What does Daniel 5:25 mean?

Disembodied fingers wrote these words in the hall where Babylon's King Belshazzar was drunkenly defiling sacred Jewish objects (Daniel 5:1–5). Only Daniel can explain what this means (Daniel 5:6–17). He began by making it clear that Belshazzar was an arrogant, idolatrous man who had spit in the face of the Most High God (Daniel 5:22–24).

The words described here are Aramaic, the language in which Daniel recorded this entire section (Daniel 2:4—7:28). The fact that the other wise men cannot even read them (Daniel 5:8) implies the words were written in some kind of code, or foreign script. Translators sometimes decide to translate only one of the words, leaving the others in their original form. Others note that the word "and" was also recorded in Aramaic, and in those cases the last word is recorded as uparsin or upharsin, rather than "and parsin."

Mene refers to a particular weight; the term comes from a root word meaning "to number" or "to gauge." It leans more towards the idea of a quantity—a number—than other terms. That this is repeated suggests a careful, thorough examination.

Similarly, tekel represents measurement, but is more closely tied to weight. Weights were often used to check the purity of substances: ensuring they were made of the correct material. Failing this test implied that something inferior had been found.

Peres was also used for counting, since the root word suggests something being split or separated into smaller parts.

One possible rendering of these words might be, "a counting, a counting…a weighing and divisions!" As Daniel will explain, these terms combine to proclaim that God has assessed Babylon, found it lacking, and will split it apart (Daniel 5:26–28).