28 EEV. JOHN URQCHART, ON" THE BEARING OF RECENT 



recorded . in the jife of Belshazzar had no place in that of 

 Naboiiahid. The latter did not die when the palace was taken. 

 He was not in Babylon at all when it was captured ; and he 

 lived for years after the Persian dominion had superseded the 

 Taby Ionian. , 



The first lay of light came from an inscription discovered in 

 Ihs ruins of a temple at Mugheir. It was an account by 

 ^Nabonahid of his restoration of this temple of Sin, the Moon- 

 god, ai;id: contained the following words : " As for me, Nabonidus, 

 king of Babylon, from sin against thy great divinity save me, 

 and a liie of remote days give as a gift; and as for Belshazzar, 

 the eldest son, ihe offspring of my heart, the fear of thy great 

 divinity cause thou to exist in his heart, and let not sin possess 

 him, let him be satisfied with fulness of life."* This places it 

 beyond question that Belshazzar was a personage of the time, 

 and that he was the heir to the Babylonian throne. I^at it is 

 contended that he never reigned. The inscriptions of Cyrus, 

 how^ever, leave no doubt that Belshazzar, the king's son," 

 played a great part in the closing days of the Babylonian 

 monarchy. He appears to have been in command of the main 

 army upon which the Babylonians w^ere building their hopes of 

 safety. He had with him " the Queen," the wife of Nabonidus, 

 and the nobles of the empire. That great position forms a 

 strong presumption that Belshazzar shaied the throne with his 

 father. But another discovery carries ns further. A contract 

 tablet belonging to this period is dated in the third year of a 

 king called " Marduk-sar-uzar." It records " the sale of a field 

 of corn by a person named Ahi-iiiaspi, son of a man called 

 Nahu-malik, to Idina-Marduk, son of Basa, son of Nursin, a 

 partner in the Egibi firm."t This Egibi firm was one whose 

 transactions extended over a long period, and whose documents, 

 now happily recovered, have greatly illuminated this portion of 

 Babylonian history. The names of the witnesses to that 

 special transaction show that the sale must have occurred about 

 this very time. But there was no king of that name. Tlie 

 only explanation, as Mr. Boscaw^en points out, seems to be that 

 " Marduk " is only another name for Bel, and is here 

 substituted for it. Marduk-sar-uzur is consequently Belshazzar. 

 It will be remembered that one of Daniel's visions (viii, 1) is 

 dated in this same " third year " of Belshazzar's reign. 



* Pinches, T/te Old Tef>tament in the Lnjht of the Historical Records, etc., 

 p. 414. 



t Boacawen, Transactions of the Society of Billical Archaology, vii, 

 pp. 27-28. 



