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October 30, 2015
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 30, 2015 11:17 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
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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 at October 30, 2015 3:02 PM
I heard an old evangelist interpret that slogan as: Money, money, tickles your parson.
Posted by: Jack at October 31, 2015 9:01 AM