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Daniel in the Lions' Den: The Law and the Lions · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

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  This is a story about a law that could not be taken back, and about a man who went
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  home and prayed anyway.
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  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
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  Our reading is from the book of Daniel, chapter six, verses ten to twenty-three,
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  in the World English Bible, British Edition. It begins after a decree has
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  already been signed. We'll go back and see how that happened, and then stay with the
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  king through a night when he can't sleep.
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  When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his
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  windows were open in his room towards Jerusalem) and he knelt on his knees three
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  times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.
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  Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and
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  supplication before his God. Then they came near, and spoke before the king
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  concerning the king’s decree: “Haven’t you signed a decree that every man who makes a
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  petition to any god or man within thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast
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  into the den of lions?”
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  The king answered, “This thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and
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  Persians, which doesn’t alter.”
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  Then they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is of the children
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  of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have
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  signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”
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  Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on
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  Daniel to deliver him; and he laboured until the going down of the sun to rescue
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  him.
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  Then these men assembled together to the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king,
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  that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no decree nor statute which
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  the king establishes may be changed.”
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  Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions.
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  The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will
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  deliver you.”
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  A stone was brought, and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with
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  his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed
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  concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting.
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  No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.
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  Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste to the den of
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  lions. When he came near to Daniel in the den, he cried with a troubled voice.
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  The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, is
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  your God, whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions?”
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  Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever!
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  My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt
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  me, because innocence was found in me before him; and also before you, O king, I
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  have done no harm.”
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  Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up
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  out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found
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  on him, because he had trusted in his God.
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  So that's the night. A stone, two seals, a king who fasts, and a voice in the morning
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  answering from the den. The part people remember is the lions.
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  The part the chapter lingers on is the law, and the man who made it, and can't
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  undo it.
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  First, where Daniel comes from, because chapter six treats him as already known.
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  The book opens in the third year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah.
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  Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieges Jerusalem. Among the captives taken for
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  service in the palace are Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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  The official over them gives them new names. Daniel's is Belteshazzar.
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  The book will follow him through more than one reign, in a foreign court, with a God
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  he will not trade away.
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  Where the book sits, and when it was written, are questions scholars don't
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  agree on, and I'll give you both sides without settling them.
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  In the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is in the Writings, the third part of the
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  scriptures, not among the prophets. In Christian Bibles it stands with the
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  prophets, after Ezekiel. On the date, traditional readers take the book as
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  coming from Daniel's own century, the sixth century BCE, in Babylon and then
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  Persia. Many modern scholars place its final form in the second century BCE, in
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  the years when the Seleucid king Antiochus the Fourth was pressing hard on Jewish
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  worship. Others think the stories in the first half are older than the visions in
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  the second half. The argument is serious, and it changes how you hear the book.
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  It doesn't change the story in front of us. A Jew in a foreign court refuses to
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  hide his prayer, and a king finds that his own law has trapped him.
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  Chapter six opens with a king named Darius. He sets one hundred and twenty
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  local governors over the kingdom, and over them three presidents, Daniel one of the
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  three. Daniel is distinguished above the rest, and the king thinks of setting him
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  over the whole kingdom. That success is the problem.
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  The other officials look for a fault in his work and can't find one.
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  He is faithful. There is no error in him. So they say, we won't find any occasion
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  against this Daniel unless we find it in the law of his God.
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  A note on this Darius, because the name is a famous difficulty.
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  The book calls him Darius, and later says Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius
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  and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Outside this book, historians don't have a
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  clear record of a king called Darius the Mede ruling Babylon between Belshazzar and
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  Cyrus. Some readers have tried to identify him with a governor under Cyrus, or with
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  Cyrus himself under another title. Others take the name as a sign that the story was
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  written long after the events, when the memory of those reigns had blurred.
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  I won't choose. The chapter's Darius is a king who likes Daniel, signs a foolish
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  law, and spends a night wishing he hadn't.
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  The officials come to him in a crowd, with flattery and a proposal.
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  For thirty days, anyone who asks a petition of any god or man, except of the
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  king, shall be thrown into the den of lions. They tell him to sign it so it
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  can't be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn't
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  alter. He signs. The trap is shut before Daniel has done anything but be good at
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  his work.
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  And Daniel, when he knows the writing is signed, goes home.
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  His windows are open toward Jerusalem. He kneels three times a day, and prays, and
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  gives thanks, as he did before. The chapter is careful about that "as he did
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  before." He doesn't invent a protest. He doesn't make the prayer louder for the
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  sake of the trap. He also doesn't close the window.
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  He does the ordinary thing, knowing what it will cost.
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  They find him, of course. They were always going to.
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  They go to the king and ask him to confirm his own law.
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  He says the thing is true. The law of the Medes and Persians doesn't alter.
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  Then they name Daniel, a captive from Judah, who makes his petition three times
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  a day. The king is very displeased. He sets his heart on delivering Daniel, and
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  he labours until sunset to rescue him. This is not a king who wants the sentence.
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  He spends the rest of the day looking for a door in a law that, by his own standard,
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  has no door.
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  They come back and say it again. No decree the king establishes may be changed.
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  So Daniel is brought and cast into the den. The king says, "Your God whom you
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  serve continually, he will deliver you." It sounds like a blessing.
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  It is also the king admitting he will not. A stone is laid on the mouth of the den.
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  The king seals it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords, so that
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  nothing can be changed concerning Daniel. Two seals.
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  His, and theirs. He can't sneak back in the dark and open it.
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  Neither can they.
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  Then the detail that makes him human. He goes to his palace and passes the night
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  fasting. No musical instruments are brought before him.
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  His sleep flees. The man who signed the law is the one awake.
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  Daniel is the one inside, and the book doesn't describe the night from in there.
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  It stays with the king, which is a strange choice, and a good one.
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  You watch the powerful man discover he is not as powerful as his law.
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  At dawn he goes in haste. The voice he uses is troubled.
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  "Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whom you serve continually, able
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  to deliver you from the lions?" He doesn't know. He has to ask.
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  And Daniel answers, with the courtly greeting first, "O king, live forever,"
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  and then the thing the king needs. "My God has sent his angel, and has shut the
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  lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me, because innocence was found in me before
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  him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm."
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  The king is exceedingly glad. Daniel is taken up out of the den.
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  No kind of harm is found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
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  The chapter has another verse after that, and it is a hard one.
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  I won't dress it up. The king commands that the men who accused Daniel be thrown
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  into the den, and the text includes their children and their wives.
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  The lions kill them. The book states this and moves on.
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  It doesn't ask whether the children had accused anyone.
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  Modern readers often stop on that verse, and they should.
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  A rescue story that ends with a family's death is not simple, and pretending it is
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  would be a lie about the text.
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  Then Darius writes to all the peoples and languages of his kingdom.
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  He wishes them peace, and he decrees that people should tremble before the God of
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  Daniel, the living God, whose kingdom will not be destroyed, who delivers and
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  rescues, and who delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.
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  The last line of the chapter is quiet after all that.
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  Daniel prospers in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
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  People of faith have heard this as a promise that God can shut a lion's mouth.
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  People reading it as literature have heard a story about integrity, and about a state
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  that writes a law it immediately wants to break. Both are in the chapter.
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  What the text itself praises is narrower than either slogan.
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  Innocence was found in him. He had done the king no harm.
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  And he had trusted. The officials were right about one thing only.
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  If you wanted to catch Daniel, you had to catch him at his prayers.
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  There was nowhere else to look.
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  The windows stay open toward Jerusalem. That small, repeated act is the whole
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  offence. Not a speech. Not a revolt. Three times a day, thanks, in the direction of a
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  city he is far from, under a law designed so that thanks would kill him.
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  The king seals the stone with his own ring, and in the morning he runs.
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  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
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  What would you keep doing, if a rule you could not change had been written to make
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  you stop?
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  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from the
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  World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
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  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.