| Belshazzar - bel-shaz´ar
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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| (בּלשׁאצּר,
bēlsha'ccar;
Βαλτασάρ,
Baltasár,
Babylonian Bel-shar-uṣur):
According to Dan_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
Dan_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
Dan_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 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. |
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Taken from: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia by James Orr, M.A., D.D., General Editor |
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