Belshazzar
Mentioned 554–537 BC traditional (Jones)
Bel protect the king!, the last of the kings of Babylon (Dan. 5:1). He was the son of Nabonidus by Nitocris, who was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and the widow of Nergal-sharezer.
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897).
- Father
- Nebuchadnezzar
- Tagged in
- 8 verses
- Mentioned in the era of Exile and return, 586–5 BC.
- Named in the same verses as Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar.
Computed from the data. Years are traditional (Jones).
Family
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Places
Places named in the same verses as Belshazzar, with the number of verses they share; a larger marker means more. Locations follow OpenBible.info, which grades each identification.
Timeline
The strip runs from Creation to AD 100; the shaded part, 579–512 BC, is drawn below at a larger scale around these mentions. Years are traditional (Jones), shown as recorded, not as settled fact.
Mentions
8 tagged verses in 1 book. Select a book to read its verses.
The name in each translation
| Text | Occurrences of each name |
|---|---|
| BSB | Belshazzar 8 |
| KJV | Belshazzar 8 |
| ASV | Belshazzar 8 |
Whole-word, case-sensitive count of the name string (regex \bName\b, so possessives like "Abraham's" count) across the whole Bible text of each translation; this counts the string, not the person, so other people who share the name are included and pronoun references are not. How Begat counts
Every verse
All 8 tagged verses, by book, in canonical order. The Berean Standard Bible is shown; switch to the King James or American Standard Version.
Daniel8 verses
- 5:1
Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.
- 5:2
Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.
- 5:9
Then King Belshazzar became even more terrified, his face grew even more pale, and his nobles were bewildered.
- 5:22
But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this.
- 5:29
Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
- 5:30
That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain,
- 7:1
In the first year of the reign of Belshazzar over Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he lay on his bed. He wrote down the dream, and this is the summary of his account.
- 8:1
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one that had appeared to me earlier.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary
The full entry, public domain, as printed in 1897.
Bel protect the king!, the last of the kings of Babylon (Dan. 5:1). He was the son of Nabonidus by Nitocris, who was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and the widow of Nergal-sharezer. When still young he made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and when heated with wine sent for the sacred vessels his “father” (Dan. 5:2), or grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from the temple in Jerusalem, and he and his princes drank out of them. In the midst of their mad revelry a hand was seen by the king tracing on the wall the announcement of God’s judgment, which that night fell upon him. At the instance of the queen (i.e., his mother) Daniel was brought in, and he interpreted the writing. That night the kingdom of the Chaldeans came to an end, and the king was slain (Dan. 5:30).
The absence of the name of Belshazzar on the monuments was long regarded as an argument against the genuineness of the Book of Daniel. In 1854 Sir Henry Rawlinson found an inscription of Nabonidus which referred to his eldest son. Quite recently, however, the side of a ravine undermined by heavy rains fell at Hillah, a suburb of Babylon. A number of huge, coarse earthenware vases were laid bare. These were filled with tablets, the receipts and contracts of a firm of Babylonian bankers, which showed that Belshazzar had a household, with secretaries and stewards. One was dated in the third year of the king Marduk-sar-uzur. As Marduk-sar-uzar was another name for Baal, this Marduk-sar-uzur was found to be the Belshazzar of Scripture. In one of these contract tablets, dated in the July after the defeat of the army of Nabonidus, we find him paying tithes for his sister to the temple of the sun-god at Sippara.