Belshazzar

Belshazzar, name means "Bel, protect the king". According to Dan 5:2, 30, 31 he is the last king of the Chaldeans. Belshazzar was long unknown outside of the Bible and Jewish or Christian writings based on Dan 5. All secular sources dealing with the end of the Babylonian Empire listed Nabonidus as the last king. The discoveries of the last hundred years, however, have identified Belshazzar. It is now known from numerous contemporary cuneiform documents that he was the eldest son of Nabonidus, that as early as 560 b.c., 4 years before his father came to the throne, he was already a high officer of the crown, and that Nabonidus in "the third year" (most probably his third regnal year, although other interpretations of the term third year are possible) "entrusted the kingship" to his eldest son (as coregent) and also placed the army at Babylon under his command.

The elevation to the kingship took place when Nabonidus was about to conduct a military campaign against Tema in the interior of northern Arabia. After Tema was captured, Nabonidus rebuilt it, made it his residence city, and remained there for 10 years. During these years the official royal duties at Babylon were performed by Belshazzar. Among these was the official mourning for Nabonidus' mother, who died during these years.

Daniel's statement calling Belshazzar "the king" has thus been completely vindicated. Confirmation that Belshazzar was a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar, as Dan 5:2 indicates, has not yet been found, but as a result of the studies of R. P. Dougherty it now seems plausible that Belshazzar's mother was a daughter of the great king, and that Belshazzar was thus the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. According to Semitic usage "father" stood frequently for "grandfather" or "ancestor."

Dan 5 describes the banquet Belshazzar held the night the Persians captured Babylon. It states that at the time the king drank wine from the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple, his doom was spelled out in a mysterious handwriting on the plastered wall of his banquet hall, also how Daniel interpreted this message, and how it found its fulfillment before dawn came. Xenophon, too, intimates that the king met his death during the capture of Babylon (Cyropaedia vii. 5. 30).