Narrative summary '' (
Rembrandt, ). The message is written in vertical lines starting at the top right corner, with "upharsin" taking two lines, following the interpretation of
Samuel of Nehardea (b.
Sanhedrin 22a). 's
illustration of the writing on the wall from Daniel 5, . ''This section summarizes the narrative, as found in
C. L. Seow's text translation in his commentary on Daniel.'' King Belshazzar holds a great feast for a thousand of his lords and commands that the
Temple vessels from
Jerusalem be brought in so that they can drink from them, but as the Babylonians drink, a hand appears and writes on the wall. Belshazzar calls for his magicians and diviners to interpret the writing, but they cannot even read it. The queen advises Belshazzar to send for Daniel, renowned for his wisdom. Daniel is brought in, and the king offers to make him third in rank in the kingdom if he can interpret the writing. Daniel declines the honour, but agrees to the request. He reminds Belshazzar that his father Nebuchadnezzar's greatness was the gift of God and that when he became
arrogant, God threw him down until he learned
humility: "The Most High God has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and sets over it whomever He will." Belshazzar has drunk from the vessels of God's Temple and praised his idols, but he has not given honour to God, and so God sent this hand and wrote these words: Daniel reads the words "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" and interprets them for the king: "MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed ... and found wanting;" and "UPHARSIN", your kingdom is divided and given to the
Medes and
Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made… that he should rank third in the kingdom; [and] that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean (Babylonian) king was killed, and
Darius the Mede received the kingdom".
Writing on the wall , 1860 None of the Chaldean wise men can even read, let alone interpret, the writing on the wall, but Daniel does so by supplying vowels in two different ways: first, the words are read as nouns, then as verbs. The nouns are monetary weights: a
mənê, equivalent to a Jewish mina or sixty
shekels (several ancient versions have only one
mənê instead of two); a
təqêl, equivalent to a shekel; and
p̄arsîn, meaning "half-pieces". The last involves a word-play on the name of the Persians (
pārās in Hebrew), suggesting not only that they are to inherit Belshazzar's kingdom, but that they are two peoples, Medes and Persians. Daniel then interprets the words as verbs based on their roots:
mənê is interpreted as meaning "numbered";
təqêl, from a root meaning to weigh, as meaning "weighed" (and found wanting); and
pərês (), the singular form of
p̄arsîn, from a root meaning "to divide", denoting that the kingdom is to be "divided" and given to the Medes and Persians. If the "half-pieces" means two half-shekels, then the various weights—a
mənê or sixty shekels, another shekel, and two half-shekels—add up to 62, which the tale gives as the age of
Darius the Mede, indicating that God's will is being worked out. The phrase "
writing on the wall" has grown to be a popular idiomatic expression referring to the foreshadowing of any impending doom, misfortune, or end. A person who does not or refuses to "see the writing on the wall" is being described as ignorant of the signs of a cataclysmic event that will likely occur soon. One of the earliest known uses of the phrase in English was by Captain L. Brinckmair in 1638, whose report "The Warnings of Germany" during the
Thirty Years' War cautioned that the violence there could soon
spill over to England. "The writing on the wall" is sometimes referred to by the use of some combination of the words "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin", as they were written on the wall in the tale of Belshazzar's feast. The metaphor has consistently appeared in literature and media as a
foreshadowing device since Brinckmair's report. Shortly before midnight on 21 April 1947,
Meir Feinstein or
Moshe Barazani wrote "Mene! Mene! Tekel Upharsin!" from Daniel 5:25, on the walls of their shared
death row cell in
Jerusalem Central Prison in
British-controlled Palestine, shortly before they then blew themselves to pieces. Their deaths are also commonly associated with another Bible quote – – the words of
Samson from
Judges 16:30. ==Composition and structure==