Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

(Aram. mĕnēʾ, mĕnēʾ, tĕqel ûparsîn)

Words of judgment which the mysterious hand wrote on the wall of Belshazzar’s banquet hall (Dan. 5:5, 25), reflecting God’s anger against the Babylonian king for profaning the temple vessels and worshipping idols at his banquet.

Belshazzar’s wise men could not make sense of the inscription (the MT of Dan. 5:8 says they could neither read nor interpret the writing), but Daniel interpreted it. The second “mene” (Dan. 5:26) may be a dittography. Belshazzar and his advisers probably would have understood the words as referring to three weights: “a mina [50 or 60 shekels], a shekel, half-shekels [or a half-mina or ‘portion’].” Daniel makes wordplays on the root letters of the three terms, construing them as verbal forms instead of nouns. The terms thus mean “numbered,” “weighed,” “divided.” The divine message to Belshazzar is: God has numbered Belshazzar’s kingdom and finished it; Belshazzar has been weighed and found lacking; and his kingdom has been divided and given to Media and Persia.

A number of scholars have argued that the terms also designate three kings, again listed in descending “value.” Various identifications have been made, but Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar (who only ruled as regent in the absence of his father, Nabonidus), and Darius (cf. Dan. 5:31; prsyn is also a pun on Persia).

Bibliography. J. J. Collins, Daniel. Herm (Minneapolis, 1993); D. N. Freedman, “The Prayer of Nabonidus,” BASOR 145 (1957): 31-32; J. E. Goldingay, Daniel. WBC 30 (Dallas, 1989); E. Kraeling, “The Handwriting on the Wall,” JBL 63 (1944): 11-18.

William B. Nelson, Jr.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)