The writing on the wall

God's verdict on a proud king, written in plain sight.

Belshazzar, king in Babylon, made "a great feast to a thousand of his lords" (Daniel 5:1). As the wine flowed he sent for the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from the temple in Jerusalem, and he and his guests drank from them and "praised the gods of gold, and of silver" (Daniel 5:2-4). In that same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the palace wall, and the king watched it write (Daniel 5:5). His face changed and his knees knocked together.

None of the king's wise men could read the writing. At the queen's urging Daniel was brought in. He declined the king's gifts, reminded Belshazzar how God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar, and charged him: "hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this" (Daniel 5:22). Then he read the words and gave their meaning. "In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain" (Daniel 5:30).

Babylonian records name Belshazzar as the son of Nabonidus, Babylon's last king, and show him in charge of Babylonia for about ten years while his father lived away in Arabia. Babylon fell to the Persian king Cyrus in 539 BC; Daniel names "Darius the Mede" as the one who "received the kingdom" (Daniel 5:31).

The words are Aramaic, the language of this part of Daniel, and they were written with no explanation: mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. On their face they can be read as weights or sums of money — a mina, a shekel, and half-pieces. Daniel reads them as verbs, and each is a verdict (Daniel 5:26-28):

• MENE, numbered: "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end;"
• TEKEL, weighed: "thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."
• PERES, divided: "thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." (Upharsin is "and parsin"; peres is the singular. The word also sounds like Paras, Persia.)

The writing was not blind fate falling on an innocent man. Belshazzar knew how God had brought down Nebuchadnezzar's pride and still did not humble himself. He made sport of the God of Israel with the vessels of his house and praised idols "which see not, nor hear, nor know" (Daniel 5:23). The hand on the wall announced that the God "in whose hand thy breath is" had weighed him, and the sentence was carried out the same night.

"The writing is on the wall" now means that the signs of coming failure are there for anyone to see — a business in decline, a team that cannot win, a career near its end. Daniel's verdict "weighed in the balances, and art found wanting" (Daniel 5:27) has passed into English too, usually shortened to weighed and found wanting.

The idiom keeps the heart of the story: an end is coming and cannot be avoided. But it changes it in two ways. In Daniel the writing was not plain at all — the king's wise men could not read it, and it took Daniel to give its meaning. And it was not a trend that a shrewd observer could have spotted; it was God's judgment on a king who knew what had happened to proud Nebuchadnezzar and still lifted himself up "against the Lord of heaven" (Daniel 5:23). The phrase is used faithfully when it carries that moral weight — pride weighed and found wanting — and only loosely when it means bad news on the way.

mene, mene, tekel, upharsin

מְנֵא מְנֵא תְּקֵל וּפַרְסִין

Aramaic, not Hebrew: numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided — words that can also be read as a mina, a shekel and half-pieces

mene

numbered; also the mina, a weight

tekel

weighed; also the shekel

peres

divided; a half-piece — and a play on Paras, Persia

In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

The moment that gave English the phrase: a hand writing on the palace wall.

And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine from them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.

Daniel's charge: Belshazzar knew better, and did not humble his heart.

In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

The sentence carried out: "In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain."

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

Nebuchadnezzar's lesson, which Belshazzar ignored: "those that walk in pride he is able to abase."

Talk no more so exceeding proudly; Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth; For Jehovah is a God of knowledge, And by him actions are weighed.

Hannah's song: "by him actions are weighed."

Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.

The pattern of Belshazzar's feast in a single proverb.

But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?

Another man who thought himself secure, told "this night is thy soul required of thee".

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