Belshazzar-a Query

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 11, 1873

Belshazzar—a Query.

EDITOR REVIEW: Were Belshazzar, Nabonnedus, and Labynetus, one and the same person, as we understand from Rollin? Or, was Belshazzar the son of Nabonnedus, as Sir Henry Rawlinson testifies? Admitting Rawlinson’s testimony to be true, how shall we harmonize it with your Thoughts on Daniel? And does it not seem from Daniel’s account that Belshazzar was the only king or ruler at that time? The testimony of Rawlinson to which I refer is found in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, under the head of Belshazzar, published in 1871.

Yours in Christian love, W. W. Sharp.

ANSWER. The most satisfactory account, with which we have ever met, of the succession of kings in the Babylonish Empire, from Nebuchadnezzar down to the overthrow of that empire, is found in Prideaux’s Connection, Vol. i, pp. 132, 133, and on the authority of that, the succession is given in Thoughts on Daniel, p. 40, as follows: 1. Nebuchadnezzar. 2. Evilmerodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s son. 3. Neriglissar, husband of Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter. 4. Laborosoarchod, Neriglissar’s son. 5. Belshazzar, Evilmerodach’s son, and direct grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.

We transcribe the following paragraphs from Prideaux on this point. Having given an account of Laborosoarchod, he says:—

“After him succeeded Nabonadius, and reigned seventeen years. Berosus calls him Nabonnedus; Megasthenes, Nabonnidochus; Herodotus, Labynetus; and Josephus, Naboandelus, who, he saith, is the same with Belshazzar. And there is as great a difference among writers what he was, as well as what he was called. Some will have him to be of the royal blood of Nebuchadnezzar, and others, no way at all related to him. And some say he was a Babylonian, and others, that he was of the seed of the Medes. And of those who allow him to have been of the royal family of Nebuchadnezzar, some will have it that he was his son, and others, that he was his grandson.”

“For the clearing of this matter, these following particulars are to be taken notice of: First, That he is on all hands agreed to have been the last of the Babylonish kings. Secondly, That therefore he must have been the same who in Scripture is called Belshazzar; for, immediately after the death of Belshazzar, the kingdom was given to the Medes and Persians. Dan. 5: 28, 30, 31. Thirdly, That he was of the seed of Nebuchadnezzar; for he is called his son; and Nebuchadnezzar is said to be his father, in several places of the same fifth chapter of Daniel; and in the second book of Chronicles (chap. 36: 20), it is said that Nebuchadnezzar and his children, or offspring, reigned at Babylon till the kingdom of Persia. Fourthly, That the nations of the East were to serve Nebuchadnezzar, and his son, and his son’s son, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah (chap. 27: 7); and therefore he must have had a son, and a son’s son, successors to him in the throne of Babylon. Fifthly, That as Evilmerodach was his son, so none but Belshazzar, of all the kings that reigned after him at Babylon, could be his son’s son; for Neriglissar was only his daughter’s husband, and Laborosoarchod was the son of Neriglissar; and therefore neither of them was either son, or son’s son, to Nebuchadnezzar. Sixthly, That this last king of Babylon is said by Herodotus to be son to the great queen Nitocris; and therefore she must have been the wife of a king of Babylon to make her so; and he could have been none other than Evilmerodach; for by that king of Babylon, only, could she have a son that was son’s son to Nebuchadnezzar.”

“And therefore putting all this together, it appears that this Nabonadius, the last king of Babylon, was the same with him that in Scripture is called Belshazzar; and that he was the son of Evilmerodach, by Nitocris his queen, and so son’s son to Nebuchadnezzar. And that whereas he is called the son of Nebuchadnezzar in the fifth chapter of Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar is there called his father, this is to be understood in the large sense, wherein any ancestor upward is often called father, and any descendant downward, son, according to the usual style of Scripture.”