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Daniel in the lions' den

Who Darius the Mede was, the law that could not be changed, why Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem, lions at royal courts, and the sealed stone.

Daniel 6 is one of the first Bible chapters many of us ever heard. It is true history from the court of a real empire, and its details fit its time well.

A new empire and an old servant

Babylon had fallen to Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC (Daniel 5). The new Medo-Persian rulers reorganised the old Babylonian lands, and Daniel 6 opens with that work: "It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes" (Daniel 6:1). These were satraps, the king's chief officers over the provinces, and over them were three presidents, "of whom Daniel was first" (Daniel 6:2).

By now Daniel was an old man. He had been taken to Babylon in 605 BC among the young nobles of Judah (Daniel 1:3-4), most likely as a teenager, so he was probably in his early eighties. Even so, his rivals "could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful" (Daniel 6:4).

Who was Darius the Mede?

Daniel 5:31 says "Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." No inscription found so far outside the Bible uses that name, so several identifications have been suggested:

GotQuestions.org notes that "Darius" means "lord" and may be a title, and that Daniel 6:28, "So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian", shows the two ruling at once. Its view, which we follow, is that Cyrus most likely set this Darius over Babylon as viceroy. The question is not settled, but remember Belshazzar: he too was "missing" from history until the right cylinders were found.

The law of the Medes and Persians

The officials asked the king to decree that anyone who asked a petition "of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king" would be cast to the lions (Daniel 6:7):

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. (Daniel 6:8)

Once signed, not even the king could undo it. The book of Esther shows the same rule at the Persian court: "the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse" (Esther 8:8). Darius "laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him" (Daniel 6:14), but he could not.

Windows open toward Jerusalem

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. (Daniel 6:10)

Why toward Jerusalem? When Solomon dedicated the temple, he asked God to hear His people in captivity if they would "pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen" (1 Kings 8:48). The temple lay in ruins, but Daniel was praying God's promise.

Notice the words "as he did aforetime." Daniel did not start praying because of the crisis. As GotQuestions.org observes, he was fully loyal to every ruler over him until a ruler ordered him to disobey God. He just would not stop praying.

Lions and kings

No lions' den has been excavated at Babylon. But the setting is believable. Assyrian kings had lions caught and brought into enclosed arenas to hunt, as the seventh-century BC reliefs of Ashurbanipal from Nineveh, now in the British Museum, show. In Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar lined the Processional Way to the Ishtar Gate with more than 120 lions in glazed brick. A pit of captive lions at the king's court fits this world well.

The sealed stone and the empty tomb

And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel. (Daniel 6:17)

Very early the next morning the king hurried to the den, and Daniel answered: "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me" (Daniel 6:22).

Many teachers, including GotQuestions.org, see in Daniel's rescue a picture of the salvation Christ provides. A faithful man is condemned under an unchangeable law, a stone is sealed over the pit, and very early in the morning he is found alive. Centuries later the enemies of Jesus "made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch" (Matthew 27:66), and "very early in the morning the first day of the week" the women came to His tomb (Mark 16:2), and heard, "He is not here: for he is risen, as he said" (Matthew 28:6).

But the differences matter. Daniel was innocent of this charge, yet he was still a sinner who prayed "confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel" (Daniel 9:20). God kept him from death. Jesus had no sin at all, and He did not escape death: He went into it for us and rose again. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). Daniel's God is still "the living God, and stedfast for ever" (Daniel 6:26), and the One who shut the lions' mouths has opened the grave for all who trust His Son.

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