Daniel 6:8-18

8 Your Majesty, issue this decree, and sign it. According to the law of the Medes and Persians no one could change it or repeal it."

9 So Darius signed the written decree.

10 When Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went to his house. An upper room in his house had windows that opened in the direction of Jerusalem. Three times each day he got down on his knees and prayed to his God. He had always praised God this way.

11 One of those times the men came in as a group and found Daniel praying and pleading to his God.

12 Then they went and spoke to the king about his decree. [They asked,] "Didn't you sign a decree which stated that for 30 days whoever asks for anything from any god or person except you, Your Majesty, will be thrown into a lions' den?" The king answered, "That's true. According to the law of the Medes and Persians the decree can't be repealed."

13 They replied, "Your Majesty, Daniel, one of the captives from Judah, refuses to obey your order or the decree that you signed. He prays three times each day."

14 The king was very displeased when he heard this. He tried every way he could think of to save Daniel. Until sundown he did everything he could to rescue him.

15 Then Daniel's accusers gathered in front of the king. They said to him, "Remember, Your Majesty, the Medes and Persians have a law that no decree or statute the king makes can be changed."

16 So the king gave the order, and Daniel was brought to him and thrown into the lions' den. The king told Daniel, "May your God, whom you always worship, save you!"

17 A stone was brought and placed over the opening of the den. The king put his seal on the stone, using his ring and the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation could not be changed.

18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night without food or company. He couldn't get to sleep.

Daniel 6:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL 6

This chapter gives an account of Daniel's being cast into the den of lions, and the causes of it, and the steps leading to it; and also of his wonderful deliverance out of it, and what followed upon that. It first relates how Daniel was made by Darius first president of the princes of the kingdom, which drew their envy upon him, Da 6:1-4, and that these princes finding they could get no occasion against him, but in religion, proposed to the king to make a law forbidding prayer to any god for thirty days, which they got established, Da 6:5-9, and Daniel breaking this law, is accused by them to the king; and the penalty, casting into the den of lions, is insisted on to be executed, Da 6:10-13, which the king laboured to prevent, but in vain; and Daniel is cast to the lions, to the great grief of the king, Da 6:14-18, who visited the den the next morning, and to his great joy found Daniel alive, Da 6:19-23, upon which, by the law of retaliation, his accusers, their wives, and children, were cast into it, Da 6:24, and an edict was published by the king, commanding all in his dominions to fear and reverence the God of Daniel, Da 6:25-28.