"The writing on the wall" (or "the handwriting on the wall" or "the writing is on the wall" or "Mene Mene"), is an idiom for "imminent doom or misfortune" and for "the future is predetermined".
The expression originates from the book of Daniel Chapter 5 from the handwriting on the wall that was witnessed at a banquet hosted by king Belshazzar. As those at the feast profaned the sacred vessels pillaged from the Jerusalem Temple, a disembodied hand appeared and wrote on the palace wall the words, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, u-Pharsin." The prophet Daniel was summoned and interpreted this message as the imminent end for the Babylonian kingdom. That night, Belshazzar was killed and the Persians sacked the capital city.
Read more about The Writing On The Wall: Inscription, Historicity, Jewish Interpretations, Influence
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or wall:
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)