Q. In the handwriting on the wall in the book of Daniel, why do you think God wrote “mene, mene” twice instead of just “mene, tekel, upharsin”? Does the repetition mean something?
For one thing, “mene” might be repeated to fill out the poetic line, so that it will have two parts with four syllables and two stresses each: mené, mené; tekél, parsín. (The “u” is barely pronounced and simply means “and”; it’s a variation on the usual “w,” when it comes before “p.”) As I note in this post, solemn pronouncements, including judgments like this one, are often spoken in poetry in the Old Testament. Repeating “mene” allows the line to have a memorable poetic cadence.
But the repetition of the first word might also be a clue that each word actually has a double meaning. As I explain in my study guide to Daniel and Revelation:
The inscription is a play on words. In one sense, it lists the names of three coins of decreasing value: the minah (worth many shekels), the tekel (the Aramaic form of the word shekel itself), and the peres (half-shekel; parsin is the plural). This duplicates the image in the statue dream of materials of decreasing value, underscoring God’s purposes to replace the Babylonian empire with later ones. (The narrator echoes this image by describing how the goblets from Jerusalem were gold and silver, while the gods of Babylon were gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.)
But the meaning of the inscription also rests on the derivation of the names of these coins. Minah comes from a verb meaning “to count” or “to number”; tekel comes from the verb “to weigh”; and peres from a verb meaning “to divide.” Daniel explains how all of these meanings apply to Belshazzar and his doomed empire. (Peres is also a play on the word “Persian.”)
So this was a very dense puzzle; the last term actually has a triple meaning, disclosing the identity of the empire that would soon conquer Babylon. Even though the repetition of “mene” might have offered a slight clue to its interpretation, “all the king’s wise men . . . could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant.” But Daniel showed both his divine gifting and the certain fate of Babylon when he interpreted the puzzle.

Could it be at all possible that mene is repeated to denote that God has “counted” (numbered) the days of his reign twice? This would be for the purposes of proving that there is no mistake in God’s calculation. Similar to how money is sometimes counted multiple times to verify the total value. I am by no means a biblical scholar, but find the underlying and multiple meanings and interpretations of the Bible to be very interesting. Your opinion would be greatly appreciated.