THE VISION OF BELSHAZZAR - WIKIPEDIA & WIKISOURCE

Belshazzar was a 6th century BC prince of Babylon, the son of Nabonidus and the last king of Babylon according to the Book of Daniel (2nd century BC). Like his father, it is believed by many scholars that he was an Assyrian. In Daniel- a book of the Jewish Tanakh or Christian Old Testament - Belshazzar is the King of Babylon before the advent of the Medes and Persians. Although there is evidence that Belshazzar existed, his famous narrative and its details are only recorded in the Book of Daniel.Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, who after ruling only three years, went to the oasis of Tayma and devoted himself to the worship of the moon god, Sin. He made Belshazzar co-regent in 553 BC, leaving him in charge of Babylon's defense.In 540 BC, Nabonidus returned from Tayma, hoping to defend his kingdom from the Persians who were planning to advance on Babylon. Belshazzar was positioned in the city of Babylon to hold the capital, while Nabonidus marched his troops north to meet Cyrus. On October 10, 539 BC, Nabonidus surrendered and fled from Cyrus. Two days later the Persian armies overthrew the city of Babylon.

Historicity of Belshazzar

The book of Daniel states that Belshazzar was "king" the night that Babylon fell and says that his "father" was Nebuchadnezzar. New evidence from Babylon has verified the existence of Belshazzar as well as his co-regency during the absence of his father, Nabonidus, in Temâ. Prior to 1854, he had been an enigma for historians and archeologists who knew nothing of Belshazzar outside the book of Daniel. While the deuterocanonical Book of Baruch and the writings of Josephus do mention Belshazzar, the references to Belshazzar in these works were ultimately dependent on the book of Daniel. Both Xenophon and Herodotus recount the fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Great, yet neither of these writers give the name of the king of Babylon. Additionally, both Berossus' and Ptolemy's king lists have Nabonidus as the last king of Babylon with no mention of Belshazzar.

Evidence of existence

According to the Nabonidus Cylinder, Nabonidus petitions the god Sin as follows: "And as for Belshazzar my firstborn son, my own child, let the fear of your great divinity be in his heart, and may he commit no sin; may he enjoy happiness in life". In addition, The Verse Account of Nabonidus states, "[Nabonidus] entrusted the army to his oldest son, his first born, the troops in the country he ordered under his command. He let everything go, entrusted the kingship to him, and, himself, he started out for a long journey. The military forces of Akkad marching with him, he turned to Temâ deep in the west". In line with the statement that Nabonidus "entrusted the kingship" to Belshazzar in his absence, there is evidence that Belshazzar's name was used with his father's in oath formulas, that he was able to pass edicts, lease farmlands, and receive the "royal privilege" to eat the food offered to the gods.

Belshazzar's regency

There is no evidence that Belshazzar ever officially held the title of "king" as he is never called such in the Nabonidus Cylinder. The Aramaic term applied in Daniel could be used to translate titles of various levels of high ranking officials. A contract tablet dating to the third year of his regency (550 BC) includes the designation "son of the king. This, of course, is not proof that he possessed any status as the official king of Babylon. The bottom line is that Nabonidus was still alive when Cyrus conquered Babylon, and had not been replaced as the official king of Babylon by Belshazzar. The available information concerning Belshazzar's regency goes silent after Nabonidus' fourteenth year. According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Nabonidus was back from Temâ by his seventeenth year and celebrated the New Year's Festival. Whether or not Belshazzar continued his regency under his father's authority after his return cannot be demonstrated from the available documents. Some scholars have argued that the non-observance of the Akitu during Nabonidus' absence demonstrates that Belshazzar was not the "king" since it shows that he could not officiate over the festival. However, The Verse Account of Nabonidus says, "Nabonidus said: 'I shall build a temple for him (the Moon god Sin)...till I have achieved this, till I have obtained what is my desire, I shall omit all festivals, I shall order even the New Year's festival to cease!'" Thus, the halting of the Akitu may have been done by the king's command rather an inability on the part of Belshazzar. This stated, the fact that Belshazzar did not disobey his father's command is evidence that Nabonidus remained the official (and actual) king of Babylon.

Belshazzar is never called an independent king in the book of Daniel. In fact, in Daniel Belshazzar implies that he is the second ruler in the kingdom, not the sole ruler; and yet, he has sufficient power to make someone the third ruler in the kingdom. Secondly, co-regencies were not that uncommon in the Ancient Near East. Third, Wilson, in the previous reference, showed that the very word "king" was used in a variety of ways other than that which we use today. The same also applies to the use of the word "son"--it doesn't necessarily mean a biological relationship and can carry the meaning "successor." For example, the 9th century Assyrian Black Obelisk lists Jehu as the "son of Omri" even though Jehu was from a different lineage and did not take the crown directly after Omri. Finally, Daniel is not writing an official state document for Babylon such as one would expect from the court scribes, although the lack of accurate specificity in the references also tends to be inconsistent with the claim of an early date for Daniel.

The writing on the wall

In the Book of Daniel, the passage describes "Belshazzar's Feast" in which the sacred vessels of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, which had been brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon of Belshazzar at the time of the Captivity were profaned by the company. The narrative unfolds against the background of the impending arrival of the Persian armies.

"King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. 3 So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone."

During the drunken feast, Belshazzar uses the holy golden and silver vessels, from Solomon's Temple, to praise 'the gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone'. Soon afterward, disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall of the royal palace the words:

מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

The advisors attempt to interpret the meaning. However, their natural denotations of weights and measures were superficially meaningless: "two minas, a shekel and two parts." In the verb form, they were: mene, to number; tekel, to weigh; upharsin, to divide-literally "numbered, weighed, divided."

Therefore, the King sends for Daniel, an exiled Israelite taken from Jerusalem, who had served in high office under Nebuchadnezzar. Rejecting offers of reward, Daniel warns the king of the folly of his arrogant blasphemy before reading the text. The meaning that Daniel decrypts from these words is based on passive verbs corresponding to the measure names.

And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.- Daniel

Although usually left untranslated in English translations of Daniel, these words are known Aramaic names of measures of currency: MENE, a mina (from the root meaning "to count"), TEKEL, a spelling of shekel (from the root meaning "to weigh"), PERES, half a mina (from the root meaning "to divide", but additionally resembling the word for "Persia"). The last word (prs) he read as peres not parsin. His free choice of interpretation and decoding revealed the menacing subtext: "Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting." The divine menace against the dissolute Belshazzar, whose kingdom was to be divided between the Medes and Persians, was swiftly realized. That very night King Belshazzar is slain, and Darius the Mede becomes King.

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