Daniel 6

Darius the Mede must not be confused with Darius I, who ruled Persia from 522 to 486 and during whose reign the temple was restored by the Jewish remnant at Jerusalem. Darius the Mede was probably the name (or title) of the man King Cyrus appointed ruler of the city of Babylon (9:1) until he himself took charge; or it may have been the title Cyrus himself took when he came to reign. King Cyrus ruled the Persian empire from 539 to 530 and was succeeded by Cambyses (530–522).

As is often the case after a conquest, the new ruler wants to reorganize the government of the conquered kingdom so as to establish his authority and make things conform to his own leadership goals. But when Darius began to reorganize Babylon, he brought to light a conflict between his officers and Daniel, a veteran administrator who was now in his eighties. Today, wherever you find dedicated believers living and working with unbelievers, you will often see the same forces at work that are described in this chapter, whether in families, churches, corporations, or governments.

Darius must have suspected that the officers he had inherited were not doing their work faithfully but were robbing him of wealth, and his suspicions were correct. It was impossible for Darius to keep his hands on everything in the empire, because that would have involved supervising every worker, auditing every account, and checking on every assignment. The king had to depend on his officers to see that the work was done well, and this meant he had to appoint officers he could trust. Darius was a man experienced in the ways of the world, and he knew that there was plenty of opportunity for graft in the Babylonian government (see Eccl. 5:8–9).

A wise leader first gathers information, and Darius soon learned about Daniel and the reputation he had for honesty and wisdom, what the KJV calls “an excellent spirit” (Dan. 6:3). It’s likely that Daniel was in semiretirement at this time, but the king appointed him to be one of three key administrators over the kingdom. These three men were to manage the affairs of the 120 leaders who ruled over the provinces and to report directly to the king. Daniel proved to be such a superior worker that Darius planned to make him his number-one administrator over the entire kingdom.

When the other leaders heard about this plan, it irritated them and they tried to find something wrong in his work, but nothing could be found. They opposed Daniel for several reasons, including just plain envy; but their main concern was financial. They knew that with Daniel in charge, they wouldn’t be able to use their offices for personal profit and would lose their share of the graft that could go into their pockets. It’s also likely that these younger men resented an older man—and a Jewish exile at that—telling them what to do and checking on their work. It was another case of anti-Semitism, a grievous sin that is found in Scripture from the days of Pharaoh to the end times (Rev. 12). Apparently these officers didn’t know God’s covenant with Abraham that promised to bless those who blessed the Jews and curse those who cursed them (Gen. 12:1–3). When these men started to attack Daniel, they were asking for God’s judgment.

It isn’t always the case that the honest employee gets the promotion while his enemies are judged. Joseph and Daniel were both promoted by pagan rulers, but I have a friend who was fired because he worked too hard! Apparently his Christian integrity and his diligent work showed up the laziness of the other workers, so the foreman found reason to dismiss him. However, it’s better to maintain your integrity and testimony than to sacrifice them just to keep your job. If we put the Lord first, He’ll care for us, even if we don’t get the promotion (Matt. 6:33). Many a faithful Christian has been bypassed for promotion or a salary increase just because somebody higher up didn’t like him, but the workers’ rewards will one day come from the hand of the Lord.

It’s certainly a commendable thing when people possess character so impeccable that they can’t be accused of doing wrong except in matters relating to their faith. The conniving officers could never tempt Daniel to do anything illegal, but they could attempt to make his faithful religious practices illegal. Daniel didn’t hide the fact that he prayed in his home three times each day with his windows opened toward Jerusalem (v. 10), and his enemies knew this. If the king made prayer to other gods illegal, then Daniel was as good as in the lions’ den!

The king’s response (vv. 5–9). King Darius must have been impressed when 122 government officials assembled in his throne room to have an audience with him. Of course, Daniel wasn’t there, even though he was chief among the administrators; but the leaders had been careful not to include him. However, they deceptively included him in their speech, for they claimed that all the royal administrators had agreed on the plan presented to Darius. In fact, they included all the officers in the empire—“administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors” (v. 7 niv)—to give the king the impression that his leaders were united behind him and desirous of magnifying him and his office. The men who hatched the plot probably had not consulted with the lesser officers throughout the empire, but these officers weren’t likely to disagree with the plan. Anything that pleased the king would only strengthen their positions.

The administrators were very clever in the plot they conceived and the way they presented it. They knew that Darius wanted to unify the kingdom and as quickly as possible transform the defeated Babylonians into loyal Persians. What better way than to focus on the great king himself and make him not just the supreme leader but the only god for an entire month! To emphasize the importance of this law, the officers requested the ultimate sentence: anyone who didn’t obey it would be thrown into a den of lions. Of course, their flattery fed the king’s pride, and he quickly agreed with them, had the law written out, and signed it. Once it was signed, the law could not be changed or nullified (vv. 8, 12, 15; Est. 1:19).

There’s every evidence that Darius loved and appreciated Daniel, but in his haste, the king had put his friend in peril. It has well been said that flattery is manipulation, not communication, and in his pride, Darius succumbed to the flattery of evil men. “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulcher; they flatter with their tongue” (Ps. 5:9).

Daniel’s response (vv. 10–11). The scheming officers lost no time in proclaiming the king’s decree. Daniel probably prayed “evening and morning and at noon” (Ps. 55: nkjv), and his enemies wanted to use the earliest opportunity to arrest him. The sooner Daniel was out of the way, the sooner they could start running the country for their own profit. When Daniel prayed toward the Holy City and the temple, he was claiming the prayer promise that Solomon stated when he dedicated the temple (1 King 8:28–30, 38–39, 46–51). Jonah claimed this same promise when he was in the belly of the great fish (Jonah 2:4). The exiled Jews no longer had a temple or priesthood, but God was still on the throne and would hear their cries for help.

During the first year of Darius, Daniel had learned from the book of Jeremiah that the Jewish captivity would end after seventy years, and he turned this great promise into prayer (Dan. 9:1ff.). Daniel was interceding for his people and asking God to keep His promise and deliver them. Like the plot against the Jews recorded in the book of Esther, the plot against Daniel the intercessor was an attack on the whole Jewish nation.

Had he not been a man of faith and courage, Daniel could have compromised and found excuses for not maintaining his faithful prayer life. He might have closed his windows and prayed silently three times a day until the month was over, or he could have left the city and prayed somewhere else. But that would have been unbelief and cowardice; he would have been scheming just like the enemy, and the Lord would have withheld His blessing. No, a man like Daniel feared only the Lord; and when you fear the Lord, you need not fear anyone else. “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5: nkjv). Some of the leaders spied on him, heard him pray, and brought the report to the king.

The most important part of a believer’s life is the part that only God sees, our daily private time of meditation and prayer. “You pray as your face is set,” said British theologian P. T. Forsythe, “towards Jerusalem or Babylon.” Most of the world begins the day looking toward the world and hoping to get something from it, but the Christian believer looks to the Lord and His promises and enters each new day by faith. Outlook determines outcome, and when we look to the Lord for His guidance and help each day, we know that the outcome is in His hands and that we have nothing to fear. “Real true faith is man’s weakness leaning on God’s strength,” said D.L. Moody, and we might add, man’s weakness transformed into God’s strength (Heb. 11:34).

Three times a day for many years, Daniel had prayed, given thanks, and made supplication (vv. 10–11), which is the same pattern Paul instructed us to follow (Phil. 4:6–7). No wonder Daniel had such peace and courage! Ernest Wadsworth, a champion of effective prayer, said, “Pray for a faith that will not shrink when washed in the waters of affliction.” Daniel had that kind of faith. He had walked with the Lord for more than eighty years and knew that his God wouldn’t fail him. Hadn’t the Lord helped him stand true during his time of training? Didn’t the Lord save his life by giving him the wisdom he needed to interpret the king’s dream, and didn’t the Lord deliver his three friends out of the fiery furnace? Daniel had a copy of the prophecy of Jeremiah (Dan. 9:2), so he must have read: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?” (Jer. 32:27). No doubt he responded with “there is nothing too hard for thee” (v. 17). A believer who knows how to kneel in prayer has no problem standing in the strength of the Lord.

Daniel accused (vv. 12–13). The men who had spied on Daniel hurried to inform Darius that his favorite officer had disobeyed the law and shown disrespect to the king. It’s remarkable how people can work together quickly to do evil but find it difficult to get together to do anything good. “Their feet are swift to shed blood” (Rom. 3:15). They showed no respect to Daniel, who held a higher office than they did, but disdainfully called him “one of the exiles from Judah” (Dan. 6: niv). These proud men didn’t realize that God was with His exiled people and within the next twenty-four hours would vindicate His servant.

As they take their stand for what is right and what the Lord has commanded them to do, God’s people in every age have been falsely accused, cruelly persecuted, and unjustly killed. “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3: nkjv). The Puritan preacher Henry Smith said, “God examines with trials, the devil with temptations and the world with persecutions.” Another Puritan, Richard Baxter, said that God’s people should be more concerned that they deserved the persecution than that they be delivered from it, because deserving it would be evidence of their faithfulness to the Lord.

The king distressed (vv. 14–18). The king was distressed mainly because Daniel was both his friend and his greatest help in the governing of the empire, and he didn’t want to sign his death warrant. But Darius was also distressed because of the way he had acted. His pride had gotten the best of him, he had believed the lies of the leaders, and had hastily signed the law. Had Darius taken time to consult with Daniel, he would have discovered the plot; but perhaps the Lord allowed events to proceed as they did so that Daniel’s enemies could be exposed and judged. God works “all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11) and He knows what He is doing.

The king made it clear that he wanted to save Daniel from execution, but all his efforts failed. The situation is similar to the one described in the book of Esther: once the law had been signed, nothing could change it. Since Darius was a “god” and the people were praying to him, how could he make any mistakes? And how could a “god” not punish someone who had broken one of his laws? Furthermore, the laws of the Medes and Persians couldn’t be annulled or changed. For the entire day, Darius ignored all other matters concerning the kingdom and tried to free Daniel, but his attempts all failed. Of course, Daniel’s enemies were on hand to remind the king that he had to enforce the law whether he liked it or not. At the end of the day, Darius had to call Daniel and have him put in the lions’ den.

The lions’ den was a large pit divided by a moveable wall that could be pulled up to allow the lions to go from one side to the other. The keeper would put food in the empty side and lift up the wall so the lions would cross over and eat. He would quickly lower the wall and clean the safe side of the pit. The animals weren’t fed often or great amounts of food so that their appetites would be keen in case there was to be an execution. Living at the gnawing edge of hunger didn’t make them too tame!

Before Daniel was lowered into the pit and the wall lifted up, the king offered a prayer that Daniel’s God would deliver him because Daniel was faithful to serve Him continually (Dan. 6:16; see v. 20; 3:17). He then had the pit covered and the rock sealed so that everything was done according to the law. Nobody would dare break the king’s official seal, so that when the pit was opened, everybody would have to confess that God had performed a great miracle. It makes us think of the stone at our Lord’s tomb that was sealed by the Roman authorities, and yet Jesus came forth alive!

The king had a bad night, not unlike the night Xerxes experienced in the story of Esther (Est. 6:1ff.). Oriental kings were given all kinds of diversions to entertain them and help them relax and go to sleep, but Darius refused all of them. He spent a sleepless night and even fasted! He wondered if the Lord would deliver the old Jewish prophet from the lions’ den.

The Lord victorious (Dan. 6:19–23). Darius arose with the first light of dawn and hastened to the lions’ den. Even before he got to the pit and ordered the seals broken and the stone removed, he called out to Daniel in an anguished voice. In what he said, he confessed that Daniel’s God was the living God, not a dead idol, and that He had the power to deliver His faithful servant. Daniel’s faith brought him peace and assurance, but the king’s faith was weak and wavering. “Is your God able to deliver you?” When Darius heard Daniel’s voice saying “O king, live forever,” he knew that his friend and faithful officer and been delivered (Heb. 11:33).

Daniel was always quick to give God the glory (Dan. 6:22; see 2:27–28; 4:25; 5:21–23). God could have closed the lions’ mouths by simply saying the word, but He chose to send an angel to do the job. The angel not only controlled the hungry beasts but also kept Daniel company, just as the Lord had come to walk with the three Jewish men Nebuchadnezzar had thrown into the fiery furnace (3:24–25). The book of Daniel reveals a great deal about the work of angels in this world, not only their ministries to God’s people but also their influence on nations (10:10–13, 20–21). When we think of an angel delivering Daniel, promises like Psalms 34: and 91: come to mind, and we remember the angels’ ministry to Jesus (Mark 1:13; Luke 22:43). We don’t know when angels are with us (Heb. 13:2), but we do know that they are present to serve us and sent by God to assist us (1:14). When Daniel was removed from the lions’ den, he bore no wounds, just as the three Jewish men bore no evidence they had even been in the furnace (Dan. 3:27).

The Lord delivered Daniel because of his faith (6:23) and because he was innocent of any crime before the king or any sin before the Lord (v. 22). This means that the king’s law about prayer was rejected in heaven and that Daniel was right in disobeying it. By suggesting such a law, the scheming officers disobeyed the true and living God (Ex. 20:1–6) and robbed Him of the glory He deserved. God saved Daniel because it brought great glory to His name and also because he still had more work to do. God’s servants are immortal until their work is done.

However, it must be pointed out that not every faithful servant of the Lord is delivered from trial and death in some miraculous way. Hebrews 11:1–35 names some great men and women of faith and describes their achievements, but verses 36–40 describe the “others” who also had great faith and yet were persecuted and martyred. These unnamed “others” had just as much faith as the people in the first group but were not granted special deliverance. James the brother of John was martyred, but Peter was delivered from prison (Acts 12), yet both men were apostles and faithful servants of the Lord. It’s unwise to draw conclusions from consequences lest we end up making wrong evaluations (Acts 14:8–20; 28:1–6).