Mene Mene Teqel Uparsin : Daniel 5:25 in Cuneiform

Abstract

The writing on the wall interpreted by Daniel continues to present problems,1 despite much work done in the past. One particular problem is why the Babylonians could not read these Aramaic words when Aramaic was an official court language. This paper will propose that the inscription was a number written in cuneiform, which was translated into Aramaic and then interpreted. This may provide indirect links between the composition of the narrative and visionary halves of the book (chs. 16 and 7-12). The exact form of the text is difficult to establish. Theodotion (which became the official Greek text for Daniel) agrees with Josephus and the Vulgate in transliterating the text as if it read ‘Mene Teqel Peres’, and the older LXX appears to read it as ‘Mene Peres Teqel’. Various theories have been put forward to explain why a second Mene should be added and why the plural Parsin should occur. Lacocque 2 suggests that the three terms were originally ‘Mene Teqel Parsin’ which applied to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and the (plural) Medo-Persians, but that a later redactor added an extra Mene to make them apply to the four Empires of Daniel. Hans Bauer 3 suggested that the original was ‘Mene Teqel Peres Peres’ and that the final pair became the plural Parsin. However, both these ideas compound the problem by proposing original text forms which are different again.