In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. Not by a servant of his own, as Jacchiades; or by an eunuch, one of his guards, as Saadiah and Joseph ben Gorion ; but by Gadales and Gobryas, who led Cyrus's army up the river Euphrates into the city of Babylon, its course being turned; the inhabitants of which being revelling and rioting, and the gates open, these men went up to the king's palace; the doors of which being opened by the king's orders to know what was the matter, they rushed in, and finding him standing up with his sword drawn in his own defence, they fell upon him, and slew him, and all about him, as Xenophon relates; and this was the same night the feast was, and the handwriting was seen, read, and interpreted.
This was after a reign of seventeen years; for so Josephus says , that Baltasar or Belshazzar, in whose reign Babylon was taken, reigned seventeen years; and so many years are assigned to him in Ptolemy's canon; though the Jewish chronicle allows him but three years, very wrongly, no more of his reign being mentioned in Scripture: see Da 7:1.
His death, according to Bishop Usher , Mr. Whiston , and Mr. Bedford , was in the year of the world 3466 A.M., and 538 B.C. Dean Prideaux places it in 539 B.C. Hist. Heb. l. 1. c. 6. p. 26. Cyropaedia, l.
7. sect. 22, 23. Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 4. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 28. p. 81. Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3466. Chronological Tables, cent. 10. Scripture Chronology, p. 711. Connexion, &c. par. 1. p.