Semantics of Mene Mene Tekel upharsin

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus South Korea

9 March 2009


In Daniel 5 Belshashar had a feast and he was drinking a lot. During the feast a hand wrote on the wall in a mysterious way and in shock the king called Daniel to come and interpret the words.

What is interesting, is the meaning of each segment of the handwriting. Daniel gave a diplomatic translation of something that was literally very shocking. Daniel knew the literal meaning but it seems as if he told a shocking news in a very smooth and kind manner. Daniel is very polite.

mene

There is no doubt that many scholars for ages has attempted to come to grips with the meaning of mene. The word is repeated twice which is interesting in itself. Why twice, why not only once?

An article written by F. Rochberg-Halton at the University of Chicago in 1981 may provide some understanding as to what was involved in this writing on the wall.

The article was presented at the 19th meeting of the American Oriental Society in Boston in March of 1981 (see Rochberg-Halton, "Stellar Distances in Early Babylonian Astronomy: A New Perspective on the Hilprecth Text (HS 229)" JNES 42 no. 3 [1983]: 209-217).

Talking about waterclocks and their function since the Old Babylonian period, Rochberg-Halton mentioned that time was calculated by a waterclock. The waterclock worked with water dropping into a container which had a certain weight. One nightwatch had sone mana of water (Rochberg-Halton 1983: 211 at footnote 11 and 12). In the New Testament we knew that one nightwatch were three hours.

The book by B. Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien vol. 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitäts Buchhandlung, 1925): 394-395, provides us with all the information we need. A nightwatch in Assyrian and Babylonian times were four hours and was called maṣșartu.

The night was divided into three parts each a watch with a name: first watch is named bararitu "time of the star rising", the second watch is the "middle watch" or qablitu and the third watch is called šat urri or "time of getting light". They used two clocks, a sundial or sunclock and a waterclock. The waterclock was measured according to the weight of water for two hours and that was called a mana (Meissner 1925: 395). The full day was divided into 12 parts of two hours each or 12 mana. The night had six mana.

What we may have here is a case that Daniel saw: mana (= 2 hours) mana (= 2 hours) = 4 hours.

tekel

In a text presented by L. W. King, Babylonian Magic and Sorcery (London: Lucag and Co. 1896) at Text 2 line 46 and Text 9 line 4 the form tukulti is used. The root is tekel and it means help or aid. We know that early that morning, priests aided the Medo-Persian army by opening the gates to enter. Translate: "helped".

upharsin

This word consists of an Neo-Babylonian copulative u- added to a root parasu that means "to divide, to cut in two, to decide". Translate: "and divided".


Translation:

Daniel thus saw literally that night:

"mana (= 2 hours) mana (= 2 hours) = 4 hours; helped/aided and divided"


Interpretation:

If the writing on the wall appeared at 12 o clock and it took Daniel about 40 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to deliberate about the meaning that night, then Daniel saw that at 5 o clock that early morning, it would be the end of Belshashar and his reign. If the interpretation given here is correct, Daniel was woken from his sleep since he would go early to bed, probably around 9 o clock or 9h30 since they did not have electricity in those days.  


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