BELSHAZZAR bĕl shăz’ ər (בֵּלְאשַׁצַּ֖ר, Βαλτασάρ, prob. from Babylonian Bēl-šar-usūr, “the god Bel has protected the king”). Son of, and coregent with Nabonidus (556-539 b.c.), the Chaldaean ruler at the time of the capture of Babylon by Darius the Mede in 539 b.c. (Dan 5:30; 7:1).

Nebuchadrezzar is named as the father of Belshazzar (5:11, 18); this does not contradict the Babylonian texts which refer to Belshazzar as the son of Nabonidus, since the latter was a descendant in the line of Nebuchadrezzar and may well have been related to him through his wife. Nabonidus made him co-regent and commander of the Babylonian army about 550 b.c. while he himself was absent in Teima’ in central Arabia (BM 91125). If the regnal years of Belshazzar, not otherwise attested, were calculated from this event, then his third year (8:1) would fall c. 547 b.c. Belshazzar ruled in Babylon for at least ten years until his father’s return there in 542 b.c. The nameless king who, according to the Babylonian Chronicle, died when the city fell to Ugbaru, governor of Gutium and leader of the Pers. army, may well be Belshazzar (5:30). When Daniel correctly interpreted the writing on the wall of the palace during a royal feast, Belshazzar proclaimed him third ruler of the kingdom. This position can be explained by Belshazzar’s own status as second to his father, now returned from Arabia, though this would imply that Daniel took precedence at the time over the crown prince.

Bibliography R. P. Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (1929); C. J. Gadd, “The Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus,” Anatolian Studies, VIII (1958), 35-92.