Welcome back to my study/review of The Book of Daniel. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Daniel 6:6-14
6 Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! 7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.
10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. 11 Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. 12 Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the injunction, “O king! Did you not sign an injunction, that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 13 Then they answered and said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”
14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him
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One of the most famous stories from the Bible really gets going here. Daniel’s enemies scheme to have him eaten alive by hungry lions. Is it strange that this is usually taught to small children?
The jealous high officials and satraps set a trap for Daniel and also for Darius. In a way, it is very bold inasmuch as they know Daniel is in favor with Darius. The moment Daniel is arrested, Darius will know that these men manipulated him into this outcome by having him sign a law that was designed to entrap Daniel. They’re relying on his unwillingness to admit or acknowledge that he was manipulated to protect themselves.
That does not seem terribly forward thinking in my opinion. We’ll see if they get away with it. Let’s jump right in with a note from The Pulpit Commentaries, starting at verse 6:
Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not, Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree. The Septuagint, in regard to those verses, is much briefer, and reveals a better text. “Then those men came and said before the king, We have made a decree and a statute, that any man who offereth prayer or presents petition to any god for the space of thirty days, save only to Darius the king, shall be cast into the den of lions; and thus Darius decreed, and confirmed it.” The fact that requests to uther men are not forbidden is to be observed. The long catalogue of officials is omitted; the whole conspiracy is the work of Daniel’s co-presidents. Theodotion and the Peshitta are in practical agreement with the Massoretic text. To understand the point of this decree, that seems to us so absurd, and comprehend how any one with sufficient mental vigour left to be placed by Cyrus as governor in Babylon could be led to yield to confirm it, we must recognize the state of matters in Babylon. During the reign of Nabunahid there had been many religious changes. The seclusion of the monarch had led to the neglect of many of the regular rites of the gods of Babil. The policy he pursued of bringing the gods of various provinces to Babylon tended, as did the similar policy in Rome, to draw off from the importance of the national religion by forming rival cults. One of the first acts of Cyrus’s reign was to order the replacing of these deities in their ancient shrines. This would necessarily be most distasteful to the worshippers of these imported deities. There would be much murmuring among the huge heterogeneous population; and there would be thus a well-grounded fear of a religious riot. A bold soldier as Gobryas (Darius) was, he probably was but a timid ruler, and nothing would he dread more than a religious riot. Would it not be a plausible way of meeting this difficulty to order for one month all worship to cease? The British Government in India regulates the religion of the inhabitants as summarily, forbidding religious observances that are liable to cause excitement in votaries of rival creeds. Thus Moses assigned, as a reason for refusing to sacrifice in Egypt, the wrath of the Egyptians (Exodus 8:26). The offering of a prayer among heathen peoples generally meant the offering of sacrifices, also accompanied possibly by processions. That the decree was made by Darius in the absence of his favourite minister might have two reasons: either from the fact that the word used (hargishoo) implies that the presidents rushed in tumultuously into the royal presence; that there was an emergency which must be met by instant action; or that, being a weak man, he did not wish his other counsellors to think that he was so under the influence of this Jew that he could do nothing without first consulting him; so, by way of showing his independence, he signed the decree. As for the practical deification of himself required from the subject races, that would not appear to him a matter of importance. It might even seem to him as the surest way of doing away with the rancour of religious rivalries to give these conflicting creeds a common object. He, Gobryas, was the representative of Cyrus, in whom deity was incarnate, therefore let them worship him in his representative capacity. That Daniel should be affected by this decree might easily never occur to Gobryas Jewish worship, now that the temple at Jerusalem was in ruins, must have become very much the synagogue worship of the present day. A worship that had neither idols nor sacrifices, neither temple nor altar, would seem to the Babylonians, and for that matter to the Medians and Persians also, as much the same as atheism. Christianity seemed so to the Roman Government. Darius, then, would readily think that Daniel could make no serious objection to this order That Daniel always spoke of a God in heaven did not matter much, since, to all appearance, he never worshipped him. Some have maintained that the punishment was an impossible one. It is certain that Asshur-bani-pal inflicted a similar punishment on Saulmugina, a rebel King of Babylon, and did it in honour of the gods.£ The main objection has been urged from the mistaken assumption that the text implies that the lions’ den was a bottle shaped dungeon. There is nothing in the narrative that necessitates this. In regard to the decree, there is reference to the “laws of the Medea and Persians,” “the Medea” being placed first. It has been attributed to court flattery, as Darius was a Merle; probably, however, there may be another explanation. The small canton of Ansan, over which Cyrus was king, lay between Elam and Media, but belonged more to the former than to the latter of these countries. Both countries bad been overrun by a nomadic race, the Manda, under Astyages, who had overthrown Cyaxarcs the King of Media. Against Astyages Cyrus rebelled, and gathered to him the Medea, Elamites, and other cognate races. Dr. Winckler thinks that, on his victory over Astyages, Cyrus assumed the name Persian, Parsu, from his race. The name Parsua appears in connection with the Medea in an inscription of Shalmaneser, where it seems to indicate a small kingdom occupying much the same geographical posit;on as Ansan. By taking this old name, not impossibly Cyrus avoided making the Medea feel themselves subject to the Elamites, or the Elamites to the Medea, or either to the little kingdom of Ansan. The Median had comparatively recently been an imperial power, therefore its laws and constitution would be placed before the more recently prominent Persian. One thing that must be observed is that, while the writer of Daniel mentions Medea separate from Persians, he mentions them conjointly. Had the writer been under the delusion attributed to him by all critical interpreters, that the Median Empire came between the Babylonian and the Persian, he would not have represented the Median courtiers as saying anything about the Persians or their laws; the Medes, and the Medea alone, would be considered. According to the Greek account, from which it is alleged Daniel drew his information, Persia was a small, undeveloped country before Cyrus raised it to empire. What right, then, would it have to have its laws mentioned in the same breath with those of imperial Media? If, however, Cyrus had been raised to such power, so as to be able to encounter successfully Astyages and his Scythian hordes by the adhesion to his cause of the Medea, the laws of the Medea might well get a preference, as the Medea were, in all probability, more numerous than the Persians, though the laws of the Persians would be mentioned. The claim that these laws were immutable must be regarded as on a par with several other Eastern exaggerations. Signed the writing and the decree. The reading of the Septuagint seems superior, “And so King Darius decreed (ἔστησε), and confirmed it.” At the same time, the verb resham, translated “sign,” really means “engrave,” and therefore might naturally enough be used for affixing a seal to a clay tablet; only hetham is the word usually used for “sealing” a document. Behrmann thinks it does not refer to the signature of the sovereign, but to the engraving the decree on the clay. If we imagine yeqeem to have fallen out before “sara, we have a reading not unlike the LXX. In the seventh verse there is a list of officials omitted from the Septuagint; it is almost identical in members with that which we find in Daniel 3:1-30; but in a slightly different order, only the sareqeen are added and the edargazereen omitted.
The note here is interesting, giving a lot of detail about the how and why that this decree was signed, and why Darius would have signed it without first consulting Daniel – to whom he was close. We again see some textual variance between the LXX and teh MT, but not one that changes the story to an important degree. We can assume with some confidence that the LXX reflects the earlier version of the tale. Continuing to verse 10, in Ellicott’s Bible Commentary:
(10) Toward Jerusalem.—On the custom of praying thus see 1 Kings 8:33; 1 Kings 8:35; Psalms 5:7; Psalms 28:2; and on prayer at the intervals mentioned here, see Psalms 55:17. There is nothing ostentatious in Daniel’s prayer. He removed the lattices (see Ezekiel 40:16) from his window, that he might see as far as possible in the direction of Jerusalem, and then continued his devotions just as though the king’s decree had not been recorded. The prophet must by this time have been close upon ninety years of age, but still his faith is as firm and unwavering as that of his three companions many years before.
One aspect of this story that I did not appreciate as much when I was younger is that Daniel went to the top level of his house, in front of an open window, to violate the law in front of anyone who might be looking. He almost certainly knew that this decree was aimed at himself, and that people would be looking, so he knew that this would all come to a head sooner rather than later. He wasn’t afraid. Continuing at TPC:
Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. The Septuagint reading is very different, “And they watched Daniel, and found him praying three times a day every day.” It is difficult to decide which is the preferable reading, and almost as difficult to deduce the one reading from the other. Thcodotion has a reading akin to that of the Septuagint, “Then those men watched, and found Daniel praying, and. making entreaty to his God.” This is akin to the Septuagint at the beginning, but is close to the Massoretic at the end. The Peshitta is in close agreement with Theodotion. It seems more in accordance with the plan of these presidents that they should not, as the Massoretic text asserts, rush tumultuously into the house of Daniel, but rather, as the three versions represent them doing, setting a watch, and then, when information reached them of Daniel’s habits, acting accordingly. Nothing in the narrative makes it probable that there was a general assembling of the governors against Daniel; it was the action of his colleagues in the presidency.
Given his history, a wiser person might be nervous over the fact that Daniel was not nervous. There is some irony, then, in the fact that the people opposing Daniel carried the title “wise men.” Continuing, still in TPC:
Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king’s decree; Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not, Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. The version of the Septuagint, as usual, differs from the Massoretic text,” Then these men interceded (ἐνέτυχον) with the king, and said, King Darius, didst thou not confirm a decree that no man should offer prayer or present petition to any god for thirty days, save only to thee, O king, otherwise he should be cast into the den of lions? And the king answered and said, The word is clear, and the decree remaineth. And they said to him, We adjure thee by the laws of the Medes and the Persians that thou change not the commandment, nor be an accepter of persons (μηδὲ θαυμάσῃς προσῶπον), nor diminish aught of the thing spoken, but punish the man that abideth not by this decree. And he said, This will I do, according as ye have said, and the thing is confirmed (ἔστηκε) by me. And they said, Behold, we found Daniel, thy friend, praying, and making entreaty before his God three times a day. [And the king, being grieved, spake to cast Daniel into the den of lions, according to the decree which he decreed against him.] Then the king grieved exceedingly concerning Daniel, and laboured (ἐβοήθει) till the going down of the sun to deliver him out of the hands of the satraps.” One of the verses here seems to have been an addition most probably to the Aramaic text, as the Semitic spirit and construction shine through. There is, further, an obvious instance of doublet; the clause within square brackets has all the appearance of being a marginal note summarizing the contents of the verse. The words, “out of the hands of the satraps,” have been added as explanatory. Theodotion is in practical agreement with the Massoretictext. The Peshitta differs in some minor points, e.g. inserting the common Eastern mode of addressing royalty, “O king, live for ever.” The clause, “concerning the decree,” is omitted; the other differences are unimportant. The fact that his Jewish origin is put in the front of their accusation of him indicates what Daniel’s great offence was. The Septuagint places the fact that he was the king’s friend in that position. It seems little likely that even to a satrap would any courtier venture to bring forward a taunting reference to his friendships. The king is caught in a trap; but no courtier would venture to press his advantage, lest he himself be taken at unawares. Darius’s efforts to save Daniel are to be noted. His effort would most probably be directed to find some way out of the constitutional dilemma into which he had been entrapped. His subordinate position, occupying the place of King of Babylon merely for a season instead of Cyrus, would make it more difficult for him to override any constitutional maxim. In the Septuagint the presidents seem to compel the king by moral arguments—a thing float seems possible, though also a feature that might very naturally be added to the story. In the Massoretic text there is an endeavor to poison the king against Daniel. Daniel has despised the king and his commandment. This is more natural than the conduct imputed to the presidents in the Septuagint. These efforts were not successful, as probably they scarcely expected they would be; the king is convinced of his own hastiness, and of their treachery also, but not of any failure on the part of Daniel, in due respect to him, as the representative of the great king.
So the King is mad at himself, but he also is mad at the people who tricked him. The gamble on the part of the tricksters is that the King’s hands would be tied and that the benefit (to their group) of eliminating Daniel is worth the cost that might be inflicted upon them for so doing. From this, we can guess that Daniel is not one of many Jews leading in Babylon under Darius, but is unique. If he were to go, then there would be nobody else from the Judah captives to take his place. (Perhaps Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are no longer alive at this time, given how many years it has been since the arrival of the captives in Babylon.)
Darius is ultimately unable to escape his own written decree, as we’ll see in the next set of verses. However, it probably is to his benefit and credit that he tried.