Prophecy in the Book of Daniel
The Fall of Jerusalem
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his power . . . (Dan. 1:1-2).
The third year of Jehoiakim's reign would be 606-605 BCE.; Nebuchadnezzar was not likely king of Babylon. Jerusalem did not actually fall to the Babylonians until 597 to 586 BCE So the author of Daniel, who said he was living in Jerusalem at the time, writes that the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews began eight to 19 years earlier than now known to have happened!
The Babylonian Kings of the Exile
Belshazzar . . . commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver which Nebuchadnezzar his father [UNDERLINE WORDS 'HIS FATHER'] had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought. . . . (Dan. 5:2).
From this and other passages (Dan. 5:11, 5:13, 5:18, 5:22) it is apparent that the author of the Book of Daniel was laboring under two erroneous impressions: (1) that Belshazzar was a king and (2) that Nebuchadnezzar was his father. Both ideas are demonstrably false. The surviving royal records of Babylon record the Babylonian succession:
Daniel was supposed to be living in Babylon during the entire Exile period, to have served as a high official in Nebuchadnezzar's court, and to have witnessed the fall of Babylon in 538 B.C. He does not know that four kings after Nebuchadrezzar ruled Babylon before its fall? He does not know that Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, and that Belshazzar was never a king?
If the Book of Daniel was written centuries after the Exile, four monarchs of lesser fame than Nebuchadnezzar might be forgotten. Three of those four kings reigned for only six years combined (as against the forty-three years of Nebuchadnezzar and the seventeen-year reign of Nabonidus). It is not plausible, however, that these kings would be forgotten or not noted by Daniel, a man who supposedly lived in Babylon under each of these rulers.
In contrast to the author of the Book of Daniel, the prophet Jeremiah, who really did live at the time of the Exile, knew of at least one of the Babylonian kings unknown to Daniel:
In the thirty-seventh year of the Exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah . . . Evilmerodach king of Babylon in the year of his accession showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah (Jer. 52:31-32).
This story is given also in 2 Ki. 25:27. Jeremiah also has the chronology right, since 37 years after the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity (597 BCE.) would be 560 BCE., near the beginning of the reign of Evilmerodach (561-559 BCE.).
The Last King of Babylon.
That very night Belshazzar was slain, and Darius the Mede took the kingdom . . . (Dan. 5:30-31)
The actual succession of Babylonian kings is recorded in the surviving royal records:
The list alone makes it obvious that Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon. The Babylonian inscriptions also reveal that Nabonidus had a son named Belsharuzur (Belshazzar), but he is always referred to as "The King's Son." None of the surviving Babylonian records ever refer to Belshazzar as a king. Moreover, his father the king outlived him so Belshazzar could not ever have been king and as merely a king's son would be of little or no significance.
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