What language is Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin?

Answer 1

mene mene tekel upharsin comes from the story of the fall of Babylon to the Persian empire in 539 BCE as related in chapter 5 of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament of the Bible. It is a version of the legendary "(hand)writing on the wall." There is no universal agreement among scholars as to what language the inscription would actually have been written in, but this version is presumably Aramaic, transliterated into the English version of the Latin alphabet.

There has long been considerable debate about exactly how the inscription might have been written and how it should be interpreted, since Daniel says the Babylonian scholars couldn't interpret it (which is why the Babylonian king Belshazzar summoned Daniel to interpret it), and since, superficially, the meanings of proposed versions of the inscription, including this one, are anything but obvious. Word for word, mene mene tekel u pharsin is mina mina shekel andhalf-mina, where mina and shekel are names of units of weight, like US pound or ounce, or of currency, like US dollar or cent. Substituting these US units gives: "pound pound ounce and half pound" or "dollar dollar cent and half dollar", hardly any clearer than the original. But mene is derived from a word meaning count, tekel from one meaning weigh, and pharsin from one meaning divide. A standard interpretation of the inscription, based on these etymological relationships, goes something like: "the days of Belshazzar's reign are numbered [count count] - he has been weighed and found wanting [weigh (note that a shekel was only a fiftieth or sixtieth of a mina)] - his kingdom will be divided (between the Median kingdom and the Persian empire, two rivals of Babylon) [divide (note that a pharsin was half a mina and that the word pharsin resembles the word for Persia)]." In any case, Daniel says that Daniel interpreted the inscription as a prediction of the imminent end of Belshazzar's reign.