"The Moving Finger writes even in Heaven." [closed]

Following is an extract from a Rabindranath Tagore story called, "A Wrong Man in Workers' Paradise". I need help in understanding the contextual meaning of a line in it.

The story is about a man who never did any useful work and lived a leisurely life devoid of all care.

Some boys seldom ply their books and yet pass their tests. A similar thing happened to this man. He spent his earth life in useless work and yet after his death, the gates of Heaven opened wide for him.

But, the Moving Finger writes even in Heaven. So, it came to pass that the aerial messenger who took charge of the man, made a mistake and found him a place in Workers' Paradise.

In this Paradise you find everything except leisure.

Upon a quick search over the Internet I found this explanation to the phrase.

However, I am not sure –

a) what 'Moving Finger' means here
b) what figure of speech is used
c) what is the contextual meaning of the whole phrase


I would suggest this is a reference to the appearance of a man's hand in the Book of Daniel in the Bible.

King Nebuchadnezzar had a feast and defiled the Temple, bringing its sacred vessels to drink from and make merry with. A man's hand appeared (just the hand) and with its finger wrote on the wall opposite the king. No-one could understand what was written, but Daniel was brought in and he interpreted the writing, "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin".

And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

In the case of your man, a similar fate befell him: his life of leisure was denounced even in heaven, and he was banished to a lesser place.

As to "what figure of speech", it's not really a metaphor for anything. I would say it was a literary reference as it appears to refer to an identifable episode in literature.

(As an aside, the phrase The writing's on the wall, meaning the notification of imminent downfall, comes from the same place.)