This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it;
Parallel translations
- WEB This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God has counted your kingdom, and brought it to an end;
- KJV This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
- BSB And this is the interpretation of the message: MENE means that God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
- ESV This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end;
- NASB This is the interpretation of the message: ‘Menē’—God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it.
- NLT This is what these words mean: Mene means ‘numbered’—God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
MENE means God has numbered the kingdom and brought it to an end. Belshazzar's reign is finished by divine decree.
Overview
Daniel interprets the first word as God's accounting of the kingdom's days, now complete. The sovereign God who grants kingdoms also sets their limits and ends them at the appointed time. Babylon's apparent permanence proves to be on a timetable fixed in heaven.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Jer 27:7All the nations will serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.
- Isa 47:1–15“Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
- Jer 25:11–12This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
- Jer 50:1–46The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
- Dan 9:2in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.
- Isa 21:1–10The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
- Acts 15:18All of God’s works are known to him from eternity.’
- Job 14:14If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come.
- Isa 13:1–14The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw:
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Daniel sees the stone cut without hands that shatters the kingdoms, and 'one like a son of man' given everlasting dominion — titles and visions Jesus claims as his own.
How Daniel 5:26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.