A Proud Regent Loses an Empire
“AS REGARDS Belshazzar the king,” wrote the prophet Daniel, “he made a big feast for a thousand of his grandees, and in front of the thousand he was drinking wine.” As the banquet progressed, however, the king’s “very complexion was changed in him, and his own thoughts began to frighten him, and his hip joints were loosening and his very knees were knocking each other.” Before the night was over, “Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed and Darius the Mede himself received the kingdom.”—Daniel 5:1, 6, 30, 31.
Who was Belshazzar? How did he come to be called “the Chaldean king”? Exactly what was his status in the Neo-Babylonian Empire? How did he lose the empire?
Coregent or King?
Daniel refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the father of Belshazzar. (Daniel 5:2, 11, 18, 22) However, this relationship is not literal. The book Nabonidus and Belshazzar, by Raymond P. Dougherty, suggests that perhaps Nebuchadnezzar was his grandfather through his mother, Nitocris. It may also be that Nebuchadnezzar, being a royal predecessor, was simply the “father” of Belshazzar as to the throne. (Compare Genesis 28:10, 13.) In any case, the cuneiform inscriptions on several clay cylinders discovered in southern Iraq during the 19th century identify Belshazzar as the eldest son of Nabonidus, king of Babylon.
Since the account in Daniel chapter 5 focuses on the events of the night of Babylon’s fall in 539 B.C.E., it does not relate how Belshazzar came to have regal authority. But archaeological sources give some idea of the relationship between Nabonidus and Belshazzar. “The Babylonian texts reveal that Nabonidus was an eccentric ruler,” says Alan Millard, archaeologist and authority on ancient Semitic languages. Millard adds: “While he did not ignore the gods of Babylon, he . . . gave very considerable attention to the moon god at two other cities, Ur and Harran. For several years of his reign, Nabonidus did not even live in Babylon; instead he stayed at the distant oasis of Teima [or, Tema] in northern Arabia.” Evidently, Nabonidus spent much of his reign away from the capital, Babylon. During his absences, Belshazzar was consigned the administrative authority.
Shedding more light on Belshazzar’s true position, a cuneiform document described as the “Verse Account of Nabonidus” states: “He [Nabonidus] entrusted the ‘Camp’ to his oldest (son), the firstborn, the troops everywhere in the country he ordered under his (command). He let (everything) go, [he] entrusted the kingship to him.” Thus, Belshazzar was a coregent.
Can a coregent, though, be considered a king? A statue of an ancient ruler found in northern Syria in the 1970’s shows that it was not unknown for a ruler to be called king when, strictly speaking, he had a lesser title. The statue was that of a ruler of Gozan and was inscribed in Assyrian and Aramaic. The Assyrian inscription called the man governor of Gozan, but the parallel Aramaic inscription called him king. So it would not be unprecedented for Belshazzar to be called crown prince in the official Babylonian inscriptions while being called king in the Aramaic writing of Daniel.
The arrangement of joint rulership between Nabonidus and Belshazzar continued into the final days of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. On the very night of Babylon’s fall, therefore, Belshazzar offered to make Daniel the third ruler in the kingdom, not the second.—Daniel 5:16.
An Overconfident and Proud Regent
The final events of Belshazzar’s reign indicate that the prince was overconfident and proud. When the end of his rule came on October 5, 539 B.C.E., Nabonidus was holed up in Borsippa, having suffered a defeat by Medo-Persian forces. Babylon itself was under siege. But Belshazzar felt so secure in the city surrounded by massive walls that on that very night, he held “a big feast for a thousand of his grandees.” Herodotus, Greek historian of the fifth century B.C.E., says that inside the city, people “were dancing at the time, and enjoying themselves.”
Outside Babylon’s walls, though, the Medo-Persian army was vigilant. Under the direction of Cyrus, they had diverted the waters of the Euphrates River, which ran through the center of the city. His warriors were ready to slosh up the riverbed as soon as the water level sank sufficiently. They would climb up the slope and enter the city through the open copper doors on the wall along the riverfront.
If Belshazzar had taken note of the activity outside the city, he could have shut the copper gates, mounted his strong men on the walls along the riverbanks, and entrapped the enemy. Instead, under the influence of wine, arrogant Belshazzar called for the vessels from Jehovah’s temple to be brought in. Then he, his guests, his wives, and his concubines defiantly drank from them while praising the Babylonian gods. Suddenly, a hand appeared miraculously and began writing on the palace wall. Struck with fear, Belshazzar called upon his wise men to provide the interpretation of that message. But they “were not competent enough to read the writing itself or to make known to the king the interpretation.” Finally, Daniel “was brought in before the king.” Under divine inspiration, Jehovah’s courageous prophet revealed the meaning of the miraculous message, predicting the fall of Babylon to the Medes and the Persians.—Daniel 5:2-28.
The Medes and the Persians easily took the city, and Belshazzar did not live through the night. With his death, and the apparent surrender of Nabonidus to Cyrus, the Neo-Babylonian Empire came to an end.
[Picture on page 8]
Daniel interprets the message of doom for the Babylonian Empire