John Calvin Commentary Daniel 5:25-28

"And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end; TEKEL; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." — Daniel 5:25-28 (ASV)

Daniel here explains these four words that were written on the wall. The king could not read them, either because of a stupor, or because God dulled all his senses and blinded his eyes, as was previously said. The same must be said of the magi and the soothsayers, for they could have read them if they had not been made blind.

First of all, Daniel recites the four words—Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin—and then adds their interpretation. He repeats the word Mene twice. Some conjecture this applies to the numbering of the years of the king’s life and also to the time of his reign, but this guess seems to be without any foundation. I think the word is used twice for confirmation, as if the Prophet meant the number to be completed, since people usually allow calculations to be liable to error.

To impress upon Belshazzar that his life and kingdom were at stake, God affirms the number to be complete, meaning that not a moment of time can be added to the boundary already determined. Daniel himself also interprets it this way: God, he says, has numbered your kingdom. This implies that God has appointed and prescribed a fixed end to your kingdom; therefore, it must necessarily come to an end, since its period is fulfilled.

Although God here addresses only one king with the writing set before his eyes, we may still gather this general instruction: God has prescribed a certain time for all kingdoms (Job 14:5). Scripture bears the same witness concerning the life of each of us. If God has prescribed to each of us the length of our lives, surely this applies more forcibly to public empires, which are of so much greater importance.

Hence we may know how not only kings live and die according to God’s pleasure, but even empires are changed, as we have previously said. He fixes both their origin and their destiny. Hence we may seek consolation when we see tyrants rushing on so impetuously and indulging their lust and cruelty without moderation.

Therefore, when they rush on as if they would mingle heaven and earth, let us remember this instruction: Their years are numbered! God knows how long they are to rage. He is not deceived. He knows whether it is useful to the Church and His elect for tyrants to prevail for a time.

Soon He will surely restrain them. But since He determined the number of their days from the beginning, the time of His vengeance is not yet quite at hand while He allows them a little longer to abuse without restraint the power and the authority He had divinely granted them.

The exposition of the word Tekel, to weigh, now follows: Since you have been weighed in the balance, or scale, and found wanting.

Here Daniel shows God moderating His judgments as if He were carrying a balance in His hand. The emblem is taken from human custom, for people know the use of the balance for accurate measurement. So also God is said to treat all things by weight and measure, since He does nothing with confusion but uses moderation; and, according to ordinary language, nothing is more or less than it should be .

For this reason, Daniel says God weighed Belshazzar in a balance, since He did not hasten to inflict punishment but exacted it with justice according to His own uniform rule of government. Since he was found deficient, that is, he was found light and without weight.

It is as if he had said, "You think your dignity must be spared, since all people revere you. You think yourself worthy of honor. You are deceived," he says, "for God judges otherwise. God does not use a common scale but holds His own, and there you are found deficient; that is, you are found a man of no consequence in any way."

There is no doubt that the tyrant was greatly exasperated by these words, but as his final end was approaching, he ought to have heard the voice of the herald. And God, without doubt, restrained his fierceness so that he would not rise up against Daniel.

The word פרס (Pheres) is added for the word Pharsin, meaning his kingdom was divided among the Medes and Persians. I have no doubt that by this word God signified the dispersion of the Monarchy that was near. Therefore, when he says Upharsin, and they shall divide, it signifies the instability of the Monarchy, since He wished to destroy or utterly abolish it.

But the Prophet alludes very appropriately to the division made between the Medes and Persians; and thus his disgrace was increased by the Babylonians being compelled to serve many masters. This is indeed a grave and serious disgrace when a people who have obtained a wide and extensive empire are afterwards conquered and subjected to the yoke of a single master; but when they suffer under two masters, then the indignity is greatly increased. So Daniel here shows how God’s wrath was compounded in the destruction of the monarch of Babylon, since being subdued by both Medes and Persians added to the severity of their punishment.

The city, indeed, was truly taken by the valor and industry of Cyrus. But since Cyrus admitted his father-in-law to the great honor of allowing him to share in the royal authority, the Medes and Persians are therefore said to have divided the kingdom, although there was properly no division of the kingdom.

Cyrus afterwards engaged in other expeditions, as he was led away by his insatiable avarice and ambition. But Darius, as we shall see later, died at the age of sixty, lived quietly at home, and it is very well known that he was a Mede. If we may believe the majority of historians, his sister, the mother of Cyrus, had been banished to Persia in consequence of the oracle concerning the fortune and greatness of Cyrus.

Since his grandfather had exposed him, Cyrus later avenged the injury. Yet, he did not do so cruelly by taking his grandfather's life, for Cyrus desired him to retain some dignity and therefore appointed him a satrap. But Darius's son later reigned over the Medes with the full permission of Cyrus, who then married Darius's daughter. Thus, on account of this relationship and through the influence of this new alliance, Cyrus wished to have him as a partner in the empire. In this sense, then, Daniel narrates the division of the Monarchy to be near, as the Medes and the Persians would divide it among themselves.