BELSHAZZAR, the name of a Babylonian prince mentioned in the book of Daniel. According to the account in the fifth chapter of Daniel, Belshazzar was king of Babylon at the time of the capture of the city by the Medes and Persians, and was slain when the city was surprised during a festival. No ancient historian mentions the name of Belshazzar among the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, and there has been considerable controversy as to the identity of the unfortunate monarch. The successors of Nebuchadnezzar, according to the copyists of Berosus, were as follows :—Evil-merodach, two years, son of Nebuchadnezzar; Neriglissar, or Nergalsharezer, four years, son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar; Laborosoarchod, nino months, son of Neriglissar; Nabonidus, seventeen years, not of the royal family. Niebuhr and some others identified Belshazzar with Evil-merodach; other scholars with Neriglissar; and a third section, including Ewald and Browne, identified him with Nabonidus. There is no necessity now to argue against these and similar views, as they are set aside by the Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions, which show that Bel-sar-uzur, or Belshazzar, was the name of the eldest son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon. In some of his latter inscriptions Nabu-nahid or Nabonidus mentions his eldest son Bel-sar-uzur in such terms as to lead to the impression that the young prince was associated with himself on the throne; and this explains several difficulties between the historians and the book of Daniel with respect to the capture of Babylon. After the defeat of the Babylonian forces Nabonidus fled to Borsippa, while the young prince Belshazzar was left in charge of Babylon, the capital, which was closely besieged by the Medes and Persians. The historians all say that Nabonidus, the last ...

the last king of Babylon, and, according to Hales and others, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. v, 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, Dan. vii, 1; viii, 1; and his sacrilegious feast and violent death, Dan. v, 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 xiv, 4–29. And Xenophon confirms this prophetic character by two atrocious ...