Belshazzar's feast

The story of Belshazzar's feast (the writing on the wall) is contained in chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel. In the story, Neo-Babylonian royal Belshazzar holds a feast and drinks from vessels looted from the First Temple. A hand appears and writes on the wall and Belshazzar calls for his wise men, but they cannot read the writing. The queen advises him to send for Daniel, who reminds Belshazzar about Nebuchadnezzar's arrogance and subsequent humiliation (Daniel 4). Daniel reads and interprets the message: God has numbered Belshazzar's days, he has been weighed and found wanting, and his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians. That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean [Babylonian] king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom […] Daniel 5 offers a contrast between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar: When Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, he acknowledged the God of Israel and had his throne restored, but Belshazzar did not learn from Nebuchadnezzar's example and his kingdom was instead given to others. According to John J. Collins, Belshazzar's feast is a legend conforming to the subgenre of the "tale of court contest", complicated by the inclusion of Daniel's indictment of Belshazzar's pride and his failure to honour the God of Israel. As a result, the tale has a double ending, in which Daniel is first showered with rewards and honours for interpreting the omen, and the king is then punished to fulfill the sentence pronounced by Daniel. From the story, the idiom "the writing on the wall" came to mean seeing from the available evidence that doom or failure is inevitable, and "the writing on the wall" itself can mean anything portending doom or failure.