One day, Belshazzar has a big party. He asks for the goblets that his father Nebuchadnezzar plundered and brought back from the temple in Jerusalem. He then toasts the gods of gold, silver, wood, and stone. Although it is not directly stated, it is implied that he used the temple goblets to celebrate these gods.
God did not like this. One of the recurring problems the people of Judah did was to use the temple to worship other gods. This action by the king is very similar.
A hand appears and begins to write on the wall. This terrifies the king. The marginalia of my NIV Bible says that they were Aramaic words:
Mene
Mene
Tekel
Parsin
The king cannot even the words, let alone understand their significance. All he knows is a hand detached from a body wrote it. He calls for his diviners and magicians, who cannot read it either. Since no one can even read the writing, it seems that it is a completely different alphabet. It may be in the Aramaic alphabet or may be not, we do not know.
The queen (or queen mother, depending on the translation) tells the king about Daniel and what he did during his father's reign. They send for Daniel.
Daniel is brought before the king and his first words are to reprimand the king. The king knew how his father Nebuchadnezzar had been humbled by God, but the king did not honor God. Daniel then interprets the writing.
Mene means counted. The days of the king's reign have been counted. It is not explained why "Mene" was written twice, but this suggests that his reign was counted twice. Perhaps God was going to kill off Belshazzar, but gave him a second chance along the way. Who knows.
Tekel means weighed on the scales. The king has been weighed on the scales of justice and has lost.
Parsin is the plural of Peres. Interesting, Daniel does not discuss Parsin, but rather its singular form of Peres. This shows a complete mastery of Aramaic, the language on the wall. Daniel interprets it to mean that the kingdom will be divided by the Persians and the Medes.
The marginalia of my NIV Bible says that Peres is both the singular word for "Persian" and it also means "divided". So, the writing makes use of a pun with the written word "Parsin" signifying both "division" and "Persians".
This efficient use of writing the last word makes the repetition and redundancy of the first word "Mene" more pronounced. God seems to want to draw more attention to the "counting the days" phase of king Belshazzar's reign. Again, we are left to speculate as to why.
Finally, that night, Belshazzar is killed in a coup and Darius, king of the Medes and Persians becomes king of Babylon. If this action by Darius was so quick, this suggests that the Persian army was near Babylon, perhaps laying siege to the city. It also requires people within Babylon to kill the king. We are left to speculate as to who, but it could have been Babylonians who switched their loyalty to the Persians or Persian assassins who snuck in.
Either way, it suggests possible reasons for the party. Belshazzar knew the Persians were close and may have felt confidence in his soldiers ability to defend the city. An alternative possibility is that he knew his end may be near. His toast may have been to get the gods on his side for the upcoming battle, so why not use the goblets from the temple in Jerusalem. He may have wanted to use the goblets from Jerusalem because it reminded people of the glory days of the Babylonian empire.
Regardless of Belshazzar's motivation, God did not like it and has him killed off that night.
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