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October 30, 2015

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

Rembrandt-Belsazar.jpg

25 And this is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

26 This is the interpretation of the thing: Mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

27 Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

28 Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

-- Daniel 5

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 30, 2015 11:17 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

The illustration above is a portion of Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast. The Hebrew letters are arranged so that the text reds let to right but each individual word is top to bottom. The Talmud says that is why the King's wizards could not read it.

The literal meaning of the words are mina, mina, shekel, to the Persians. The mina was a very small coin. The shekel was the major coin of commerce, functionally equivalent to a dollar.

It has been hypothesized that Rembrandt got the words written out for him by a rabbi who lived near him. Rembrandt was very friendly with his Jewish neighbors in Amsterdam.

Posted by: Fat Man [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 30, 2015 3:02 PM

I heard an old evangelist interpret that slogan as: Money, money, tickles your parson.

Posted by: Jack [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 31, 2015 9:01 AM

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