dan 6:0
Daniel in the Den of Lions
Darius, the king of the Medes, had it in view to place Daniel as chief officer over the whole of his realm, and thereby he awakened against Daniel (vv. 1-6 [Dan 5:31]) the envy of the high officers of state. In order to frustrate the king's intention and to set Daniel aside, they procured an edict from Darius, which forbade for the space of thirty days, on the pain of death, prayer to be offered to any god or man, except to the king (vv. 7-10 [Dan 6:6]). Daniel, however, notwithstanding this, continued, according to his usual custom, to open the windows of his upper room, and there to pray to God three times a day. His conduct was watched, and he was accused of violating the king's edict, and thus he brought upon himself the threatened punishment of being thrown into the den of lions (vv. 11-18 [Dan 6:10]). But he remained uninjured among the lions; whereupon the king on the following morning caused him to be brought out of the dean, and his malicious accusers to be thrown into it (vv. 19-25 [Dan 6:18]), and then by an edict he commanded his subjects to reverence the God of Daniel, who did wonders (vv. 26-28 [Dan 6:25]). As a consequence of this, Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and of Cyrus the Persian (v. 29 [Dan 6:28]).
From the historic statement of this chapter, that Darius the Mede took the Chaldean kingdom when he was about sixty-two years old (v. 1 [Dan 5:31]), taken in connection with the closing remark (v. 29 [Dan 6:28]) that it went well with Daniel during the reign of Darius and of Cyrus the Persian, it appears that the Chaldean kingdom, after its overthrow by the Medes and Persians, did not immediately pass into the hands of Cryus, but that between the last of the Chaldean kings who lost the kingdom and the reign of Cyrus the Persian, Darius, descended from a Median family, held the reins of government, and that not till after him did Cyrus mount the throne of the Chaldean kingdom, which had been subdued by the Medes and Persians. This Median Darius was a son of Ahasuerus (Dan 9:1), of the seed of the Medes; and according to Dan 11:1, the angel Gabriel stood by him in his first year, which can mean no more than that the Babylonian kingdom was not taken without divine assistance.
This Darius the Mede and his reign are not distinctly noticed by profane historians. Hence the modern critics have altogether denied his existence, or at least have called it in question, and have thence derived an argument against the historical veracity of the whole narrative.
According to Berosus and Abydenus (Fragmenta, see p. 163), Nabonnedus, the last Babylonian king, was, after the taking of Babylon, besieged by Cyrus in Borsippa, where he was taken prisoner, and then banished to Carmania. After this Cyrus reigned, as Alex. Polyhistor says, nine years over Babylon; while in the Fragments preserved by Eusebius in his Chron. Armen., to the statement that Cyrus conferred on him (i.e., nabonet), when he had obtained possession of Babylon, the margraviate of the province of Carmania, it is added, "Darius the king removed (him) a little out of the country." Also in the astronomical Canon of Ptolemy, Nabonadius the Babylonian is at once followed by the list of Persian kings, beginning with Κῦρος, who reigned nine years.
When we compare with this the accounts given by the Greek historians, we find that Herodotus (i. 96-103, 106ff.) makes mention of a succession of Median kings: Dejoces, Phraortes, Cyaxares, and Astyages. The last named, who had no male descendants, had a daughter, Mandane, married to a Persian Cambyses. Cyrus sprung from this marriage. Astyages, moved with fear lest this son of his daughter should rob him of his throne, sought to put him to death, but his design was frustrated. When Cyrus had reached manhood, Harpagus, an officer of the court of Astyages, who out of revenge had formed a conspiracy against him, called upon him at the head of the Persians to take the kingdom from his grandfather Astyages. Cyrus obeyed, moved the Persians to revolt from the Medes, attacked Astyages at Pasargada, and took him prisoner, but acted kindly toward him till his death; after which he became king over the realm of the Medes and Persians, and as such destroyed first the Lydian, and then the Babylonian kingdom. He conquered the Babylonian king, Labynetus the younger, in battle, and then besieged Babylon; and during a nocturnal festival of the Babylonians he penetrated the city by damming off the water of the Euphrates, and took it. Polyaenus, Justin, and others follow in its details this very fabulous narrative, which is adorned with dreams and fictitious incidents. Ctesias also, who records traditions of the early history of Media altogether departing from Herodotus, and who names nine kings, yet agrees with Herodotus in this, that Cyrus overcame Astyages and dethroned him. Cf. The different accounts given by Greek writers regrading the overthrow of the Median dominion by the Persians in M. Duncker's Ges. d. Alterh. ii. p. 634ff., 3rd ed.
Xenophon in the Cyropaedia reports somewhat otherwise regarding Cyrus. According to him, the Median king Astyages, son of Cyaxares I, gave his daughter Mandane in marriage to Cambyses, the Persia king, who was under the Median supremacy, and that Cyrus was born of this marriage (i. 2. 1). When Cyrus arrived at man's estate Astyages died, and was succeeded on the Median throne by his son Cyaxares II, the brother of Mandane (i. 5. 2). When, after this, the Lydian king Croesus concluded a covenant with the king of the Assyrians (Babylonians) having in view the overthrow of the Medes and Persians, Cyrus received the command of the united army of the Medes and Persians (iii. 3. 20ff.); and when, after a victorious battle, Cyaxares was unwilling to proceed further, Cyrus carried forward the war by his permission, and destroyed the hots of Croesus and the Assyrians, on hearing of which, Cyaxares, who had spent the night at a riotous banquet, fell into a passion, wrote a threatening letter to Cyrus, and ordered the Medes to be recalled (iv. 5. 18). But when they declared, on the statement given by Cyrus, their desire to remain with him (iv. 5. 18), Cyrus entered on the war against Babylon independently of Cyaxares (v. 3. 1). Having driven the Babylonian king back upon his capital, he sent a message to Cyaxares, desiring him to come that he might decide regarding the vanquished and regarding the continuance of the war (v. 5. 1). Inasmuch as all the Medes and the confederated nations adhered to Cyrus, Cyaxares was under the necessity of taking this step. He came to the camp of Cyrus, who exhibited to him his power by reviewing before him his whole host; he then treated him kindly, and supplied him richly from the stores of the plunder he had taken (v. 5. 1ff.). After this the war against Babylonia was carried on in such a way, that Cyaxares, sitting on the Median throne, presided over the councils of war, but Cyrus, as general, had the conduct of it (vi. 1. 6); and after he had conquered Sardes, taken Croesus the king prisoner (vii. 2. 1), and then vanquished Hither Asia, he returned to Babylon (vii. 4. 17), and during a nocturnal festival of the Babylonians took the city, whereupon the king of Babylon was slain (vii. 5. 15-33). After the conquest of Babylon the army regarded Cyrus as king, and he began to conduct his affairs as if he were king (vii. 5. 37); but he went however to Media, to present himself before Cyaxares. He brought presents to him, and showed him that there was a house and palace ready for him in Babylon, where he might reside when he went thither (viii. 5. 17f.). Cyaxares gave him his daughter to wife, and along with her, as her dowry, the whole of Media, for he had no son (viii. 5. 19). Cyrus now went first to Persian, and arranged that his father Cambyses should retain the sovereignty of it so long as he lived, and that then it should fall to him. He then returned to Media, and married the daughter of Cyaxares (viii. 5. 28). He next went to Babylon, and placed satraps over the subjugated peoples, etc. (viii. 6. 1), and so arranged that he spent the winter in Babylon, the spring in Susa, and the summer in Ecbatana (viii. 6. 22). Having reached an advanced old age, he came for the seventh time during his reign to Persia, and died there, after he had appointed his son Cambyses as his successor (viii. 7. 1ff.).
This narrative by Xenophon varies from that of Herodotus in the following principal points: - (1) According to Herodotus, the line of Median kings closes with Astyages, who had no son; Xenophon, on the contrary, speaks of Astyages as having been succeeded by his son Cyaxares on the throne. (2) According to Herodotus, Cyrus was related to the Median royal house only as being the son of the daughter of Astyages, and had a claim to the Median throne only as being the grandson of Astyages; Xenophon, on the other hand, says that he was related to the royal house of Media, not only as being the grandson of Astyages and nephew of Cyaxares II, but also as having received in marriage the daughter of his uncle Cyaxares, and along with her the dowry of the Median throne. (3) According to Herodotus, Cyrus took part in the conspiracy formed by Harpagus against Astyages, slew his grandfather in battle, and took forcible possession of the dominion over the Medes; on the contrary Xenophon relates that, though he was at variance with Cyaxares, he became again reconciled to him, and not only did not dethrone him, but permitted him to retain royal dignity even after the overthrow of Babylon, which was not brought about with his co-operation.
Of these discrepancies the first two form no special contradiction. Xenophon only communicates more of the tradition than Herodotus, who, according to his custom, makes mention only of the more celebrated of the rulers, passing by those that are less so,
(Note: Solere Herodotum praetermissis mediocribus hominibus ex longa regum serie nonnisi unum alterumve memorare reliquis eminentiorem, et aliunde constat et ipsa Babyloniae historia docet, et qua unius Nitocris reginae mentionem injicit, reliquos reges omnes usque ad Labynetum, ne Nebucadnezare quidem excepto, silentio transti (i. 185-187). - Ges. Thes. p. 350.)
and closes the list of Median kings with Astyages. Accordingly, in not mentioning Cyaxares II, he not only overlooks the second relationship Cyrus sustained to the Median royal house, but also is led to refer the tradition that the last of the Median kings had no male descendant to Astyages. The third point only presents an actual contradiction between the statements of Herodotus and those of Xenophon, viz., that according to Herodotus, Cyrus by force of arms took the kingdom from his grandfather, overcame Astyages in a battle at Pasargada, and dethroned him; while according to Xenophon, the Median kingdom first fell to Cyrus by his command of the army, and then as the dowry of his wife. Shall we now on this point decide, with v. Leng., Hitzig, and others, in favour of Herodotus and against Xenophon, and erase Cyaxares II from the list not only of the Median kings, but wholly from the page of history, because Herodotus and Ctesias have not made mention of him? Has then Herodotus or Ctesias alone recorded historical facts, and that fully, and Xenophon in the Cyropaedia fabricated only a paedagogic romance destitute of historical veracity? All thorough investigators have testified to the very contrary, and Herodotus himself openly confesses (i. 95) that he gives only the sayings regarding Cyrus which appeared to him to be credible; and yet the narrative, as given by him, consists only of a series of popular traditions which in his time were in circulation among the Medes, between two and three hundred years after the events. Xenophon also has gathered the historic material for his Cyropaedia only from tradition, but from Persian tradition, in which, favoured by the reigning dynasty, the Cyrus-legend, interwoven with the end of the Median independence and the founding of the Persian sovereignty, is more fully transmitted than among the Medes, whose national recollections, after the extinction of their dynasty, were not fostered. If we may therefore expect more exact information in Xenophon than in Herodotus, yet it is imaginable that Xenophon transformed the narrative of the rebellion by Cyrus and his war against Cyaxares into that which he has recorded as to the relation he sustained towards Cyaxares, in order that he might wipe out this moral stain from the character of his hero. But this supposition would only gain probability under the presumption of what Hitzig maintains, if it were established: "If, in Cyrop. viii. 5. 19, the Median of his own free will gave up his country to Cyrus, Xenophon's historical book shows, on the contrary, that the Persians snatched by violence the sovereignty from the Medes (Anab. iii. 4. 7, 11, 12);" but in the Anab. l.c. Xenophon does not say this, but (8) only, ὅτε παρὰ Μήδων τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐλάμβανον Πέρσαι.
(Note: Concerning the expression ἐλάμβανον τὴν ἀρχὴν , Dindorf remarks: "Verbum hoc Medos sponte Persarum imperio subjectos significat, quanquam reliqua narratio seditionem aliquam Larissensium arguere videatur. Igitur hic nihil est dissensionis inter Cyropaediam et Anabasin ... . Gravius est quod Xenophon statim in simili narratione posuit, ὅτε ἀπώλεσαν τὴν ἀρχὴν ὑπὸ Περσῶν Μῆδοι. Sed ibidem scriptor incolarum fidem antestatur." Thus the philologists are in their judgment of the matter opposed to the modern critics.)
Thus, supposing the statement that the cities of Larissa and Mespila were besieged by the Persia king at the time when the Persians gained the supremacy over the Medes were historically true, and Xenophon communicated here not a mere fabulam ab incolis narratam, yet Xenophon would not be found contradicting his Cyropaedia, since, as Kran. has well observed, "it can be nothing surprising that among a people accustomed to a native royal dynasty, however well founded Cyrus' claim in other respects might be, manifold commotions and insurrections should arise, which needed to be forcibly suppressed, so that thus the kingdom could be at the same time spoken of as conquered."
Add to this the decisive fact, that the account given by Herod. of Cyrus and the overthrow of Astyages, of which even Duncker, p. 649, remarks, that in its prompting motive "it awakens great doubts," is in open contradiction with all the well-established facts of Medo-Persian history. "All authentic reports testify that in the formation of Medo-Persia the Medes and the Persians are separated in a peculiar way, and yet bound to each other as kindred races. If Herod. is right, if Astyages was always attempting to take Cyrus' life, if Cyrus took the kingdom from Astyages by force, then such a relation between the 'Medes and Persians' (as it always occurs in the O.T.) would have been inconceivable; the Medes would not have stood to the Persians in any other relation than did the other subjugated peoples, e.g., the Babylonians" (Klief.). On the other hand, the account gives by Xenophon regarding Cyaxares so fully agrees with the narrative of Daniel regarding Darius the Mede, that, as Hitzig confesses, "the identity of the two is beyond a doubt." If, according to Xen., Cyrus conquered Babylon by the permission of Cyaxares, and after its overthrow not only offered him a "residence" there (Hitzig), but went to Media, presented himself before Cyaxares, and showed him that he had appointed for him in Babylon, in order that when he went thither εἰς οἰκεῖα κατάγεσθαι, i.e., in order that when, according to Eastern custom, he changed his residence he might have a royal palace there, so, according to Daniel, Darius did not overthrow the Chaldean kingdom, but received it (Dan 6:1), and was made king (המלך, Dan 9:1), namely, by Cyrus, who, according to the prophecies of Isaiah, was to overthrow Babylon, and, according to Daniel 6:29, succeeded Darius on the throne. The statement, also, that Darius was about sixty-two years old when he ascended the throne of the Chaldean kingdom, harmonizes with the report given by Xenophon, that when Cyaxares gave his daughter to Cyrus, he gave him along with her the kingdom of Media, because he had no male heir, and was so far advance din years that he could not hope to have now any son. Finally, even in respect of character the Cyaxares of Xen. resembles the Darius of Daniel. As the former describes the conduct of Cyrus while he revelled in sensual pleasures, so Darius is induced by his nobles to issue an edict without obtaining any clear knowledge as to its motive, and allows himself to be forced to put it into execution, however sorrowful he might be on account of its relation to Daniel.
After all this, there can be no reason to doubt the reign of Darius the Mede. But how long it lasted cannot be determined either from the book of Daniel, in which (Dan 9:1) only the first year of his reign is named, or from any other direct sources. Ptolemy, in his Canon, places after Nabonadius the reign of Cyrus the Persian for nine years. With this, the words of Xenophon, τὸ ἕβδομον ἐπὶ τῆς αὑτοῦ ἀρχῆς, which by supplying ἔτος after ἕβδομον are understood of even years' reign, are combined, and thence it is concluded that Cyaxares reigned two years. But the supplement of ἔτος is not warranted by the context. The supposition, however, that Darius reigned for two years over Babylon is correct. For the Babylonian kingdom was destroyed sixty-eight years after the commencement of the Exile. Since, then, the seventy years of the Exile were completed in the first year of the reign of Cyrus (Ch2 36:22.; Ezr 1:1), it follows that Cyrus became king two years after the overthrow of Babylon, and thus after Darius had reigned two years. See at Dan 9:1-2.
From the shortness of the reign of Darius, united with the circumstance that Cyrus destroyed Babylon and put an end to the Chaldean kingdom, it is easy to explain how the brief and not very independent reign of Darius might be quite passed by, not only by Herodotus and Ctesias, and all later Greek historians, but also by Berosus. Although Cyrus only as commander-in-chief of the army of Cyaxares had with a Medo-Persian host taken Babylon, yet the tradition might speak of the conquering Persian as the lord of the Chaldean kingdom, without taking at all into account the Median chief king, whom in a brief time Cyrus the conqueror succeeded on the throne. In the later tradition of the Persians,
(Note: "In the Babylonian tradition," Kranichfeld well remarks, "the memorable catastrophe of the overthrow of Babylon would, at all events, be joined to the warlike operations of Cyrus the conquering Persian, who, according to Xenoph., conducted himself in Babylon as a king (cf. Cyrop. vii. 5. 37), and it might be very indifferent to the question for whom he specially undertook the siege. The Persian tradition had in the national interest a reason for ignoring altogether the brief Median feudal sovereignty over Babylon, which, besides, was only brought about by the successful war of a Persian prince.")
from which all the historians known to us, with the exception of Berosus, have constructed their narrative, the Median rule over the Chaldean kingdom naturally sinks down into an insignificant place in relation to the independent government of the conqueror Cyrus and his people which was so soon to follow. The absence of all notice by Berosus, Herod., and Ctesias of the short Median reign can furnish no substantial ground for calling in question the statements of Xen. regarding Cyaxares, and of Daniel regarding the Median Darius, although all other witnesses for this were altogether of no force, which is indeed asserted, but has been proved by no one.
(Note: Of these witnesses the notice by Abydenus (Chron. Armen., Euseb.) already mentioned, p. 164, bears in its aphoristic brevity, "Darius the king removed him out of the land," altogether the stamp of an historical tradition, and can be understood only of Darius the Mede, since Eusebius has joined it to the report regarding the dethroning of the last Babylonian king by Cyrus. Also, the often-quoted lines of Aeschylus, Pers. 762-765, are in the simplest manner explained historically if by the work which the first Mede began and the second completed, and which yet brought all the glory to the third, viz., Cyrus, is understood the taking of Babylon; according to which Astyages is the first, Cyaxares II the second, and Cyrus the third, and Aeschylus agrees with Xenophon. Other interpretations, e.g., of Phraortes and Cyaxares I, agree with no single report. Finally, the Darics also give evidence for Darius the Mede, since of all explanations of the name of this gold coin (the Daric) its derivation from a king Darius is the most probable; and so also do the statements of the rhetorician Harpocration, the scholiast to Aristophanis Ecclesiaz. 589, and of Suidas, that the Δαρεικοί did not derive their name, as most suppose, from Darius the father of Xerxes, but from another and an older king (Darius), according to the declaration of Herodot. iv. 166, that Darius first struck this coin, which is not outweighed by his scanty knowledge of the more ancient history of the Medes and Persians.)
This result is not rendered doubtful by the fact that Xenophon calls this Median king Κυαξάρης and describes him as the son of Astyages, while, on the contrary, Daniel calls him Darjawesch (Darius) the son of Ahasuerus (Dan 9:1). The name Κυαξάρης is the Median Uwakshatra, and means autocrat; ̓Αστυάγης corresponds to the Median Ajisdahâka, the name of the Median dynasty, meaning the biting serpent (cf. Nieb. Gesch. Assurs, p. 175f.). דּריושׁ, Δαρεῖος, the Persian Dârjawusch, rightly explained by Herod. vi. 98 by the word ἐρξείης, means the keeper, ruler; and אחשׁורושׁ, Ahasverus, as the name of Xerxes, in the Persian cuneiform inscriptions Kschajârschâ, is certainly formed, however one may interpret the name, from Kschaja, kingdom, the title of the Persian rulers, like the Median "Astyages." The names Cyaxares and Darjawesch are thus related to each other, and are the paternal names of both dynasties, or the titles of the rulers. Xenophon has communicated to us the Median name and title of the last king; Daniel gives, as it appears, the Persian name and title which Cyaxares, as king of the united Chaldean and Medo-Persian kingdom, received and bore.
The circumstances reported in this chapter occurred, according to the statement in v. 29a, in the first of the two years' reign of Darius over Babylon. The matter and object of this report are related to the events recorded in Daniel 3. As in that chapter Daniel's companions are condemned to be cast into the fiery furnace on account of their transgression of the royal commandment enjoining them to fall down before the golden image that had been set up by Nebuchadnezzar, so here in this chapter Daniel himself is cast into the den of lions because of his transgression of the command enjoining that prayer was to be offered to no other god, but to the king only. The motive of the accusation is, in the one case as in the other, envy on account of the high position which the Jews had reached in the kingdom, and the object of it was the driving of the foreigners from their influential offices. The wonderful deliverance also of the faithful worshippers of God from the death which threatened them, with the consequences of that deliverance, are alike in both cases. But along with these similarities there appear also differences altogether corresponding to the circumstances, which show that historical facts are here related to us, and not the products of a fiction formed for a purpose. In Daniel 3 Nebuchadnezzar requires all the subjects of his kingdom to do homage to the image he had set up, and to worship the gods of his kingdom, and his command affords to the enemies of the Jews the wished-for opportunity of accusing the friends of Daniel of disobedience to the royal will. In Daniel 6, on the other hand, Darius is moved and induced by his great officers of state, whose design was to set Daniel aside, to issue the edict there mentioned, and he is greatly troubled when he sees the application of the edict to the case of Daniel. The character of Darius is fundamentally different from that of Nebuchadnezzar. The latter was a king distinguished by energy and activity, a perfect autocrat; the former, a weak prince and wanting in energy, who allowed himself to be guided and governed by his state officers. The command of Nebuchadnezzar to do homage to his gods is the simple consequence of the supremacy of the ungodly world-power; the edict extorted from Darius, on the contrary, is a deification of the world-power for the purpose of oppressing the true servants of God. The former command only places the gods of the world-power above the living God of heaven and earth; the latter edict seeks wholly to set aside the recognition of this God, if only for a time, by forbidding prayer to be offered to Him. This tyranny of the servants of the world-power is more intolerable than the tyranny of the world-ruler.
Thus the history recorded in this chapter shows, on the one side, how the ungodly world-power in its progressive development assumes an aspect continually more hostile toward the kingdom of God, and how with the decrease of its power of action its hatred against the true servants of God increases; and it shows, on the other side, how the Almighty God not only protects His worshippers against all the intrigues and machinations of the enemy, but also requites the adversaries according to their deeds. Daniel was protected against the rage of the lions, while his enemies were torn by them to pieces as soon as they were cast into the den.
This miracle of divine power is so vexatious to the modern critics, that Bleek, v. Leng., Hitzig, and others have spared no pains to overthrow the historical trustworthiness of the narrative, and represent it as a fiction written with a design. Not only does the prohibition to offer any petition to any god or man except to the king for a month "not find its equal in absurdity," but the typology (Daniel an antitype of Joseph!) as well as the relation to Daniel 3 betray the fiction. Darius, it is true, does not show himself to be the type of Antiochus Epiphanes, also the command, Dan 6:26 and Dan 6:27, puts no restraint in reality on those concerned; but by the prohibition, Dan 6:7, the free exercise of their religion is undoubtedly attacked, and such hostility against the faith found its realization for the first time only and everywhere in the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes. Consequently, according to Hitzig, "the prohibition here is reflected from that of Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Macc. 1:41-50), and exaggerates it even to a caricature of it, for the purpose of placing clearly in the light the hatefulness of such tyranny."
On the contrary, the advocates of the genuineness of Daniel have conclusively shown that the prohibition referred to, Dan 6:7, corresponds altogether to the religious views the Medo-Persians, while on the other hand it is out and out in contradiction to the circumstances of the times of the Maccabees. Thus, that the edict did not contemplate the removal or the uprooting of all religious worship except praying to the king, is clearly manifest not only in this, that the prohibition was to be enforced for one month only, but also in the intention which the magnates had in their eye, of thereby effecting certainly the overthrow of Daniel. The religious restraint which was thus laid upon the Jews for a month is very different from the continual rage of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Jewish worship of God. Again, not only is the character of Darius and his relation to Daniel, as the opponents themselves must confess, such as not to furnish a type in which Antiochus Epiphanes may be recognised, but the enemies of Daniel do not really become types of this tyrant; for they seek his overthrow not from religious antipathy, but, moved only by vulgar envy, they seek to cast him down from his lofty position in the state. Thus also in this respect the historical point of view of the hostility to Daniel as representing Judaism, is fundamentally different from that of the war waged by Antiochus against Judaism, so that this narrative is destitute of every characteristic mark of the Seleucidan-Maccabee aera. Cf. The further representation of this difference by Kranichfeld, p. 229ff. - The views of Hitzig will be met in our exposition. Daniel 6:1