A detail from the painting "Belshazzar's Feast" by Rembrandt.
Wikimedia Commons
From the biblical story of Belshazzar’s Feast in the Book of Daniel comes a popular modern-day idiom: “The writing on the wall.”
In the tale, King Belshazzar of Babylon holds a lavish feast for thousands of nobles while his city is under siege. In a display of arrogance, he demands that golden goblets plundered from the Jewish temple in Jerusalem be used to serve wine for toasts to pagan gods.
Suddenly, the fingers of a disembodied human hand appear and inscribe four cryptic words on the wall: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin."
Terrified, the king summons his wise men, but no one can translate the writing. He eventually calls for Daniel, an exiled Jewish prophet, who reads and interprets the divine message:
Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Upharsin: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
That very night, Belshazzar is assassinated, and the Babylonian empire falls to the Persian army.
So the idiom “the writing on the wall” came to mean that available evidence indicates that doom or failure is inevitable, and thus “the writing on the wall” itself can mean anything portending doom or failure. It describes an ominous feeling, a warning, or evidence that disaster, doom or failure is imminent.
The imagery of the blazing script and the terrified king inspired works by famous artists, most notably a painting by Rembrandt and illustrations by John Martin (the latter are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, but not currently on view).
It also prompted the famous 1931 choral work Belshazzar’s Feast by English composer William Walton, which the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä, will perform in concerts Oct. 8-9 and at Symphony Ball on Oct. 10.
The concerts will mark the first time since the Solti era that the Walton work has been performed at Orchestra Hall. So the writing’s on the wall. Grab this opportunity now.
