Belshazzar
Gentile Babylonian · Exile & Return · Old Testament
- Role
- Last king of Babylon in the book of Daniel
- When
- c. 539 BC (fall of Babylon)
What they did
Made a great feast and drank from the vessels taken from God's temple. A hand wrote on the wall, Daniel interpreted it, and that night he was slain.
Why it matters: the purpose of their role
His fall shows that God weighs the proud and that kingdoms rise and fall at His word.
In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. Daniel 5:30 (KJV)
Bible references
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Daniel 5:1 (KJV)
In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Daniel 5:5 (KJV)
And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: Daniel 5:22-23 (KJV)
In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. Daniel 5:30 (KJV)
Family
Nebuchadnezzar is called his father in Daniel 5:2.