"The hand writing on the wall" (or "the handwriting on the wall" or "the writing is on the wall" or "Mene Mene"), an idiom, is a portent of doom or misfortune. It originates from the Biblical book of Daniel chapter 5 in which the fingers of a supernatural hand write a mysterious message in the presence of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, who is meanwhile drinking at a major feast. It is revealed by the prophet Daniel that the writing foretells the demise of the Babylonian Empire and in fact the Persians were moments from killing the king and capturing Babylon. The phrase is widely used in language and literature in various forms.
| Chapters of the Book of Daniel |
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1: Induction into Babylon |
Contents |
For a list of artistic and musical references to the feast, see: Belshazzar's Feast.
In the Book of Daniel 5:1–4, the passage describes "Belshazzar's Feast" in which the sacred vessels of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, which had been brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and father (or grandfather) of Belshazzar at the time of the Captivity were profaned by the company. The narrative unfolds against the background of the impending arrival of the Persian armies.
During the drunken feast, Belshazzar uses the holy golden and silver vessels, from Solomon's Temple, to praise 'the gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone'. Soon afterward, disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall of the royal palace the words:
מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין
Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin
The advisors attempt to interpret the meaning. However, their natural denotations of weights and measures were superficially meaningless: "two minas, a shekel and two parts." In the verb form, they were: mene, to number; tekel, to weigh; upharsin, to divide—literally "numbered, weighed, divided."
Therefore, the King sends for Daniel, an exiled Israelite taken from Jerusalem, who had served in high office under Nebuchadnezzar. Rejecting offers of reward, Daniel warns the king of the folly of his arrogant blasphemy before reading the text. The meaning that Daniel decrypts from these words is based on passive verbs corresponding to the measure names.
And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.- Daniel 5:25–28
Although usually left untranslated in English translations of Daniel, these words are known Aramaic names of measures of currency: MENE, a mina (from the root meaning "to count"), TEKEL, a spelling of shekel (from the root meaning "to weigh"), PERES, half a mina (from the root meaning "to divide", but additionally resembling the word for "Persia").[1] The last word (prs) he read as peres not parsin. His free choice of interpretation and decoding revealed the menacing subtext: "Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting." The divine menace against the dissolute Belshazzar, whose kingdom was to be divided between the Medes and Persians, was swiftly realized. That very night King Belshazzar is slain, and Darius the Mede becomes King.
Though the narrative and its details stand outside history, the setting of the feast at which the temple vessels from Jerusalem were desecrated has been remembered from actual Neo-Babylonian cult practice. In Babylon, the image of Marduk was served meals daily in a style befitting the divine king, including musical accompaniment and beautifully arranged desserts of fruits. After the god's meal, water in a basin was brought and offered to the idol to wash its fingers. According to several extant descriptions, the dishes of food that had been presented to the image were then sent to the king for his consumption. The food had been blessed by its proximity to the god, and the blessing was now transferable to the king. One exception is recorded, on a tablet from Uruk, which mentions that the crown prince— this was Belshazzar— enjoyed the royal privilege.
The ritual importance of the god's sacred leftovers is illustrated in an inscribed claim of Sargon II:
Idols of conquered cities were ordinarily brought to Babylon and set in positions of reverence to Marduk within his temple. The Israelites, having no idol of YHWH, had been forced to give up the vessels of Solomon's Temple, which, it appears, were used to serve Marduk's sacred repast, ritually shared by Belshazzar.
Many scholars have used the Nabonidus Chronicle and Cylinder of Nabonidus to place the date of October 12, 539 BC on the events which transpired in the text.[2][3] They have compared the dates with astrological predictions to identify the night or dawn at which a new moon would appear during the month of Tashritu, since it is believed that the feast was dedicated to the moon god, Sin.
The Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon also record that there was a festival in the city of Babylon the same night it fell to the Persians.[4]
Some Rabbinic interpretations (notably the mention in the Babylonian Talmud) say that the words were written in code, one possibility was that it was an atbash cipher, another being that the written Aramaic and Hebrew looked very different, even though they were pronounced similarly.
The narrative in Daniel chapter 5 is the source of the popular phrase "the writing on the wall" as a euphemism for impending doom that is so obvious that only a fool would not see it coming. The popular idiom may forgo the fact that it was the sight of the hand which terrified the king and the actions of the hand writing has been dismissed. By removing hand from the phrase or by reducing it to the compound word handwriting, the idiomatic phrase concentrates on the text of the writing. The focus of the English idiom is generally on the interpretation of the writing, a common theme in the book of Daniel in which none of the Babylonians magicians are capable of interpreting, while Daniel of Israel is given the ability to interpret.
There is, however, more to the handwriting on the wall than merely seeing it because although many saw it, only Daniel was able to interpret it. The first sense of the idiom (seeing the hand) is therefore followed by the interpreter who was able to truly "see" the sense of the three bullet points transcribed by the hand. The second sense of the idiom (seeing the handwriting) misconstrues the notion that those who see are those who can understand.
The same passage of scripture also provides the origin for the similar expression "your days are numbered." It may have provided impetus to the idiom "weighed in the balance."
The phrase the writing on the wall has come to signify a portent of doom—or the end of an organization or activity. To attribute to someone the ability to "read the writing on the wall" has come to signify the ability to foresee (not necessarily supernaturally) an inevitable decline and end.
A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
'Tis like the writing on the wall.
Written in red their protest stands,
For the Gods of the World to see;
On the dooming wall their bodiless hands
Have blazoned "Upharsin," and flaring brands
Illumine the message: "Seize the lands!
Open the prisons and make men free!"
Flame out the living words of the dead
Written—in—red.