The biblical book of Daniel tells us in chapter 5 about a king of Babylon named Belshazzar. It was this king who, during a feast, brought the gold and silver utensils from the Temple of Solomon that his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar had brought back from Jerusalem. Belshazzar made his guests drink from these cultic utensils. At that moment, everyone present could see a detached hand that wrote a message on the walls of their banquet hall. The king was afraid and called his wise men and advisors, but no one could understand what was written. So, Daniel, who was very old at that time because he had been taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, was brought in to try understand the writing. Daniel read the message on the wall and declared that the kingdom of Babylon was coming to an end.
However, there was no historical source that confirmed the existence of a king of Babylon called Belshazzar. So, the veracity of the Bible was long doubted and considered as a collection of legends. And this until 1854...
Let's look at the continuation of the historical and biblical chronologies (for earlier dates, refer to the previous articles since Adam):
year 3171 (589 BCE): Nebuchadnezzar campaigns against Judea, siege of Jerusalem
year 3173 (587 BCE): fall of Jerusalem and destruction of Solomon's Temple
(562 BCE): death of Nebuchadnezzar
(556 BCE): reign of Nabonidus
(553 BCE): Nabonidus campaigns in Arabia and places his son Belshazzar as regent
(543 BCE): Nabonidus returns from Arabia, campaigns in the north against the Persians
(539 BCE): fall of Babylon and death of Belshazzar
Indeed, in 1854, a British team of archaeologists discovered in the ancient city of Ur a clay cylinder that tells the story of the repairs made by Nabonidus on a temple dedicated to Sin, asking this deity to protect him and his son Belshazzar: the existence of Belshazzar was no longer in doubt! The Bible spoke the truth. Here is the inscription of Nabonidus:
As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, save me from sinning against your great godhead and grant me as a present a lifelong of days, and as for Belshazzar, the eldest son - my offspring - instill reverence for your great godhead in his heart and may he not commit ant cultic mistake, may he be sated with a life of plenitude. (Cylinder of Nabonidus, British Museum)
So where did this ignorance come from among historians who, for centuries, did not know of the existence of Belshazzar? This is because it was his father Nabonidus who was the actual king of the entire Babylonian empire, and this until the fall of this empire into the hands of the Persians. But Nabonidus had gone on campaign in Arabia and had appointed his eldest son Belshazzar as regent in his absence. But his absence lasted 10 years... And when he returned, his empire was already under Persian blows. He left his son Belshazzar to reign over Babylon while he campaigned in the north to repel the Persians from his empire. But Cyrus the Persian king attacked Babylon and killed Belshazzar. As for the fate of Nabonidus after the fall of Babylon, it is less known. It seems that he continued to live for a few years on the run.
The great Greek historian Herodotus, considered as the Father of History, wrote this account about the capture of Babylon, a city that was protected by branches of the Euphrates River:
He [Cyrus] posted his army at the place where the river goes into the city, and another part of it behind the city, where the river comes out of the city, and told his men to enter the city by the channel of the Euphrates when they saw it to be fordable. Having disposed of them and given this command, he himself marched away with those of his army who could not fight. And when he came to the lake, Cyrus dealt with it and with the river just as had the Babylonian queen: drawing off the river by a canal into the lake, which was a marsh, he made the stream sink until its former channel could be forded. When this happened, the Persians who were posted with this objective made their way into Babylon by the channel of the Euphrates, which had now sunk to a depth of about the middle of a man's thigh. Now if the Babylonians had known beforehand or learned what Cyrus was up to, they would have let the Persians enter the city and have destroyed them utterly; for then they would have shut all the gates that opened on the river and mounted the walls that ran along the river banks, and so caught their enemies in a trap. But as it was, the Persians took them unawares, and because of the great size of the city (those who dwell there say) those in the outer parts of it were overcome, but the inhabitants of the middle part knew nothing of it; all this time they were dancing and celebrating a holiday which happened to fall then, until they learned the truth only too well. (Herodotus, Histories, Book I, Chapter 190)
Herodotus lived between 484 BCE and 425 BCE and wrote his "Histories" less than 100 years after the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE. He must therefore have learned of this surprise attack through the accounts of witnesses. And his account corroborates the biblical narrative of a great feast in Babylon during the Persian attack that took the city by surprise. Babylon' regent king Belshazzar was put to death.
In that night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was put to death. (Daniel 5:30)
To return to the home page of articles on this theme of "the Bible is true", click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private tour guide in Israel
March 2025
