The Writing on the Wall

Traces directly to the Book of Daniel in the Bible. At a lavish feast, the Babylonian king Belshazzar drinks from sacred goblets looted from Jerusalem's Temple, and a disembodied hand suddenly appears and writes a mysterious message on the palace wall. The prophet Daniel is brought in to interpret the words, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin," explaining that Belshazzar has been weighed and found wanting, and that his kingdom is about to be divided between the Medes and Persians. Belshazzar is killed that same night. The story is specific and vivid enough that "the writing on the wall" passed straight into English as a byword for any unmistakable sign of impending doom.