Welcome back to our study of Daniel. We are in that familiar story about Daniel in the lion’s den. We saw last week that Daniel has indeed been cast into the lion’s den.
16 Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” 17 And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. 18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.
We ended by noting the differences between Daniel and Darius on this night, that while Darius could not sleep, Daniel likely slept like a baby, protected from harm by God’s sovereign protection.
In contrast to Nebuchadnezzar, who showed no compassion for Daniel’s three friends and wanted them to die, Darius spent a fitful night without food, entertainment, or sleep. His sleep “fled” from him. “Apparently the king rolled and tossed in his bed, his mind going over the plight of Daniel, the fruitlessness of his efforts to deliver him, the craft of the accusers, his own stupidity in being tricked, and the measures he might take in retaliation against the schemers” (Leon Woods, A Commentary on Daniel, p. 170).
There was a lot on Darius’ mind. No wonder he couldn’t sleep.
Have you ever laid awake wishing you had said or done things differently, or stewing over what someone had done to you? I’ve had night when thoughts swirled in my head—things that others have said or done to me, things that I should have said or done (or wished I hadn’t said or done). We all have worries or regrets that keep us awake at nights. Paul tells us to turn those over to God (Phil. 4:6-7) and Peter tells us to “cast your cares” upon Him (1 Pet. 5:7).
Being in distress Darius returned to his palace and “spent the night fasting” and avoiding any diversions. There was no eating and no entertainment. No music or dancing girls to take his mind off his troubles. His mind was preoccupied with Daniel and what was to become of him. He was obviously worried about Daniel.
While it is unlikely that he spent time praying to Daniel’s God, he might have prayed to his own gods. Our text doesn’t say, only that he “fasted” and couldn’t sleep. What else do you do?
Some do find it possible that Darius, through previous interactions with Daniel, was beginning to believe in Daniel’s God. Perhaps this fledgling believer was praying, as best he knew how, to the Most High God. William Peel imagines him praying his first prayer, maybe something like this:
“Most High God of Daniel and the Hebrew exiles, I don’t even know if You exist. Daniel says you rescue and save, and he trusts You implicitly. He says Your dominion reaches throughout the earth even into this palace, and I guess into the lions’ den. If You are who Daniel believes You to be, rescue my friend from the power of the lions.”
We do know that later (Isa. 45:1-6) Cyrus (and these two names may be referring to the same person) is one of God’s elect servants, so it is possible that even now he is praying to God himself.
Without any resources to save Daniel, the king was put in a hard place—forcing him to turn to the only remaining resource: Daniel’s God. The king found himself in a “divine squeeze” with only one place to turn.
“Why does God bother people? Why does God agitate people? Because He loves people, He wants people, men and women, to enter into a right relationship with Him. And if a person is not in a right relationship with Him, He sics what we would call the hounds of heaven on that person and just keeps annoying them over and over and over again until they reach a point where they trust in what Jesus has done for them and they become saved at that point. Aren’t you glad that God loves us enough to bother us?” (Woods, Daniel)
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep? Is it possible that God is trying to get your attention to pray about something or to re-think some situation?
Even though Darius had made a rash decision that put him in this predicament, it seems that God had sovereignly planned this so that Darius would now find himself at wits end, with nary a thing that he could do to change things, and in his desperation he would have to turn to God.
His mind was occupied with Daniel’s predicament, and nothing could distract him from these thoughts, not even sleep. Undoubtedly, Daniel had a better night’s rest than Darius. We can be sure that Daniel prayed in the lions’ den, because it was simply his habit to pray.
Notice the stark contrast between this powerful king and a convicted criminal. While Darius could not sleep, Daniel slept like a baby. As James Montgomery Boice says, with the lions’ mouths shut and Daniel’s accusers outside, Daniel was in “the safest place in all of Babylon” (Daniel: An Expositional Commentary, p. 71).
“Now verse 18 is the most beautiful illustration of two men, two different situations, one with the Word, one without the Word. Over here you have Darius; here you have Daniel. Darius is in a palace, Darius in his environment has wealth, power, Darius has all the means for human enjoyment. Darius has everything that most people could want. Daniel is in a dirty den, a den of lions, full of manure, full of dead bodies that have been thrown down there, the flies are eating the skin off the people that had been thrown down there before, I just want you to get the picture of it, and it’s not just the sweet little den that you see in your Sunday School material. Sunday School artists never did read the Word too carefully and when they come to these scenes they don’t present them in all their gore. Now the Holy Spirit, when He writes Scripture He lets it all hang out so you’ll get the point. (Clough, Lessons on Daniel, 22:278). Yet here is Darius, stressed and distressed; and there is Daniel in perfect peace. Daniel refused to surrender to fear, for He had heard of the way his friends had been delivered from the fiery furnace. Daniel may have meditated on Psalm 4:8 while surrounded by the lions. “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
It just reminds us that peace and joy are not dependent upon our circumstances, they are the fruit of the Spirit’s work within us and can be present no matter what we are going through. This is why Paul and Silas could sing hymns in the night while sitting in stocks and in prison.
This is why Paul explained to the Philippians, who had sent some financial support his way:
I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:11b-13).
Daniel didn’t need to start praying when he was cast into the lion’s den, for that was his continual habit. Even before he entered the lions’ den he had been consistently praying. G. Campbell Morgan, known as the “Prince of Expositors,” points out: “When our lives are centred in God, we can ever afford to leave circumstances to the compulsion of the One in Whom we trust. The occasional is always affected by the habitual.” If we practice to trust God in believing prayer, then when the more difficult trials come, we will continue to trust Him.
Perhaps Daniel prayed Psalm 22:21-22 “Save Me from the lion’s mouth… I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.” These are words of David and Christ on the cross, but every believer may apply them when we face terrible trials.
Well dawn arrived like molasses in January, but at first light the king jumped out of bed and ran to the “tomb.” He was eager to discover what had happened to this man who trusted in his God.
I remember as a teenager listening to Pat Terry’s song Daniel, and at this point it went like this:
Early in the morning when the sun came up
The king was feeling down
He went to the lions’ den, he looked in the window
And what do you think he found?
Oh, Daniel was leading all the lions in a hymn
They were clapping their big brown paws
He said an angel of the Lord done arrived last night
And he clamped them lions’ jaws.
Yes, Darius got up at daybreak and went in haste to the lion’s den. We can imagine him just waiting in anticipation for the first glimmer of dawn so he could see how Daniel fared. Was Daniel still there, whole and not torn to the bone, or was Daniel hidden in the bellies of the lions?
If he had had no faith at all that Daniel’s God could deliver, he probably wouldn’t have bothered. But he was there…and quickly. He didn’t send a messenger, he himself ran to the lion’s den. Again, this man was no spring chicken himself, being 62 years of age (Dan. 5:31).
[Evidently one night in the lions’ den was the minimum sentence that the law required…likely because nothing would be left but a few bones picked clean. So the king had fulfilled the principle of Medo-Persian law because he had not revoked the penalty of casting a violator into the den of lions.]
Darius would have been unable to see into the lion’s den because it would have been completely dark down in that hole, so he called out to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” (6:20)
Would there be an answer as his question echoed in the well of the lion’s den?
As he neared the lion’s den he cried out in anguish, with a loud, troubled voice from the top opening:
“O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” (Dan. 6:20)
There must have been some belief there, or he wouldn’t have bothered to call out. Who else had ever survived a night in the lion’s den? Once again, he made reference to Daniel’s “continual service” to his God. This is what had gotten Daniel into trouble, but it is also what Darius found so commendable in Daniel.
Darius knew that Daniel worshiped “the living God,” and he wanted to know if his God had indeed delivered him from the lions. That God is a “living God” is significant. It is obviously here a contrast to the deadness of the idols that everyone else worshipped. If Daniel’s God was alive then He could act in his behalf! The living God could keep His servant alive. The king regarded Daniel’s fate as a test of whether his God was really alive or just an unproved supposition, like all the deities the non-Jews worshipped. If the Hebrew God really existed, He would preserve His faithful servant from death…and if anyone deserved well from his God, it was Daniel.
Unlike the idols (and the god of Deism), our God is intimately involved in the everyday matters of life. He numbers the hairs on our head (Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7; Luke 21:18), knows when seemingly insignificant creatures perish (Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6), and hears those who call out to Him.
By preserving Daniel all night amidst the lions, God had demonstrated His active intervention, preventing the mauling and death of Daniel by these lions. Daniel’s miraculous preservation in the midst of voracious beasts provided undeniable evidence that the God of Israel is indeed the living God!
The issue of God’s ability to deliver was previously voiced in the narrative of the three faithful friends of Daniel, who declared to Nebuchadnezzar, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace” (3:17). Chapters 3 and 6, each evoking God’s ability to deliver his servant(s) from death, are paired in the Aramaic chiasm of the book, and furthermore, the two chapters are arranged chiastically, with each central section (3:16-18; 6:18-20) reporting dialogue concerning God’s ability to deliver.
There, in Daniel 3:16-18, we read:
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
These three Hebrew men were convinced that God “is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king,” but at the same time they acknowledged and even accepted the fact that this may not be God’s will. They didn’t know that God would deliver them, but were confident that He could deliver them.
Here in Daniel 6 we see some of the same language:
19 Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. 20 As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish. The king declared to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”
“Has your God, Daniel, been able to deliver you from the lions?” As before, God was not only able, but willing. Not only could He deliver his servants, but He did!
Daniel’s preservation among the beasts foreshadows the preservation of believers and the Jewish nation during the Great Tribulation, when the beasts revealed to the Apostle John in the book of Revelation hold sway over the world (Rev. 13:1, 11). It will be a terrible time in which to live, but God is still able, even then, to protect His people.
God is still able to protect His children today.
When John Paton was a missionary in New Hebrides in the mid 1800s, hostile natives surrounded his mission headquarters one night, intent on burning the Paton Family out and killing them. John and his wife prayed all during the terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came, they were amazed to see the attackers [inexplicably] had left.
A year later, the chief of the tribe converted to Jesus Christ. Rev. Paton, remembering what had happened, asked the chief what had kept him and his men from burning down the house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, “Who were all those men you had with you there?” The missionary answered, “There were no men there; just my wife and I.”
The chief argued that they had seen many men standing guard — hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords in their hands. They seemed to circle the mission station, and they were afraid to attack. Only then did John Paton realize that God had sent His angels to protect them. The chief agreed there was no other explanation.
Paul Dye was a missionary abducted by Columbian guerillas in 1985. He had flown in to Puinave village because Tim Cain was sick and needed medical help. Little did they know that they were flying into a trap. The guerillas commandeered the airplane and forced Paul to fly them to another location. Unaware of where he was, with the plane parked some distance away, Paul awaited an opportunity to escape. Fortunately, he had remembered to get a second key and hide it in his shoe.
One night, he snuck out of camp, making little noise and God kept every guard asleep. He made it to the plane, but had to remove debris and take off in the dark. In the air he could fly by instruments but did not know where he was. Running out of gas, he knew he had to put the plane down…and ended up landing in a pasture just before a fence, in about the only place he could land between forest and gullies. Yes, God can still deliver us today.
Again, Darius seems to have a budding faith in the one True God, Daniel’s God. First, he expressed the strong wish that Daniel’s God would deliver him and then ran to the “tomb” to see, showing that he really believed that God could deliver Daniel. Second, when Daniel’s response from below indicated that he was alive, Darius is not said to have been amazed, as though not really believing this might happen, but only “very glad” at the good news. Thirdly, he then issues the remarkable decree recorded (vv. 25-27), much like the earlier decree of Nebuchadnezzar, calling on people of his domain to give respect to this God. So, these may be indications that Darius had faith in Daniel’s God, at least to deliver Daniel.
Grace Still Amazes 