Daniel 6 Study Notes

6:14-15 The king was very displeased not because Daniel had defied him but because he came to understand that the true purpose of the law was to trap Daniel, whom he respected. We can only imagine what strategies the king tried in order to rescue Daniel, but the administrators would not be put off.

6:16 The Persians used mutilation by lions as one of several brutal forms of execution. It was Daniel’s continual service to God that caused him to be cast into the lions’ den; now the king hoped that this devotion would cause God to deliver Daniel. The word for den can also be translated as “pit.”

6:17-18 Daniel was cast into a pit over which a stone was placed and sealed with the signet rings of the king and his nobles. King Darius then spent the night fasting and presumably praying for Daniel.

6:19-20 Note the question on the mind of Darius was the ability of Daniel’s God.

6:21-23 God uses angels to accomplish his purposes, including protection of his people (Ps 34:7; 91:11; Heb 1:14). He had done so for Daniel’s three friends in the furnace many years earlier (Dn 3:25). As on that occasion, this may have been an angel or even the angel of the Lord (i.e., a preincarnate appearance of the Messiah). Daniel was not claiming perfection in declaring that he was found innocent before God. Rather, Daniel claimed that his allegiance to God made him guiltless in this matter. It was Daniel’s faith in God, not his works, that brought him deliverance from the lions.

6:24 Although executing family members is exceptionally cruel, this was a common Persian practice according to Herodotus (Histories, 3.119).

6:25-27 Just as King Nebuchadnezzar before him, King Darius issued a decree to every people, nation, and language (cp. 4:2), declaring praise to the God of Daniel. Darius recognized the greatness of God: that he is living and eternal, sovereign, all-powerful, and able to deliver his people. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Darius came to a saving faith here. He instead accepted the God of Israel as just one of many gods.

6:28 Some maintain that this verse draws a distinction between Darius and Cyrus, such that Darius could only be identified with Gubaru and not with Cyrus the Persian (see note at 5:31). But it is also possible to translate this verse as “during the reign of Darius, even Cyrus the Persian.”