Daniel 6
Darius the Mede, the last king of Media, known to historians as Astyages, took the throne of the Medo-Persian empire. Together with Cyrus the Persian he had captured Babylon, and what had been the Babylonian empire ceased to exist.
The Babylonian government under Nebuchadnezzar practically centered in the king alone; all the power was in his hands. The Medo-Persian empire which followed was governed by kings with a large measure of power, but limited by laws which could not be changed; the responsibilities committed to 120 princes and 3 presidents under Darius seem to have been without counterpart in the Babylonian system.
It was these presidents and princes who led the king unwittingly, in their jealousy of Daniel, into making a decree which, apart from God’s intervention, would have cost that faithful man his life.
Daniel, in all the glimpses which the Scriptures give of him, from youth, when carried off to Babylon, to old age, under Darius the Mede, lived for God, let the circumstances be what they might. When the jealous overseers sought to find occasion against him they failed (verse 4), and they concluded that he could only be got rid of by reason of his faithfulness to God.
With a flattering proposal they came before Darius; he was for thirty days to take the place of God, to have all the prayers and petitions of his subjects directed to himself. If, as we must suppose, Darius was a stranger to the true and living God, the crafty scheme of these servants, of the devil would find him an easy victim. Their plan, indeed, seems to have met with quick success (verse 9).
And now we are directed to observe the behavior of Daniel, he would honor the king’s decrees, but he must give God His place, which the king had now usurped; it was a question of God or the king, which? The prophet was therefore on his knees pouring out his heart to his God just as before the decree was written. The listening presidents and princes came to Daniel’s house to make sure of his praying, and betook themselves to Darius, confident now of the success of their scheme.
The king-evidently had not considered Daniel in connection with his decree; thinking very highly of him (verse 3) and knowing him to be a faithful servant of the living-God (verses 16-20), he now tried his best to save him from the horrible death which that decree provided. It was in vain; the law must stand, and the presidents and princes made it quite plain that they intended to see Daniel cast into the lion’s den. It was done; but at break of day the king, after a sleepless night, went in haste to the place, hoping that Daniel might, in sonic miraculous fashion, have been preserved.
“Hath thy God, whom thou servest continually, been able to save thee from the lions?”, is his mournful inquiry.
Overjoyed at Daniel’s answer from the lion’s den (verses 21, 22), Darius ordered his release, and the presidents and princes having-shown very plainly that they had deliberately planned Daniel’s death, the king commanded that they and their families be committed to the ferocious animals. Then he published a decree which betokens stronger convictions than those of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 3:2.
ML 06/21/1936