Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

6:5 Daniel's faithfulness earned him some powerful enemies, either through jealousy or because his incorruptibility restricted their opportunities to enhance their income. Yet his character was such that they knew that the only way to bring a charge against him was in the area of the law of his God.

6:6-7 The presidents and the satraps came together by agreement (Aramaic regash); the equivalent Hebrew (Hb. ragash) depicts the nations "noisily assembling" against the Lord and his anointed (Ps. 2:1). They went to King Darius with a proposal for a new law: for the next thirty days no one was to petition any god or man . . . except the king himself; all offenders would be cast into the den of lions. Darius likely viewed this law as a political rather than a religious edict, seeing it as a means of uniting the realm by identifying himself as the sole mediator between the people and the gods, the source of their every blessing.

6:8 the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked (cf. Est. 1:19; 8:8). This motif does not mean that the Medo-Persian Empire never changed its mind. Yet the concept of the king's word as inflexible and unchanging law underlined the fixed nature of the king's decisions. While it was always possible for the king to issue a contrary counter-edict, to do so would result in an enormous loss of face.

6:10 Daniel continued his practice of prostrating himself three times daily toward Jerusalem, consciously fulfilling the scenario described in Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:46-50). This practice must have made it easy for the satraps and presidents to gather the evidence necessary to convict Daniel.

6:12 When his officials approached King Darius, they first asked the king to reaffirm the unchangeability of the decree, to make it hard for him to circumvent it. In spite of the king's efforts to deliver Daniel, he was forced to acknowledge the fact that his decree condemned Daniel to the den of lions (v. 16).

6:16-18 To make sure that no outside help was given to Daniel, the mouth of the den was covered with a stone, which was then sealed with the signet rings of the king and his lords. Humanly speaking, Daniel was left all alone to face his fate. Yet Darius's last words to Daniel pointed to a higher source of help: "May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!"

6:19-23 At break of day, Darius arose and hurried to the lions' den, where he discovered that Daniel had spent a far more comfortable night surrounded by wild animals than Darius did in his royal luxury. Because Daniel trusted in his God and was found blameless before him, God sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions so that they were unable to hurt him. The meaning of Daniel's name, "God is my Judge," was thus affirmed.

6:24 After Daniel's release, those who had schemed against him were thrown to the same lions. This was in accord with the common principle in the ancient Near East that anyone who made a false charge against someone else should be punished by receiving the same fate they had sought for their victim (cf. Deut. 19:16-21). In line with the ruthless practice of the Persians, the sentence was also carried out on the families of the guilty men: their children, and their wives. The experience of the conspirators in the den was the exact opposite of Daniel's: they were seized and killed by the lions before they even hit the bottom of the den.