The second word is “tekel.” This word means weighed. It is not as if the Lord is only numbering. When the Lord comes with his judgment he also looks at what has been done with the time someone has been given. The Lord is always just in the plan he executes and in his judgments. He weighs. To him, numbering and weighing are never separate. We see this, for example, when the Lord promises Abraham that he will give the land of Canaan to his descendants. That promise will only become a reality 400 years later. The reason for this is the following: They shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete
(Genesis 15:16).
The sins of Belshazzar and the Babylonian Empire have now become so great that God’s judgment on them is just. They can no longer escape God’s judgment. That judgment is here. Belshazzar has been weighed and found to be too light to be king any longer. God’s scale shows his disadvantage.
27 Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting;