What historical evidence supports the events described in Daniel 5:26? Historical Setting of Daniel 5:26 Daniel 5 situates us on the night Babylon fell (12 Tishri = 12 October 539 BC). Belshazzar, acting as co-regent while his father Nabonidus was absent, hosts a great feast. The inscription on the palace wall—mene, mene, tekel, parsin—is interpreted by Daniel. Verse 26 focuses on mene: “God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it” . Belshazzar: From Obscurity to Cuneiform Confirmation For centuries critics dismissed Belshazzar as fictional because classical sources list Nabonidus as Babylon’s last king. That changed with nineteenth- and twentieth-century finds: • Nabonidus Cylinder (Sippar) §3 and Persian Verse Account line 14 call Bel-šar-uṣur “son firstborn” and assign him royal functions while Nabonidus was in Tema. • Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7) col. ii, lines 13-16 records Belshazzar handing out rations “to the gods” during Nabonidus’s absence. • A contract tablet from the 14th year of Nabonidus (BM 108,876) is dated “Month X, day [?], Bel-šar-uṣur, the crown prince.” These texts corroborate Daniel’s picture of Belshazzar wielding royal authority and explain why he could offer Daniel “third place in the kingdom” (Daniel 5:16)—third after Nabonidus and himself. The Fall of Babylon Recorded in Babylonian Chronicles The Nabonidus Chronicle, col. iii, lines 12-22, states: “On the 16th day of Tashritu, Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle… Nabû-naʾid was captured… On the 3rd day of Arachsamna, Cyrus entered Babylon.” This matches the sudden, virtually bloodless capture implied in Daniel 5, where the revelry is interrupted only by the divine verdict. Cyrus Cylinder and the Edict of Restoration The Cyrus Cylinder (BM 90920) affirms: “…Marduk looked through all the lands and searched for a righteous ruler… He took Cyrus… and delivered Nabonidus into his hands… I entered Babylon in peace.” Although composed from a Persian theological perspective, it corroborates the rapid transition of power foretold in mene. Prophetic Synchrony with Isaiah and Jeremiah Long before 539 BC, Isaiah prophesied, “Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms… will be overthrown by God” (Isaiah 13:19), and names Cyrus as God’s shepherd (Isaiah 44:28). Jeremiah foresaw Babylon’s sudden conquest (Jeremiah 51:31-32). Daniel 5:26 therefore fulfills earlier Scripture, displaying a consistent prophetic thread. Numismatic and Metrological Echoes of ‘Mene’ Cuneiform lists equate a “mēnu” with 60 shekels. The double reiteration mene, mene signals a completed divine audit: the kingdom’s days are counted and expired. The use of weights as word-play is characteristic of Akkadian business tablets from the same era (cf. CT 49, 191). Archaeological Strata at Babylon German excavations led by Robert Koldewey (1899-1917) uncovered layers of conflagration and rapid rebuilding datable to the Persian takeover, consistent with a night assault that spared most structures yet involved strategic damage to inner defenses. Darius the Mede and Transitional Governance Daniel 5:31 states, “Darius the Mede received the kingdom.” While extra-biblical records call the initial Persian governor Ugbaru/Gubaru, tablets (e.g., YOS 6, 199-206) show him ruling Babylon under the title šakkanakku for about a year before dying. This satisfies Daniel’s description of an interim ruler, explaining the otherwise brief Median interlude. Dead Sea Scrolls Support for the Daniel Text 4QDanᵃ (dated c. 125 BC) contains Daniel 5:13-16, 22-24, demonstrating that the chapter’s wording had stabilized centuries before the alleged “Maccabean composition” theory and well before the discovery of Belshazzar’s name, confirming textual reliability. Synthesis: A Convergence of Lines of Evidence 1. Cuneiform tablets authenticate Belshazzar’s historicity and co-regency. 2. The Nabonidus Chronicle delivers a nearly date-stamped record of Babylon’s fall. 3. The Cyrus Cylinder and Verse Account provide Persian corroboration. 4. Greek historians add an external narrative that matches Daniel’s feast setting. 5. Prophetic texts in Isaiah and Jeremiah fit seamlessly with Daniel 5:26’s fulfillment. 6. Archaeological strata, metrological parallels, and Dead Sea Scrolls sustain the internal and external coherence of the biblical record. Together these strands corroborate Daniel 5:26: God “numbered” the days of Babylon, and history records that tally reaching zero on the very night Scripture describes. |
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