MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIN

“This is the inscription that was written: MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIN” (Daniel 5:25)

 

Belshazzar the last king of Babylon gathered a thousand nobles for a great feast and drank with them by gold bowls brought from the temple in Jerusalem. And they praised the lifeless idols they serve. Then Belshazzar saw a finger appearing and writing the letters on the wall. The king’s heart was surprised with fear and called wise men such as sorcerers and fortune-tellers to ask for the meaning of the words written on the wall, but no one could interpret it. Only Daniel gave interpretation of the letters ‘MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIN’ to the king. And Belshazzar was killed just the night, according to the interpreted meaning of letters.

 

On the wall, there was written ‘MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIN’ in Aramaic. Here the MENE means ‘to count’ ‘to take a count of’, and the TEKEL ‘to weigh (a thing)’. And UPARSIN is a compound word of a conjunction U meaning ‘and’ and PARSIN meaning ‘to divide (into)’ ‘to separate’. Daniel interpreted this, “Babylon will be destroyed and the country will be divided, because Babylon’s shortage revealed by God’s measurement on the scale.” As Daniel interpreted, in BC 539, Belshazzar was killed when the time that Babylon the country fell under attack from the allied forces of Medes and Persia.

The God of creation oversees not only persons, but also changes in the generation of all the things. Also, Christ the Savior God in the world is the Creator who have existed from eternal before. As John 1:3 says, all the things in universe are created by Christ called Logos. God the Almighty ultimately establishes the length of time of all men and history, and limits the boundaries of their dwelling, as written in Acts 17:26. He changes time and duration of human life, and destroys and establishes kings, and gives them wisdom and intelligence, as the written Daniel 2:21. It may be a fact thing that man makes something take place by one’s own efforts, but that is just a partial act possible passively under God’s whole cosmic structure. Belshazzar had to meet a miserable end because he had lived in unknowing about such the truth.

Belshazzar must had seen and heard about the life of his grandfather the King Nebuchadnezzar, in person when he had been young. He, nevertheless, did not learned his grandfather’s right path. Nebuchadnezzar knew about God the Lord through Daniel and his three friends. But, in spite of knowing God, he was self-satisfied that his rule of the kingdom displayed the dignity and glory by his own ability. Fortunately only after realized a fact that God rules the kingdom of men and gives whatever He wants to anyone in His will, Nebuchadnezzar could praise and worship God. About thirty years after such an incident, Belshazzar the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, on the throne, unfortunately, did not hesitate to insult the Lord and serve idols, unlike his grandfather much.

God makes live and die men at will, and He also high and lower them. Man must first know what God is like and not have a self-conceit or stubborn heart against God. Man-made scales may not be accurate, but God’s scales show correctly the numerical value. Christ had come the world to save the foolish and dissolute by showing God to people. Therefore, if we do not to be short of God’s standard, we must learn Christ well to make oneself obey with faith in order to get rid of foolish and profligate lives. Otherwise, anybody might have no choice but to see a miserable ending like King Belshazzar. Let’s pray for those who do not know and even do not want to know who Jesus is, and those who despise Christians and churches to repent in Christ, and for them to change someday like Nebuchadnezzar had changed.

 

MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIN, any person or country that is not right in God’s eyes will be crushed and destroyed at a moment. Even though Babylon was the old strong and great country, it was divided into Medes and Persia. The same principle is true of the fate of any individuals and countries that have existed in the history on the earth. Then, let’s well learn and believe in Christ Jesus, God! Let’s try to live a humble and sincere life according to God’s word!

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Jan 31st 2021)