"Handwriting On The Wall". King Belshazzar used sacred gold and silver cups stolen from the temple in Jerusalem to drink wine with his guests while praising idols. The fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote a strange inscription on the plaster wall: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin". The prophet Daniel was called to read the writing because the king's wise men could not. Daniel explained that Mene meant God had numbered the king's reign and ended it. Tekel meant the king was weighed on the scales and found lacking and Peres (Parsin) meant his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That very night, King Belshazzar was killed and the empire fell. Today, the phrase means an undeniable sign of an approaching end or disaster.