So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “O King Darius, live forever! 7 The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered— in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” 9 So King Darius put the decree in writing.
A delegation of Daniel’s enemies therefore approached King Darius, with honey on their lips but with poison in their hearts. “O King Darius, live forever!” they said. Normally this was a greeting spoken in good faith and a token of respect the speaker had for the person addressed. “Long live the king!” But on the lips of Daniel’s enemies it was not a sincere greeting. Although they spoke as though they were interested in the king’s welfare, they were not. Nor, for that matter, were they especially interested in the true welfare of the empire. It was their own welfare these conspirators were concerned about, their own future in government service.
Not only did they address the king deceitfully; they presented their request to him dishonestly. “The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict. . . .” The statement simply was not true. Daniel, one of the kingdom’s top administrators, had not agreed and would never agree to what they were proposing. Besides that, the 120 satraps were scattered through the length and breadth of the empire, and it is unlikely that they all could have been involved.
The conspirators proposed that the king issue an edict, a royal proclamation, stating that anyone who prayed to any god or man except King Darius during the next 30 days would be thrown to his death in the lions’ den. Daniel would never have agreed to recommend that to the king. Daniel knew that two hundred years earlier, God had told his people through the prophet Hosea:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me (Hosea 13:4).
Does it seem preposterous that the king should even have considered passing a law that for a whole month people should pray only to him? Perhaps the suggestion is not as preposterous as it first appears. In ancient Egypt, for example, the king was considered a son of the gods, and this sort of attitude naturally passed from one nation to another. The very idea shows what a low opinion heathen people had of their gods. But that was the proposal the corrupt politicians now placed before King Darius. For the next 30 days Darius himself was to be regarded as the only earthly representative of the gods, so that any prayers to the gods would have to be channeled through him, and only through him.
No doubt the conspirators thought their plan had a good chance to succeed. For one thing, it appealed to the king’s vanity. Better yet, the proposed law seemed to be no more than a simple test of loyalty for all of the king’s subjects.
If anybody would be so disloyal to king and country that he refused to meet this simple test of loyalty, he would pay with his life. The royal proclamation announced that he would be thrown into the lions’ den. “The Persians are known to have inherited from the Assyrian kings the practice of keeping these animals in their zoological gardens” (Soncino Books of the Bible: Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, page 49). The den in which the lions were kept by the royal keepers was either a pit dug for this purpose or perhaps a natural cave reshaped for this purpose. Just the thought of being thrown into a pit with hungry lions was enough to make a person shudder with fear.
The language of the inspired writer emphasizes how intent the conspirators were on making sure that there would be no slipup and that their plot would result in death for Daniel. Two different words are used for the law they wanted the king to issue. It was, first of all, a royal edict, one coming from the head of the Persian government. In addition, it was to be a decree binding upon all citizens. For that reason, the official delegation visiting the king urged him not only to issue the decree; they wanted him also to enforce it vigorously. Did they perhaps suspect that when Darius found out that his decree would cost him his best statesman, he might be lax in enforcing it?
The politicians wanted to make sure Darius would not be able to set aside the decree when he realized the evil intent behind it. And so they recommended to the king that he put the decree “in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”
In Esther 1:19 the Bible records another instance of the unchangeableness of the laws of the Medes and Persians. There is also the record of the Greek historian Diodorus relating to the unusual case of Persian king Darius III, who regretted a death sentence he had passed on a man named Charidemos: “Immediately he repented and blamed himself, as having greatly erred; but it was not possible to undo what was done by royal authority” (quoted by James A. Montgomery, International Critical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, page 270). The Medes and the Persians seem to have thought that for a king to change a decree he had once given would be to admit that he had made a mistake, something considered unbecoming for one who, as a son of the gods, was considered to be infallible. That is why we occasionally hear the saying “As unalterable as a law of the Medes and Persians.”
The proposal of the conspirators flattered the unsuspecting king, and persuaded him. He didn’t mind at all that for 30 days he would be considered the only earthly representative of his gods. Perhaps the fact that he was new on the job made him more receptive to such a proposal. It seemed to assure him the respect he needed if he was to rule well.
And so “King Darius put the decree in writing.” Citizens, as well as conquered foreigners living under Persian rule, were not required to give up the worship of their gods. But for a period of one month they had to acknowledge that Darius was the representative of the gods on earth, and they could pray to their gods only through him. This was not the first time in history that rulers have undertaken a foolish plan of action, only to regret it later.