by
Damien F. Mackey
A potential Babylonian name for Daniel’s
Belteshazzar – amongst various possibilities – would be, say, Nabû-bul-liṭ-su (Nabu-bullitsu), somewhat imperfectly
transliterated as Belteshazzar. The name Nabu-bullitsu can be found listed e.g. in the
Index (p. 159) of Sir W. Budge’s “Babylonian Life and History”.
Introduction
What are we
looking for here?
Essentially,
in the case of the historical Daniel, we would be hoping to find a governor of
(the province of) Babylon, of very long floruit, at the time of King
Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’, the Chaldean (c. 600 BC).
He ought to
have a Belteshazzar like name (Daniel 1:7).
My revision will
allow for this governor to be identified amongst the various alter egos
that I have proposed for King Nebuchednezzar - great identities such as
Esarhaddon; Ashurbanipal (and the like-named Ashurnasirpal); and Nabonidus.
Giving
confidence to this venture is Willliam H. Shea’s marvellous identification, in
the records of King Nebuchednezzar, of Daniel’s three friends, Hananiah (Shadrach),
Mishael (Meshach) and Azariah (Abednego). See my article on this:
William H.
Shea’s hopeful historical evidence for Daniel's three friends, Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego
Esarhaddon
In this first
case, we come across a character who appears to fit well as Daniel, except that
he does not have a name like Belteshazzar (as mentioned above).
However, he
does have a name that could well be describing one like Daniel.
He is Governor
Ubāru.
J. Brinkman
refers to Ubāru as “Esarhaddon’s newly appointed governor of Babylon …”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/601858
In my revised
context, this would well fit the prophet Daniel, “newly appointed” as governor
of Babylon by King Nebuchednezzar.
Amos Mikko Luukko and
Greta Van Buylaere have written about Ubāru
in their article:
THE
BABYLONIAN UBĀRU AND HIS SLAVE-SALE DOCUMENTS FROM NINEVEH[1]
….
Ubāru
Who is Ubāru, the protagonist of the three legal transactions found in
Nineveh? As Ubāru is a typical Babylonian name in Assyrian sources (PNA 3/II,
1356) and the language and script of all these exceptional documents is
Babylonian, there is hardly any doubt that the man was Babylonian by origin.[2] Unfortunately, the three
documents do not specify whether the slave sales took place in Nineveh
or elsewhere. However, Nineveh as the find site of these documents suggests
that they were probably drawn up there or at least in Assyria.[3] Had these slave sales
taken place in Babylonia, it would be much more difficult to explain the
underlying Assyrian character of the documents.
Speculatively, we may identify Ubāru with the governor (or
“commandant”) of Babylon who played an important role in the restoration of
Babylon in Esarhaddon’s reign.[4]
Even if our present knowledge is full of gaps and it is therefore uncertain
whether the Ubāru of the three
slave sales edited here really was the governor of Babylon, some indirect
details could support such an assumption. The exceptional
characteristics of these Assyrianized Babylonian documents may suggest that
Ubāru was a protégé of Esarhaddon who enjoyed privileges, even if it may be worth
stressing that each of the documents edited here only records the sale
of a single slave (altogether two men and a woman). One may further note that
the word ubāru means “stranger, foreign guest, resident
alien, guest-friend”.[5]
Especially the nuance “foreign guest” fits the context of these legal documents
well because they are the documents of a Babylonian guest in Assyria. Ubāru is
the Babylonian form of the name, which is distinct from the Assyrian form,
Ubru, widely attested in Assyrian contexts.[6]
A claim for favouritism may
be strengthened by the importance of the early dates during Esarhaddon’s reign
and the peculiar way these dates were written.
Indeed, in this respect, the dates of these documents are highly
significant.[7]
Two of them can be dated to Esarhaddon’s early reign with certainty: K 3790 to
680-V-26 and Rm 157 to 679-VIII-6. All this would fit perfectly with what is
known about the governor Ubāru, and be entirely in line with Esarhaddon’s
well-known pro-Babylonian policy.[8] Moreover, together
with other textual evidence from his reign, the existence of these unusual
documents may be considered further proof showing the various ways Esarhaddon
initiated his proBabylonian policy already very early on in his reign. ….
[End of quote]
Note that Ubāru was, just
like the Hebrew Daniel, a “stranger, foreign guest, resident alien,
guest-friend”.
Compare how Daniel was
perceived in Babylon (Daniel 2:25): “Arioch took Daniel to the king at
once and said, ‘I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who
can tell the king what his dream means’.”
Daniel 5:13: “So Daniel was
brought before the king [Belshazzar], and the king said to him, ‘Are you
Daniel, one of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah?’”
Similarly, the Hebrew Joseph
in Egypt, Den, was known as the foreigner:
Joseph also as Den, ‘he
who brings water’
(2)
Joseph also as Den, 'he who brings water'
His names, in fact, read like
a short biography of Joseph, who supplied food and water to a Famine-starved
Egypt:
Usaphais (Usaph-) (Yusef) Joseph;
Khasti
“foreigner”;
Den ‘he who brings water’
Joseph,
the foreigner, who supplies (us) with water.
Nebuchednezzar,
Nabonidus
As already noted, the name
Ubāru cannot, however, be identified in the Babylonian name, Belteshazzar,
given to Daniel (as we read), since Ubāru is simply a descriptive name meaning “stranger,
foreign guest, resident alien, guest-friend”.
Exactly what Daniel was in
Babylonian Exile.
So, the task
still is left to us to find Daniel in the records under a Belteshazzar
name.
Belteshazzar
is not the same name as Belshazzar
It is natural
for those not too familiar with Babylonian names to presume that Belteshazzar
was a Bel-name, the Bel element being found in the name of the ill-fated king,
Belshazzar, son of Nebuchednezzar, famous for the Writing on the Wall episode
(Daniel 5):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belshazzar
“Belshazzar
(Babylonian
cuneiform: 
Bēl-šar-uṣur
… meaning "Bel, protect the king" … Hebrew: בֵּלְשַׁאצַּר Bēlšaʾṣṣar)
…”.
But,
according to linguists, the Belteshazzar element (with components such
as e.g. balatu, shar, usur) is lacking a theophoric, meaning it still
needs to be attached to a god-name, such as Marduk, or Nabu.
My preference
would be for Nabu (Nebo), since King Nebuchednezzar himself had said that
Daniel bore the name of his god, presumably meaning Nabu (Nebo) here, since it was
the theophoric element in the king’s own name (Daniel 4:8): “Finally, Daniel
came into my presence and I told him the dream. (He is called
Belteshazzar, after the name of my god, and the spirit of the holy
gods is in him)”.
A potential Babylonian name for Daniel’s
Belteshazzar – amongst various possibilities – would be, say, Nabû-bul-liṭ-su (Nabu-bullitsu), somewhat imperfectly
transliterated as Belteshazzar. The name Nabu-bullitsu can be found listed
e.g. in the Index (p. 159) of Sir W. Budge’s Babylonian
Life and History.
It comes close to Belteshazzar, which is, after all, a foreign
transliteration of an originally Babylonian name.
There may be a known governor of Babylon from the
early reign of Nebuchednezzar (qua Nebuchednezzar) - as I would
anticipate from the Book of Daniel that there should be. Moreover, thanks to my
identification of Nebuchednezzar (and Daniel’s “Nebuchadnezzar”) with (Esarhaddon
and) King Nabonidus:
Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar
(5)
Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey -
Academia.edu
then such an official comes right into view.
And he has both Nabu and bullit
elements in his name. He is Nabu-ahhe-bullit, who was governor of Babylon from
at least Nabonidus’s 8th year until the 3rd year of
Cyrus.
Thus we read in the following article:
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?id=177754;article=15087
From the contemporary cuneiform contract tablets, we know that
Terike-sarrutsu was the governor (shakin mati) of Babylonia in Year 1 Nabunaid
[Nabonidus] (555/4 BC).
Nabu-ahhe-bullit succeeded him as office holder by Year 8 Nabunaid
(548/7 BC). This man remained in office down to Year 3 Cyrus but became a
subordinate of the governor Gubaru, the appointee of Cyrus, when Babylon was
captured by the army of Cyrus in 539 BC. He is not to be confused with Ugbaru.
[End of quote]
Rather than Daniel’s having at this stage become “a subordinate” of
Gubaru’s, though, who he actually was (see above), he may have departed (one
way or another) from the political scene.
By now Daniel would have been in his 60’s or 70’s.
The conventional history has set the career of Nabu-ahhe-bullit somewhat
differently.
He emerges there as an official of Nebuchednezzar, and already with a
son, in 595 BC:
“In 595 BC
Nebuchadnezzar released a royal document which condemned Baba-aha-iddina son
of Nabu-ahhe-bullit, one of his top officials …”.
And he was still active in the 15th year of Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id):
https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/collections/search-collection/details.php?a=1913.14.1652
“[(Document concerning) [. .
.] [property] of Nabu which Sin-etir, [son] of Kina rented out 9lit., gave) to
Nabu-ahhe-bullit, son of Nana-aha-iddina from the fifteenth day of the month of
Addaru, fourteenth year, until the fifteenth day of the month of Nisanu,
fifteenth year of Nabu-na'id, king of Babylon, for a month's rent of four
shekels of silver. Sin-etir was paid the four shekels of silver, the rent of
his boat, by Nabu-ahhe-bullit”. ….
Whereas, in conventional terms, about half a century would be required
to span this period from 595 BC to the 15th year of Nabonidus, c.
541 BC, in my scheme, on the other hand, with Nebuchednezzar as
Nabonidus, the period is reduced to about 5 years.
Finally, as we read at Encyclopaedia Iranica:
https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/babylonia-i
“Cyrus retained as governor of Babylonia a native Babylonian [sic], Nabu-ahhe-bullit,
who had held the post before the Persian conquest, under Nabonidus”.
This site, having failed to recognise Nabu-ahhe-bullit as Ugbaru (Ubāru), will make the earlier declaration
that: “Supreme administrative power in Babylonia belonged to the Persian
satrap. The first governor of the city of Babylon was Cyrus’s general, Ugbaru,
who in effect held power over the whole of Mesopotamia”.
This is how I would tentatively reconstruct the chronology of Daniel’s
governorship:
Daniel, as Nabu-ahhe-bullit, had been appointed governor of Babylon
close to the third year of Nebuchednezzar (= Nabonidus), who reigned for 43
years. That is a service of almost four decades.
He continued on through the 3-4 years of Belshazzar, son of Nabonidus,
envisaging himself in Susa (Daniel 8:1-2): “In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision,
after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw myself in the
citadel of Susa in the province of Elam …”.
He was still in Babylon in the 1st year of Cyrus, but then
moved to Susa, Cyrus’s capital, and served the king until his 3rd
year.
Finally,
now with my revised Neo-Babylonian history, we may have virtually a perfectly
matching chronology for Daniel and his proposed alter ego, Nabu-ahhe-bullit.
We may be able to extend our Ubāru
further.
Daniel
Ubāru as Ugbaru (Gubaru)
An interesting note:
“… Ugbaru should really be
called Ubaruš (Elamite name)”.
The name Ubaruš is obviously
very much like to Ubāru.
Gubaru was the governor, or
‘general’, officiating when King Cyrus conquered Babylon.
He has also been called
“Gobryas”, of whom we read in the article of that name at Encyclopaedia
Iranica: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gobryas-
GOBRYAS, the most widely known (Greek) form of the
Old Persian name Gaub(a)ruva (q.v.). Several bearers of this name, who cannot
always be kept separate from one another with complete certainty, are
historical persons:
…. Ug-ba-ru, governor (paḫātu) of the land of Gutium (i.e., some part of western Media and
northeastern Assyria in the Zagros mountains) [sic] and a senior officer of
Cyrus II the Great. As the leader of the Medo-Persian army of Cyrus, Gobryas
took Babylon without battle on 12 October 539 B.C.E. (16th day of month
Tašrītu), according to the Nabonidus Chronicle 3.15 (cf.
Grayson, pp. 109-10). After his triumphant entrance in the city on October 29
(3rd day of month Araḫsamnu)
Cyrus appointed Gobryas governor of Babylon, who himself installed the district
officials in Babylon (ibid., III 20, where one reads the spelling variant
Gu-ba-ru); thus this man seems to have been the first Persian ruler over
Babylon. He, however, died soon afterwards on the 11th day of month Araḫsamnu (ibid., 3.22) either in the same year
(i.e., 6 November 539 B.C.E.) or, according to Shea (pp. 240-43), in the
following year (i.e., 27 October 538 B.C.E.). It seems quite probable that
there is some connection between this person and the “Assyrian” (i.e.,
Babylonian) Gobryas described in great detail and in novella form (although
including some more or less reliable information) by Xenophon (Cyropaedia 4.6.1-11
and passim), who calls him an old man (4.6.1) already for the time before the
fall of Babylon, as well as to the so-called “Darius the Mede,” king of Babylon
in the Book of Daniel 5:31, 6:1-2 etc. (cf. especially Shea). ….
Note the perfect (or near
perfect) fits here (in my revised context) with Daniel:
“… governor (paḫātu) of the land of Gutium” …. Daniel had served in Gutium (Susa)
[?] (Nehemiah 13:6).
“… senior officer of Cyrus II
the Great” …. Daniel was the favourite of Cyrus, as Darius the Mede (Daniel
6:3). “…. Cyrus appointed Gobryas governor of Babylon, who himself installed
the district officials in Babylon …”.
“He, however, died soon
afterwards …”. …. Daniel is last mentioned in Year 3 of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1).
“… Xenophon (Cyropaedia 4.6.1-11
and passim) … calls him an old man (4.6.1) already for the time before the fall
of Babylon …”. Daniel had previously served during most of the very long reign
(43 years) of Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean.
He was, therefore, old, when Darius-Cyrus
came to the throne.
[1]
It is our pleasure to dedicate this small contribution, which discusses
documents mixing Assyrian and Babylonian conventions, to Karlheinz Kessler, who
always made working on the various materials of different periods and regions
look easier than it is. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to
Christopher Walker, who pointed out the Assyrian character of Rm 157 and Rm 162
to us, and to Heather D. Baker, Rocío Da Riva and Tuviah Kwasman, who read a
draft of this article and made valuable suggestions for improvement. We also
want to thank the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to publish
these tablets.
[2]
For the appearance of the name Ubāru in the contemporary Neo-Babylonian
tablets, cf. Nielsen 2015: 390–91.
Already
Tallqvist (1914: 214) listed a lot of Babylonians with the name Ubāru.
[3]
The lack of place names may strengthen this argument (at least no place name
appears in Rm 157).
[4]
His title is given as šakin ṭēmi in
SAA 10 169:5 (ABL 702), SAA 18 14:3 (ABL 418 sent to Esarhaddon by Ubāru) and
SAA 18 70 r.11 (ABL 327). For a summary of this Ubāru, who had the honour to
serve as a non-canonical eponym early in Esarhaddon’s reign, see PNA 3/II,
1356–57, no. 2, with previous bibliography, including Frame 1992: 73, 271, and
especially p. 286; cf. also Frame 1982: 157–59 (n. 5) and Nielsen 2011: 133–34.
On Ubāru rebuilding Babylon, see the discussion in Streck 2002: 212–14, 216,
229, 232.
[5]
CAD U & W 10. In PNA 3/II, pp. 1356–57 the name Ubāru is rendered “client”,
but this definition, based on an article by Parpola 2008: 31 (n.55 “client,
dependent seeking shelter in a temple”), 58, is less certain than maintained
and should probably be subjected to further studies. It would be interesting to
investigate the role of the people named Ubru/Uburtu (fem.)-DN (passim in PNA
3/II, pp. 1358–71) in the cult: were they insiders, outsiders, or something in
between?
[6]
See CAD U & W 398 and PNA 3/II, pp. 1356–71.
[7]
On dating Esarhaddon’s restoration of Babylon and his closely related Babylon
inscriptions, see Novotny 2015, especially pp. 161–62.
[8]
See, e.g., Frame 1992: 64–101; Porter 1993.
