Daniel 6:28

The decree comes at the end of a long night. Darius had cast Daniel into the den against his own wishes (Daniel 6:16), spent the night fasting (Daniel 6:18), and hurried to the den at dawn to find Daniel unhurt (Daniel 6:19–23). The men who had accused Daniel were then thrown to the same lions with their wives and children, and the lions overpowered them at once (Daniel 6:24). Verse 25 is the king’s public answer to all of it, and the decree itself follows in Daniel 6:26–27.

The verb “wrote”, kᵉthab, is the word for writing out an official document. From a king it means a formal declaration, sent out with his authority across his realm. The address, “all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth,” is the wide language of royal proclamations, and it reaches as far as the king’s rule reached. The word for people, ʻam, means a community of persons gathered together, and set beside “nations” and “languages” it takes in every group in an empire made up of many peoples. So the name of the God of Daniel goes out to everyone Darius rules. The God of Israel is the God of all the earth, as the psalm says: “For God is the King of all the earth” (Psalm 47:7–8). The prophets looked ahead to the day when all nations would come to the mountain of the LORD’s house to learn his ways (Isaiah 2:2–4), and here a king of the nations sends that God’s name to his whole world.

Darius is the second king in the book to do this. After the fiery furnace Nebuchadnezzar made a decree honouring the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego (Daniel 3:28–29), and after God humbled him he wrote to all the earth in praise of the Most High (Daniel 4:1–3). That letter opens with the very greeting Darius uses here, “Peace be multiplied unto you.” The same address to “people, nations, and languages” had once summoned everyone to bow before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image (Daniel 3:4). Now it calls them to fear the living God.

There is a reversal inside this chapter too. The same king who signed a law that led to Daniel’s unjust condemnation now signs a decree honouring the God Daniel prayed to, and the turmoil and injustice of the days before give way to a greeting of peace.

“I make a decree” puts the full weight of the king behind what follows. In every dominion of his kingdom men are to “tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.” The verb for fear, dᵉchal, means to fear, and in its causative form to frighten. Daniel uses it for the fear people felt before Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 5:19), for the dreadful fourth beast (Daniel 7:7), and here for God. The verb stays the same in each place, so the sense comes from the one who is feared. Before the God who shut the lions’ mouths, fear means bowing to his power and his authority.

“The God of Daniel” ties the decree to what had just happened. Darius names God by the man he saved, and so he gives the credit to the God whom Daniel served.

Darius gives three reasons for the fear he commands, and each one is a confession about God.

“He is the living God.” The word chay means living. God is alive in himself and is the source of all life, and he acts in the world, as the night in the den has just shown. That sets him apart from the idols of the nations, which the psalm describes as the lifeless work of men’s hands (Psalm 115:4–7), and from the carved gods whose folly Isaiah lays bare (Isaiah 44:9–20).

“And stedfast for ever.” God is the same for ever and can be relied on for ever, while rulers and empires rise and pass away. Isaiah calls him “the everlasting God,” who “fainteth not, neither is weary” (Isaiah 40:28).

“And his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end.” The verb chăbal means to ruin, destroy or hurt, and here it stands with “not”: no power can ruin God’s kingdom, and his rule lasts to the very end. This is the great theme of the whole book. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream a stone cut out without hands breaks the kingdoms of the image and fills the earth, and Daniel explains that “the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44). The vision of the four beasts ends with the same everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7). The psalmist says, “his kingdom ruleth over all” (Psalm 103:19), and in Revelation loud voices in heaven announce that “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15). A king whose own law had trapped him confesses a kingdom greater than his.

Verse 27 tells what this living God does. Two verbs open it. “Delivereth” is shᵉzab, which answers to the Hebrew ʻazab, “to leave”, and in its causative form means to set free. “Rescueth” is nᵉtsal, which answers to the Hebrew natsal and means to pull out or snatch away. Together they show God setting his servant free and pulling him out of danger’s grasp. Both are in the present tense in the KJV, so Darius is describing what God does, and the rescue of Daniel shows it.

“And he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth.” The word for signs, ʼâth, means a portent or sign: an event that points to God’s power and presence and carries a message about the one who did it. “In heaven and in earth” sets the two halves of creation side by side, so the phrase takes in the whole of it. God’s power has no boundary in place or in time.

“Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” After the general praise comes the proof Darius had seen with his own eyes. The word for power is yad, “hand”. Daniel was taken out of the lions’ hand, beyond the reach of all they could do to him. The psalm promises this kind of keeping: “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psalm 34:7). Nebuchadnezzar had blessed God in the same way after the furnace, as the God “who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him” (Daniel 3:28). Kings who served other gods were brought to say what the LORD says of himself in his word concerning Cyrus: “I am the LORD, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:5–6).

The chapter began with a decree meant to destroy Daniel and ends with a decree proclaiming Daniel’s God. The officials used Daniel’s faithfulness in prayer against him (Daniel 6:10), and God used that same faithfulness to bring a king to praise him before the whole empire. Their malice became the occasion of God’s glory, and the law no one could change gave way to the God who answers to no one. Daniel’s rivals had found nothing wrong in his work, and the one charge they could bring was his devotion to his God. That devotion is what God honoured.

Lions were common in the lands of Babylon and Persia, and kings hunted them, so a den of lions was a fearful place to be thrown. The part of the book that holds this chapter, chapters 2 to 7, is written in Aramaic, the shared language of the Persian Empire, the language in which a decree to many peoples could be read. In this way God made his name known among the Gentiles. The book shows this more than once, as when Nebuchadnezzar, restored to his reason, praised and honoured the King of heaven (Daniel 4:34–37).

“So this Daniel prospered” closes the account. The word dên is the ordinary demonstrative “this”, pointing back to the man the story has been about. His accusers had used the same words when they said they would find no occasion against “this Daniel” except in the law of his God (Daniel 6:5). The chapter that began with their plot against “this Daniel” ends with “this Daniel” prospering.

“Prospered” is tsᵉlach, which means to advance, succeed, be effective and thrive. Daniel kept his high place in the government and went on serving, and his work as a prophet went on too, into the reign of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1). The book has already said that Daniel continued to the first year of king Cyrus (Daniel 1:21). This is the prospering of the man in the first psalm, whose leaf does not wither and who prospers in whatever he does (Psalm 1:1–3). Daniel’s skill and wisdom were real, and God’s favour stood behind them.

“Reign” is malkûw, a word for kingly rule, dominion or kingdom. The phrase “in the reign of” comes twice in this verse, once for each king, and it marks how Daniel stood firm through the change from one ruler to the next. Kings changed, and Daniel’s place held, because God is the one who “removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21). He keeps his people through the rise and fall of empires and puts his servants where his purposes need them.

Darius ruled a vast empire, and it still had borders. Jesus says, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), and he sends his disciples to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19). That is the greater decree to all people, nations and languages. Christ’s reign rests on his victory on the cross, where he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). The peace Darius wished his subjects is given in full in Christ, who is our peace and has broken down the wall between us (Ephesians 2:14–16), and who has “made peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).

The living God is fully made known in Jesus, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and who said, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25). The kingdom Darius confessed is the kingdom Jesus announced as at hand (Mark 1:15) and taught us to pray for, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). Hebrews calls it “a kingdom which cannot be moved” (Hebrews 12:28), and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:10–11).

Daniel’s rescue from the lions points ahead to a greater rescue. God approved Jesus “by miracles and wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22), and the greatest of his works is the death and resurrection of his Son, which delivers us from sin and death. Christ is the righteous one, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and there is now no condemnation for those who are in him (Romans 8:1). “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Daniel’s lifting up after the den is a picture of Christ’s. Jesus humbled himself to death on a cross, and God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–9). His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), yet he reigns over it as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). Those who belong to him receive every spiritual blessing in him (Ephesians 1:3), and with all creation they will say that the Lamb who was slain is worthy (Revelation 5:12–13).

A king who had been used by schemers ended up confessing the truth about God to the whole world, and his confession holds for every generation. God is living, and he acts. He is steadfast, and he is the same now as on the morning Darius ran to the den. His kingdom outlasts every empire, including Babylon, Persia and every power since. He delivers and rescues his servants, and he can turn the plans of their enemies into praise of his name.

The last verse gives the other half of the comfort. Daniel did not only survive the night, he prospered for years afterward, under a new king and then another. The God who shut the lions’ mouths also kept his servant through long seasons of ordinary service, and Daniel’s quiet faithfulness in prayer was the thread God used to make his name known to the nations. The God who did all this is the God we pray to, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.