H8625b H8625b
shekel (Aramaic); unit of weight appearing in the 'writing on the wall' (Daniel 5)
This is the Aramaic form of Hebrew 'sheqel,' appearing in the cryptic message 'MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN' written on Belshazzar's palace wall. Daniel interprets TEKEL as 'you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting'—a devastating pun where the weight becomes the verdict. The term appears twice in Daniel 5:25, 27, both times as part of the divine sentence against Babylon. That a unit of weight becomes the instrument of moral judgment shows the prophetic genius for wordplay.
Senses
1. sense 1 — In the mysterious inscription, TEKEL functions both as a noun (shekel, a weight) and as a verb form (you have been weighed). Daniel's interpretation exploits this ambiguity: the king has been weighed on divine scales and found deficient. While Spanish and English transliterate the term as TEKEL, French shifts to 'peser' (to weigh), revealing the verbal dimension. The word's appearance in Aramaic rather than Hebrew reflects the Babylonian court setting—God speaks to Babylon in Babylon's own administrative language. 2×
AR["تَقِيلَ"]·ben["তেকেল"]·DE["[תקל]"]·EN["TEKEL"]·FR["peser"]·heb["תקל"]·HI["तेकेल"]·ID["TEKEL"]·IT["[תקל]"]·jav["TEKÉL"]·KO["테켈", "테켈-은"]·PT["TEKEL"]·RU["ТЕКЕЛ"]·ES["TEKEL"]·SW["TEKELI"]·TR["TEKEL"]·urd["تقیل"]
Related Senses
H8033 1. There (locative adverb) (835×)H7760a 1. put, place, set physically (444×)H8064 1. heavens / sky (329×)H5439 1. around, all around (spatial) (319×)H4057b 1. wilderness, desert region (270×)H3220 1. sea, body of water (269×)H0520a 1. cubit (unit of length) (246×)H0127 1. ground, land (territory) (210×)H3383 1. Jordan River (proper noun) (183×)G1093 1. earth, the world (176×)H5800a 1. forsake, abandon (Qal active) (166×)H8121 1. sun (celestial body) (133×)H7126 1. offer, present sacrificially (122×)H6828 1. north, cardinal direction (120×)H2351 1. outside, exterior space (119×)H5104 1. river, stream (119×)H7341 1. width, breadth (101×)G1563 1. there (95×)H7126 2. draw near, approach (95×)G2281 1. sea, large body of water (91×)
BDB / Lexicon Reference
† תְּקֵל n.[m.] shekel (v. BH שֶׁקֶל; 𝔗 תִּקְלָא);—abs. ת׳ Dn 5:25, 27; v. מְנֵא and reff.