Daniel 6 Footnotes

6:8 Critics have challenged Daniel’s statement that “a law of the Medes and Persians” was “irrevocable” and could not “be changed” (Est 1:19; 8:8), but Diodorus Siculus (17.30) reported that Darius III (336–330 BC) executed an innocent man because he could not change what had been decreed by royal authority. The phrase “a law of the Medes and Persians” (vv. 8,12,15; Est 8:8; see note on Est 1:19), shows that Daniel knew the Medo-Persian Empire existed jointly, and not as a separate Median Empire followed by a Persian Empire as some critics allege (see note on Dn 2:31-43).