MANE, THECEL, PHARES. - Mysterious signs, read by the prophet Daniele, which appeared on the wall in the hall of the great banquet, at which Baltassar profaned the sacred vessels (Dan. 5).
The Hebrew has: ménē', ménē', tēgēl śphursin (Dan. 5, 25). Ménē' is the passive participle of the Aramaic ménēh, “to number,” “to count,” and the indeterminate state of the Aramaic minjāh, “mina” (a coin); tēgēl corresponds to the Hebrew leqel, “shekel”; parsin is the plural of parsu (Akkadian), “part,” “half-minas.” The first word, which is absent from the Vulgate, is repeated both to make the threat more solemn and to suggest the various meanings concealed in each term. Since these were coins or weights, signs representing them, rather than words, appeared on the wall; this explains why the magicians were unable to decipher their meaning or their logical connection.
Here is the explanation (Dan. 5, 26 ff.): ménē' = “numbered”; Daniele completes it: “God has numbered the days of your kingdom,” in order to bring it to an end. Tēgēl, considering only the consonants, can be read as the past participle tēgēl, “weighed”: “you have been weighed”; and tēgēl from the root qālal, “to be light”: “and you have been found light.” Finally, the consonants alone of pērēs (the singular of parsin) also yield the passive participle pērēs, “broken,” “shattered”: “your kingdom is shattered and given to the Medes and Persians” (Pāras, again the same consonants). Thus, from the names of the coins Daniele derives the three pronouncements of the terrible condemnation against Baltassar.
BIBL: G. Luzzi, La Bibbia, VIII, Firenze 1925, p. 201; J. Göttsberger, Das Buch Daniel, Bonn 1928, p. 45 sg.; G. Rinaldi, Daniele (La S. Bibbia, ed. S. Garofalo, 8, III), Torino 1947, p. 70 sg. Francesco Spadafora