's weights, nor with King Solomon's. Belshazzar was weighed with weights of his own, that no man, before nor since, has ever been weighed with but Belshazzar himself. And you will be weighed, you are being weighed at this moment, with your own proper weights also. God Almighty has a special pair of balances beside Him, waiting and filling up till your life also is numbered and finished. Look up, sinner, at the awful instrument. Forecast the awful scene. All that God has done for you in your birth, in your godly upbringing, in your means of grace, in providences, in all privileges, in divine calls to a better life; all such warnings and all such instructions are collecting into one scale, and your soul-your naked and shivering soul-into the other scale with the whole universe looking on. Well may your knees knock! Well may your thoughts trouble you! How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?

'The Lord is a God of knowledge' says a solemn Scripture, 'and by Him actions are weighed,' That is to say, you will be weighed in those scales of God by means of which He gets at the very heart's blood of all your actions. Till He has got at the very hearths blood, till He has got at the thoughts and intents of an action, at its most secret motive, He is not yet a God of knowledge. But after that He is. You deceive us, you and your actions both pass with us for what at your heart you are not. But God is not mocked. He knows your exact weight and worth; and the exact weight and worth of all your words and all your deeds. He knows down to the bottom why you did this; and down to the bottom why you did not do that. He has known it all the time, only He has numbered your kingdom, and He lets you go on, deceiving and being deceived, till the Persian is at your gate.

For I am 'ware it is the seed of actGod holds appraising in His hollow palm,Not act grown great thence in the world below-Leafage and branchage vulgar eyes admire.

O my soul, what a day that will be for thee when the God of truth, and not any more of lies, brings forth His great balances! His balances, so awful in their burning truth and holiness! What a reversal of reputations! What a stain and overthrow of great names! What a dreadful trumpet-blowing upon the house-tops! What nakedness! What shame! What everlasting contempt! Rocks, fall on us and hide us. O ministers! O people! But O ministers, above all, on that day! your people will gnash their teeth at you on that day unless you preach to them now the terrible balances of that day. Be sure you preach for one whole sermon every Sabbath the terrors of the Lord. To have even one of your people saved as by fire on that terrible day will be your salvation. For your God is a God of knowledge, and by Him every minister's motives and aims and ends will be weighed before the whole assembled world that day. Rock of Ages, cleft for me!

As you go about in this city you will see great scales sometimes at the street corner, sometimes in a shop for loungers, sometimes at a railway station, strong scales, in which, for a penny, you will see people amusing themselves by weighing themselves and one another, some for pure sport and just to kill time, and some in fear and anxiety lest they should turn out lighter and less in health than they were yesterday. Seek out the places where the scales of the soul are kept open, and seat thy soul in them every day. And, especially, never pass a Sabbath day without comparing your light soul with last Sabbath. God hangs out His scales in the heavens every Sabbath morning. And, above all, He weighs ministers, and their pulpits, and their people on that day. Choose your church, then, above all your choices, choose well your church. The city is before you. Choose a church with God's scales in it at any price. Call a minister who, when he is a probationer, and preaches two trial sermons, at one of the diets hangs God's great balances out of his pulpit and over your pew. And if there is no such probationer in all the poor leet, and no such preacher in all the besotted parish, then, all the more, and better for you, learn how to weigh yourself without a minister. Weigh and weigh, and weigh yourself till, in all you think, and all you say, and all you do, you find yourself wanting. Be sure there is something wrong with the balances; all the weights are not in, or there is some hidden rust in the hinges, or you have not read the index right, or something, if you do not find yourself wanting. If you are satisfied with yourself any one day, be sure there is a fatal mistake somewhere. Be sure that a dreadful awakening awaits you if you think that all things are fairly well with you. Never go up into your bed till you have been back in the balance; you and your past day. Never sleep till you know how you weigh, well or ill tonight. Weigh, and weigh, and weigh yourself every day, every night,-till there is no more left for the last day to do. Weigh yourself till you have relieved that terrible day of some of its pressure of business on God's hand. He will be pleased, amid much displeasure, on that day, to be lightened of His strange work even in one sinner. When the book comes to your name, He will say: 'Pass by that man, I know all about him: he is weighed and settled up with Me already.' It will be in that case as the Catechism, which is in your other scale, has it; you will be 'openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment.' Weigh yourself, and find yourself ever more and more wanting, till, in pure pity, God will put away His balance behind His back, and will bring forward His touchstone. I got that out of Thomas Goodwin's fine book, A Child of Light Walking in Darkness. 'For God brings not a pair of scales to weigh your graces with, and if they be too light refuseth them. No: but He brings a touchstone to try your graces. And, if they be true gold, though never so little of it, that gold will pass current with Him. Though it be but smoke, and not yet flame; though it be but as a wick in the socket, Matthew 12:20 (as it is there in the original), likelier to die and to go out than to continue, and which we use to throw away; yet He will not quench it, but will accept it. These things you are to recall and to consider in limes of distress.' That is to say, as often as you every day and every hour weigh yourselves, and find yourselves wanting, after the balance make use of the touchstone. And then, as King Brennus, in the old history book, cast his heavy sword into the too-light scale when the gold was being weighed; so will Christ cast in His cross into your too-light scale where His gold is being weighed on that day in you.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

bel -shaz´ar ( בּלשׁאצּר , bēlsha'ccar  ; Βαλτασάρ , Baltasár , Babylonian Bel - shar - uṣur ): According to Daniel 5:30 , he was the Chaldean king under whom Babylon was taken by Darius the Mede. The Babylonian monuments speak a number of times of a Bel - shar - uṣur who was the "firstborn son, the offspring of the heart of" Nabunaid, the last king of the Babylonian empire, that had been founded by Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, at the time of the death of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, in 626 bc. There is no doubt that this Belshazzar is the same as the Belshazzar of Dnl. It is not necessary to suppose that Belshazzar was at any time king of the Babylonian empire in the sense that Nebuchadnezzar and Nabunaid were. It is probable, as M. Pognon argues, that a son of Nabunaid, called Nabunaid after his father, was king of Babylon, or Babylonian king, in Harran (Haran), while his father was overlord in Babylon. This second Nabunaid is called "the son of the offspring of the heart" of Nabunaid his father. It is possible that this second Nabundid was the king who was killed by Cyrus, when he crossed the Tigris above Arbela in the 9th year of Nabunaid his father, and put to death the king of the country (see the Nabunaid-Cyrus Chronicle col. ii, 17); since according to the Eshki-Harran inscription, Nabunaid the Second died in the 9th year of Nabunaid the First. Belshazzar may have been the son of the king who is said in the same chronicle to have commanded the Babylonian army in Accad from the 6th to the 11th year of Nabunaid I; or, possibly longer, for the annals before the 6th and after the 11th year are broken and for the most part illegible. This same son of the king is most probably mentioned again in the same chronicle as having died in the night in which Babylon was captured by Gobryas of Gutium. As Nabunaid II, though reigning at Hatran under the overlordship of his father, is called king of Babylon on the same inscription on which his father is called by the same title; so Belshazzar may have been called king of Babylon, although he was only crown prince. It is probable also, that as Nabunaid I had made one of his sons king of Harran, so he had made another king of Chaldea. This would account for Belshazzar's being called in Daniel 5:30 the Chaldean king, although, to be sure, this word Chaldean may describe his race rather than his kingdom. The 3rd year of Belshazzar spoken of in Daniel 8:1 , would then refer to his 3rd year as subking of the Chaldeans under his father Nabunaid, king of Babylon, just as Cambyses was later subking of Babylon, while his father Cyrus was king of the lands. From the Book of Daniel we might infer that this subkingdom embraced Chaldea and Susiana, and possibly the province of Babylon; and from the Nabunaid-Cyrus Chronicle that it extended over Accad as well. That the city of Babylon alone was sometimes at least governed by an official called king is highly probable, since the father of Nergal - shar - uṣur is certainly, and the father of Nabunaid I is probably, called king of Babylon, in both of which cases, the city, or at most the province, of Babylon must have been meant, since we know to a certainty all of the kings who had been ruling over the empire of Babylon since 626 bc, when Nabopolassar became king, and the names of neither of these fathers of kings is found among them.

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 Ukabu'shai' - na .

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 Daniel 5:11 , Daniel 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 .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

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.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. and Chald. Belshatstsar' [on the signif. see below], בֵּלְשִׁאצִּר; Sept. Βαλτάσαρ ) 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 (chap. 5, 1; 7:1; 8, ). B.C. 538. Herodotus calls this king, and also his father, Labynetus, which is undoubtedly a corruption of Nabonnedus, the name by which he was known to Berosus, in Joseph. contr. Apion. 1, 20. Yet in Josephus ( Ant. 10, 11, 2) it is stated that Baltasar was called Naboandel by the Babylonians. Nabonadius in the Canon of Ptolemy, Nabonedus in Euseb. Chron. Armen. 1, 60 (from Alexander Polyhistor), and Nabonnidochus in Euseb. Praep. Evang. 9, 41 (from Megasthenes), are evidently other varieties of his name. The only circumstances recorded of him in Scripture are his impious feast and violent death (Daniel 5). 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 while 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 this 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. The fate of Belshazzar affords a remarkable instance of this. He had had an opportunity of seeing in the case of his ancestors how hateful pride is, even in royalty itself; how instantly God can blast the dignity of the brightest crown, 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 this solemn lesson was lost upon Belshazzar. According to the views of some, Isaiah, in representing 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 ( Isaiah 14:4-29); but there is no reason for supposing the prophet in this passage to allude to any other event than the overthrow of the Philistines in the time of Hezekiah (see Henderson, Comment. in loc.).'

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 Daniel 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 ( προτὰς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀνόμως καὶ ἀσελγῶς ). He considers that the capture of Babylon described in Daniel was not by the Persians, but by the Medes, under Astyages (i.e. Darius the Mede), and that between the reigns of Evilmerodach or Belshazzar, and Neriglissar, we must insert a brief period during-which Babylon was subject to the Medes. This solves a difficulty as to the age of Darius ( Daniel 5:31; comp. Rawlinson, Essay 3, § 11), but most people will probably prefer the actual facts discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson to the theory (though doubtless very ingenious) of Niebuhr. On Rawlinson's view, Belshazzar died B.C. 538, on Niebuhr's B.C. 559 (Gobel, De Belsasaro, Laub. 1757). (See Babylonia).

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The last Chaldean king of Babylon, slain, according to the Scripture account, at the capture of the city by Cyrus in 538 B.C.