B. C. 538.] CHAPTER V. 25 And this is the writing that 24 Then was the part of the hand! sent from him; and this writing was written, MENE, MENE, TE was written. KEL, UPHARSIN. than that power, and nothing which men already remarked, because it was in the are less disposed to acknowledge than their ancient Hebrew character-a character dependence on him for it. And whose quite familiar to him, though not known are all thy ways. That is, he has power to the Babylonians whom Belshazzar conto control thee in all thy ways. You can sulted. It is every way probable that go nowhere without his permission; you that character would be used on an occacan never, when abroad, return to your sion like this, for (a) it is manifest that it home without the direction of his Provi- was intended that the true God, the God dence. What is here said, also, is as true of the Hebrews, should be made known, of all others as it was of the Chaldean and this was the character in which his prince. "It is not in man that walketh communications had been made to men; to direct his steps." "A man's heart de- () it was clearly the design to honour viseth his way, but the Lord directeth his his own religion, and it is morally certain steps." None of us can take a step with- that there would be something which would out his permission; none can go forth on show the connection between this occura journey to a distant land without his rence and his own agency, and nothing constant superintending care; none can would do this better than to make use of return without his favour. And yet how such a character; and (c) it was the dilittle is this recognized! How few feel vine intention to put honour on Daniel, it when they go out and come in; when and this would be well done by making they go forth to their daily employments; use of a character which he understood. when they start on a voyage or journey; There have been, indeed, many conjecwhen they propose to return to their tures respecting the characters which homes! Hast thou not glorified. That were employed on this occasion, and the is, thou hast not honoured him by a suitable acknowledgment of dependence on him. 24. Then was the part of the hand sent from him. To wit, the fingers. See ver. 5. The sense is, that when it was fully perceived that Belshazzar was not disposed to learn that there was a God in heaven; when he refused to profit by the solemn dispensations which had occurred in respect to his predecessor; when his own heart was lifted up with pride, and when he had gone even farther than his predecessors had done by the sacrilegious use of the vessels of the temple, thus showing especial contempt for the God of heaven, then appeared the mysterious hand-writing on the wall. It was then an appropriate time for the Most High God, who had been thus contemned and insulted, to come forth and rebuke the proud and the impious monarch. 25. And this is the writing that was written. The Babylonians, it would seem, were unacquainted with the characters that were used, and of course unable to understand the meaning. See ver. 8. The first thing, therefore, for Daniel to do was to read the writing, and this he was able to do without difficulty, probably, as Prideaux supposes reasons of the difficulty of interpreting (B) for v (S), &c., and that on account of this cabalistic transmutation the Babylonians could not read it, though Daniel might have been familiar with that mode of writing. Rabbi Jochanan sup 26 This is the interpretation of bered thy kingdom and finished the thing: MENE; God hath num- it. posed that there was a change of the order . Buxtorf, Lex. It would be literin which the letters of the words were written; other Rabbins that there was a change merely in the order of the first and ally translated numbered, and would aptaken by counting. We use now an exply to that of which an estimate was second letters; others, that the words were written backwards; others, that the pression which would convey a similar words were written, not in the usual idea, when we say of one that his days horizontal manner, but perpendicularly; are numbered; that is, he has not long and others, that the words were not writ- to live, or is about to die. The idea ten in full, but that only the first letters seems to be taken from the fact that the of each were written. See Bertholdt, pp. duration of a man's life cannot usually be 349, 350. All these are mere conjectures, known, and in the general uncertainty and most of them are childish and impro- we can form no correct estimate of it, bable suppositions. There is no real but when he is old, or when he is difficulty in the case if we suppose that dangerously sick, we feel that we can the words were written in a character familiar to Daniel, but not familiar to the Babylonians. Or, if this is not admitted, then we may suppose that some mere marks were employed whose signification was made known to Daniel in a miraculous manner. 26. This is the interpretation of the thing. It may seem not to have been difficult to interpret the meaning of the communication when one was able to read the words, or when the sense of the words was understood. But, if the words are placed together, and considered in their abstract form, the whole communication would be so enigmatical that the interpretation would not be likely to occur to any one without a divine guidance. This will appear more clearly by arranging the words together, as has been done by Hales: with some degree of probability number his days, since he cannot now live long. Such is the idea here, as explained by Daniel. All uncertainty about the duration of the kingdom was now removed, for, since the evil had come, an exact estimate of its whole duration of the number of the years of its continuancecould be made. In the Greek of Theodotion there is no attempt to translate this word, and it is retained in Greek letters--Marh. So also in the Codex Chis., and in the Latin Vulgate. ¶ God hath numbered thy kingdom. The word which is used here, and rendered numbered--is the verb of which the previous word is the participle. Daniel applies it to the kingdom or reign of the monarch, as being a thing of more importance than the life of the king himself. It is evident, if, according to the common interpretation of ver. 30, Belshazzar was slain that very night, it might have been applied to the king himself, meaning that his days were numbered, and that he was about to die. But this interpretation (see Notes) is not or, as it is explained more accurately by absolutely certain, and perhaps the fact Bertholdt and Gesenius, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, [PERES] [DIVISION] WEIGHT, DIVISIONS; Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, Numbered, Numbered, Weighed, Divided. From this arrangement, it will be at once seen that the interpretation proposed by Daniel was not one that would have been likely to have occurred to any one. ¶ Mene-p. This word is a participle passive from p to number, to review. Gesenius, Lex. The verb is also written that Daniel did not so apply the word may be properly regarded as one circumstance showing that such an interpretation is not necessary, though probably it is the correct one. ¶And finished it. This is not the meaning of the word Mene, but is the explanation by Daniel of the thing intended. The word in its interpre be understood from it. The fact that the tation fairly implied that; or that might kingdom' in its duration was 'numbered,' properly expressed the idea that it was 27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found bwanting. Job. 31. 6. Ps. 62. 9. 1 Co. 3. 13. b Mat. 22. 11, 12. now to come to an end. It did actually then come to an end by being merged in that of the Medes and Persians. 27. Tekel. This word-p-is also, according to Gesenius, a passive participle (from p, to poise, to weigh,) and means weighed. It would be used with reference to anything placed in a balance to ascertain its weight; and hence, like the word measure, would denote that the extent, dimensions, true worth, or character of anything was ascertained. As by the use of scales the weight of anything is known, so the word is applied to any estimate of character or of actions, and a balance becomes the emblem of justice. Thus God, in his judgments of men, is represented as weighing their actions. 1 Sam. ii. 3. "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed." Comp. Job vi. 2, "Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, And my calamity laid in the balance together." Job xxxi. 6, "Let me be weighed in an even balance, That God may know mine integrity." The balance thus used to denote judgment in this life, became also the emblem of judgment in the future state, when the conduct of men will be accurately estimated, and justice dealt out to them according to the strict rules of equity. To illustrate this, I will insert a copy of an Egyptian 'Death Judgment,' with the remarks of the Editor of the Pictorial Bible in regard to it. "The Egyptians en KANNY ANCIENT EGYPTIAN DEATH JUDGMENT. The four genii tertained the belief that the actions of the ushered into Amenti. dead were solemnly weighed in balances stand before him on a lotus-blossom [ours before Osiris, and that the condition of has the lotus without the genii,] the female the departed was determined according Cerberus sits behind them, and Harpocto the preponderance of good or evil, rates on the crook of Osiris. Thoth, the Such judgment scenes are very frequently god of letters, arrives in the presence of represented in the paintings and papyri Osiris bearing in his hand a tablet, on of ancient Egypt, and one of them we which the actions of the deceased are have copied as a suitable illustration of noted down, while Horus and Arceris are the present subject. One of these scenes, employed in weighing the good deeds* as represented on the walls of a small of the judged against the ostrich feather, temple at Dayr-el-Medeeneh, has been the symbol of truth and justice. A cynoso well explained by Mr. Wilkinson, that cephalus, the emblem of truth, is seated we shall avail ourselves of his description; for although that to which it refers is somewhat different from the one which we have engraved, his account affords an adequate elucidation of all that ours contains. 'Osiris, seated on his throne, awaits the arrival of those souls that are on the top of the balance. At length arrives the deceased, who appears between two figures of the goddess, and bears in "This M. Champollion supposes to be the heart. I still incline to the construction I have put upon it-a type of the good actions of the deceased." his hand the symbol of truth, indicating | When I saw him in the balance, I thought his meritorious actions, and his fitness for on Belshazzar, who was found too light. admission to the presence of Osiris.' By his weight (of which his physicians "If the Babylonians entertained a similar notion, the declaration of the prophet, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting!' must have appeared exceedingly awful to them. But again, there are allusions in this declaration to some such custom of literally weighing the royal person, as is described in the following passage in the account of Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to the Great Mogul: The first of September, (which was the late Mogul's birth-day,) he, retaining an ancient yearly custom, was, in the presence of his chief grandees, weighed in a balance: the ceremony was performed within his house, or tent, in a fair spacious room, whereinto none were admitted but by special leave. The scales in which he was thus weighed were plated with gold; and so was the beam, on which they hung by great chains, made likewise of that most precious metal. The king, sitting in one of them, was weighed first against silver coin, which immediately afterwards was distributed among the poor; then was he weighed against gold; after that against jewels (as they say,) but I observed (being there yearly keep an exact account,) they prepresent with my ambassador) that he was same to guess of the present state of his weighed against three several things, body, of which they speak flatteringly, laid in silken bags in the contrary scale. however they think it to be." SCALES. FROM AN EGYPTIAN PAINTING ENGRAVED IN ROSELLINI. The cut on page 253 from the Sarcopha- | here represented, the declaration made gus of Alexander, will further show how by the prophet must have been exceedcommonly this opinion prevailed, and ingly solemn. But whether this were so how natural is the representation here. or not, the language of Daniel in interIf the Babylonians entertained such preting the word, must have been overnotions in regard to the dead as are whelming to the monarch. It could be understood by him as denoting nothing "Sometimes, instead of the ostrich-feather, the deceased bears a vase (which is placed in less than that a solemn sentence had the other scale,) and it has then a similar im- been passed upon his character and conport." duct by the great Judge of all, and that 28 PERES; Thy kingdom is di- vided, and given to the Medes a Foretold, Is. 21. 2. ver. 81. b cc. 6. 28. C and Persians. DEATH, JUDGMENT, ETC., FROM THE SARCOPHAGUS OF ALEXANDER. supposed to be applicable to the monarch, it would still be a question what the result of the weighing or trial would be. That could have been known to Daniel only by a communication from on high. he was found to have failed in the requirements which had been made of him, and was now condemned. He had no righteousness when his actions came to be estimated as in a balance, and nothing awaited him but an awful con28. Peres. In ver. 25 this is Uphardemnation. Who is there now who would sin. These are but different forms of the not tremble at seeing the word Tekel- same word-the word in ver. 25 being in weighed-written on the wall of his cham- the plural, and here in the singular. ber at midnight? Thou art weighed in The verb (pp) means to divide, and in the balances. That is, this, in the cir- this form, as in the previous cases, it is, cumstances, is the proper interpretation according to Gesenius, a participle, meanof this word. It would apply to any- ing divided. As it stands here, it would thing whose value was ascertained by be applicable to anything that was divided weighing it; but as the reference here or sundered-whether a kingdom, a palwas to the king of Babylon, and as the ace, a house, a territory, &c. What was whole representation was designed for divided, could be known only by divine him, Daniel distinctly applies it to him: revelation. If the word had been un'thou art weighed.' On the use and ap- derstood by Belshazzar, undoubtedly it plication of this language, see 1 Sam. ii. would have suggested the idea that there 3, "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and was to be some sort of division or sunderby him actions are weighed." Comp. also ing, but what that was to be would not be Job xxxi. 6; Prov. xvi. 2, 11. And indicated by the mere use of the word. art found wanting. This is added, like Perhaps to an affrighted imagination the previous phrase, as an explanation. there night have been conveyed the idea Even if the word could have been read that there would be a revolt in some of by the Chaldeans, yet its meaning could not have been understood without a divine communication, for though it were the provinces of the empire, and that a part would be rent away, but it would not have occurred that it would be so rent |