Warning sign
A menetekel [ meneˈteːkəl ] denotes an ominous warning , a serious warning or a omen of impending doom. The term is derived from a biblical play on words in Akkadian language that God is said to have brought to King Belšazar as an announcement of his imminent death and the downfall of his kingdom.
Word origin
Biblical tradition
In the book of Daniel the Tanach , Belšazar is described as the son of Nebuchadnezzar II . In Dan 5 EU as Belshazzar is punished by God it is described:
King Belšazar throws a big party and gets drunk. In his drunkenness he is cocky and leaves all, gold as silver chalices and goblets procure that of his father, King Nebuchadnezzar II., Jerusalem had robbed. Belšazar now drinks from these vessels and lets his gods praise. Then a ghostly hand without a human body appears and writes strange words with its fingers on the wall opposite Belšazar. The king was frightened and sent for all his wise men and prophets and promised them that if they could only translate and interpret the words he would dress them in purple, hang them in gold and make them the third man in the kingdom. But they can neither read nor translate what is written. Belšazar is even more shocked by this. His mother appears and tells him that a sage named Daniel is able to interpret any kind of omen , dream or riddle. Thereupon Daniel is brought to King Belšazar.
Daniel reads the words Mene mene tekel u-parsin ( מנא, מנא, תקל, ופרסין ). According to his statement, they mean: “ Mene : Counted, that is, God has counted the days of your royal rule and ended them. Tekel : Weighed, that is, you were weighed on the scales and found to be too light. Peres (U-parsin) : Your kingdom will be divided and handed over to the Persians and Medes ”.
Daniel also explains to the king why God made this decision: “You have praised all the silver, gold, iron , iron , wooden and stone gods who can neither see, hear nor feel. But you have not glorified the God who has your breath and all your ways in his hand. That is why this hand was sent by him and this scripture was written. ”Belšazar keeps his promise: He has Daniel clad in purple, hung with gold and proclaimed the third man in the kingdom. But that same night Belšazar is killed.
Historical research
The pun mene mene tekel u-parsin is most likely derived from the Akkadian words manû šiqlu parsu , which were used to denote units of weight: Mēne means “ Mina ”, tekel means “ shekel ” and pēres (from parsīn ) means “half Mina ". This interpretation is directly linked to the literal translation of the three words as "counted, weighed, divided". The Aramaic word parsīn can also be understood as a playful play on the term “Persia / Persians”: it is perhaps aimed at the fact that Babylon was actually overrun by the Persians. Daniel was apparently the only one who saw through the linguistic challenge of the pun, was able to interpret it plausibly and moreover dared to publicly confront the ruler with his interpretation critical of rule.
Against this background, it becomes clear why the invited guests did not dare to come up with their own interpretations, even though the terms were colloquial. Today, the original meaning of the play on words can be reconstructed even more uncertainly, because the author of the Book of Daniel made a play on words in the Aramaic language out of the signs of allegedly divine authorship, the writing of which does not depict any vowels , so that the meaning of the signs can be comprehensively changed, depending on which one Words you read them. What is actually meant remains hidden in the multitude of plausible interpretations.
Modern meaning and interpretation
Up to the present day, “menetekel” is understood as the epitome of impending disaster, which ultimately cannot be averted. Special attention is paid to the inevitability of the accident. "Menetekel" also stands for dark premonitions, bad omen and destructive fate . In general, the term has not had any positive connotations to date . It must be taken into account that, according to the religions that believe in it, the biblical message is not the work of man, but of divine nature. Therefore, the biblical menetekel has a special meaning, which is increased by the fact that the injured, who are not present at the feast marked by hubris (in this case the robbed residents of Jerusalem), are first symbolically given an accusing voice and they will get justice after all. This interpretation gives the story of Belšazar's feast a certain moral : all wrongdoing has consequences.
See also
literature
- Christoph Levin : The Old Testament (= Beck'sche series , volume 2160). CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-44760-0 .
- Hermann Spatt: The feast - symbol and event of the Bible, with special consideration of the parable of the feast (Lk 14.15-24) . GRIN, Munich 2009, ISBN 3-640-33876-6 .
- Norman W. Porteous: Daniel: A Commentary . Westminster John Knox Press, Philadelphia 1965, ISBN 0-664-22317-6 .
- Wolfgang Röllig : The wisdom of the kings in Assyria and Babylonia . In: David Clines, Elke Blumenthal (ed.): Wisdom in Israel: Contributions to the symposium “The Old Testament and the Modern Culture” on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971), Heidelberg, 18. – 21. October 2001 . Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5459-0 .
- MA Dandamayev: Nabonidus . In: Dietz-Otto Edzard (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie, Vol. 9 . de Gruyter, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-11-017296-8 , pp. 6-12.
- Klaas R. Veenhof : History of the Old Orient up to the time of Alexander the Great - Outlines of the Old Testament (= Outlines of the Old Testament, Volume 11 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-51685-1 .
- Rainer Stahl: From World Commitment to World Overcoming: Theological Positions in the Daniel Book (= Contributions to Biblical Exegesis Theology Series , Volume 4). Peeters Publishers, Leuven 1994, ISBN 90-390-0013-1 .
Web links
- Feast of the Belshazzar with an explanation of the words mene, mene, teke, u-parsin on wibilex.de (German)
- Poem about the feast of Belshazzar by Heinrich Heine (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hermann Spatt: The feast . Pp. 19-21.
- ↑ Christoph Levin: The Old Testament . Page 118.
- ^ A b c Norman W. Porteous: Daniel: A Commentary . Pp. 75-86.
- ^ A b Franz Marius Theodor de Liagre Böhl : Lemma Daniel , in: Erich Ebeling , Bruno Meissner (ed.): Reallexikon der Assyriologie . Volume 2 (Ber - Ezur). de Gruyter, Berlin, Leipzig 1938, pp. 117–119, here p. 118.
- ↑ Rainer Stahl: From commitment to the world to overcoming the world . Pp. 41-46.