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Case file s1210 · War and property · 539 BCE
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539 BCE
Belshazzar's Feast label QS:Lit,"Il festino di Baldassarre" label QS:Lfr,"Le Festin de Balthazar" label QS:Lpl,"Uczta Ba: Belshazzar's Feast label QS:Lit,"Il festino di Baldassarre
Belshazzar's Feast label QS:Lit,"Il festino di Baldassarre" label QS:Lfr,"Le Festin de Balthazar" label QS:Lpl,"Uczta Ba. Rembrandt. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
539 BC (fall of Babylon)
Place
Jerusalem; Babylon (near Hillah), Iraq
Field
Temple treasury; crown prince's regency · Royalty and nobility on the timeline
Legal tradition
Babylonian royal succession and regency; Persian restoration of captured cult objects · Royal and church law
Historical event
Babylonian destruction of the First Temple and the Persian conquest of Babylon
War and propertyMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionAncient worldMiddle EastIraq

Babylon took the Temple vessels; Daniel says Belshazzar drank from them the night he was killed, and Ezra says Cyrus returned 5,400

Second Kings says that in Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year his captain Nebuzaradan burned the Temple in Jerusalem, broke up its bronze pillars and carried the bronze, gold and silver vessels to Babylon. The Book of Daniel, chapter 5, says King Belshazzar held a feast for a thousand lords and ordered the gold and silver vessels that his "father" Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple brought out. He, his lords, his wives and his concubines drank from them and praised idols. A hand wrote on the palace wall. Daniel read it: the kingdom was numbered, weighed and divided between the Medes and Persians. That night Belshazzar was killed. The cuneiform record differs. Belshazzar was the eldest son and crown prince of Nabonidus, not of Nebuchadnezzar. The Verse Account of Nabonidus says his father entrusted him with the kingship and left for Tayma in Arabia for about ten years. Babylonian texts call him crown prince, never king. The Nabonidus Chronicle says Cyrus's army entered Babylon without a battle in 539 BC and that Nabonidus was captured; it does not mention the prince. Ezra chapter 1 says Cyrus brought out the vessels from the temple of Nebuchadnezzar's gods, and his treasurer Mithredath counted 5,400 gold and silver vessels to Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah, who took them back to Jerusalem.

What the law took from it

Captured sacred objects are the first property a new ruler returns to win the people they belonged to.

Record vs. record

Daniel calls Belshazzar king and Nebuchadnezzar's son: . Cuneiform texts call him Nabonidus's son and crown prince:

mechon-mamre.orgbiblearchaeologyreport.com
Sources
  1. mechon-mamre.orgPress
  2. mechon-mamre.orgPress
  3. mechon-mamre.orgPress
  4. livius.orgPress
  5. biblearchaeologyreport.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Babylon took the Temple vessels; Daniel says Belshazzar drank from them the night he was killed, and Ezra says Cyrus returned 5,400,” story s1210, https://www.celebrity.estate/temple-vessels-babylon-539-bc, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

War and propertyMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionAncient worldMiddle EastRoyal and church lawIraq