Belshazzar the
tithe thief.
A cuneiform text dates from the exact year when
Belshazzar had the festival in the palace of Babylon. It is in YOS 6, 233, 1-6.
It is in Yale University. Belshazzar comes from a family of religious
upheavals. His grandfather Nebuchadnezzar went from unbelief to faith and
apostate again to renewal with the Hebrew faith. His grandmother, the wife of
Nebuchadnezzar accepted the Moon God after his death and left for Harran and
became high priestess there. She lived to be 108 years old. His father did not
like the Marduk state religion and tore down their gate banner and sent tithes
not to the great Ebabbar temple of Marduk in the middle of Babylon city, but to
a temple in Haburu and the temple of Adad. This was about his fourth year
because it was the last time he paid tithes to Marduk's temple Ebabbar in
Babylon. Usually his tithe was wool, dates, one ox and a lot of gold, the last
he left at their gate one year. But the fourth year, everything gets out of
hand. Tension was so great that Nabonidus almost had a nervous breakdown. He
then said one day, give me my hat and jacket, and he then went to Tema, at the
Arabian Gulf for 10 years. He left the city of Babylon in the hands of his son
Belshazzar. Belshazzar was not religious. He was secular. Everyone was so
confused by religion that he wanted nothing to do with it. His sister was taken
by his father to another temple to become a priestess there and be Ordained.
Three times they asked the god and three times the god said no apparently. His
father Nabonidus continued to push as they do at the NAD every World
Conference, and then finally his sister was ordained as a High Priestess.
Belshazzar did initially pay tithes to the Marduk priests, namely oxen and
dates after his father left. But things slowly unraveled. Now we have the text
from Yale of the last time Belshazzar paid tithe and pocketed it! A text that
tells how he stole the tithes. When? 539 BC, the last year of his life. For
what? For the feast in Daniel 5. The text reads that 70 lambs and ewes were
given by someone to an official of the Enanna temple, but they were not noted
or marked, 20 sheep which are the rest of the tithe of the son of the king
[Belshazzar] in the 16th year of Nabonidus the king of the land of Babylon
which was given to the herdsman of the son of the King. The whole story goes
well except for two points: the animals were not listed and not marked.
Second, the tithe went back into his own pocket! Now
what does one do with so many sheep that were tithes that were stolen? One eats
it at a feast with one's friends and visitors on one's last night in Daniel 5.
My goodness. Isn't the Bible wonderful? I hope this is interesting. Yes I can
read Neo-Babylonian and yes here is the original. Not to brag but to say that I
did not invent it.
70 UDUpu-hal u3 U8MEŠ//lahrãti// ša2
PN a-na LU2A.KINMEŠ//mãr šiprî// ša2
PN2 LU2ŠA3.TAM//šatam// E2-an-na
la u2-kal-lim-ma la iš-mi-it u3 20 se-e-ni re-he-et
eš-ru-u2 ša2 DUMU//mãr// LUGAL// šarri// ša2
MU.16.KAM2 DAG.IM.TUKU//Nabû-na’id// LUGAL// šar//
TIN.TIRKI// Bãbili// ša2 ina pa-ni PN3 LU2NA.GAD
// nãqidi// ša2 DUMU LUGAL. YOS 6, 233, 1-6. The Bible is incredibly accurate. Not true?