"Then King Darius wrote to all the nations, communities, and tongues who dwell in the whole world, May your peace be multiplied! I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast for ever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion even unto the end. He delivereth and He rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who delivered Daniel from the power of the lions."
The language, as in Nebuchadrezzar's decrees, is purely Scriptural.[486] What the Median mages and the Persian fire-worshippers would think of such a decree, and whether it produced the slightest effect before it vanished without leaving a trace behind, are questions with which the author of the story is not concerned.
He merely adds that Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and of Cyrus the Persian.
[452] Lam. iv. 7.
[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.
[454] Isa. xliii. 2.
[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.
[456] Prov. xvi. 18.
[457] Isa. x. 33.
[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.
[459] Isa. xxi. 2.
[460] The word is a cabalistic cryptogram--an instance of _Gematria_--for Babel.
[461] Jer. li. 28-57.
[462] Psalm lvii. 4.
[463] Psalm lviii. 6.
[464] Lam. iii. 53.
[465] Isa. liv. 17.
[466] _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1. See another story in _Vayyikra Rabba_, c. xix.
[467] _Bereshîth Rabba_, § 68.
[468] The LXX. says 127, and Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4) says 360 (comp. Esther i. 1, viii. 9, ix. 3). Under Darius, son of Hystaspes, there were only twenty divisions of the empire (Herod., iii. 89).
[469] Dan. vi. 2: "Of whom Daniel was"--not "_first_," as in A.V., but "_one_," R.V.
[470] Matt. xix. 29.
[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.
[472] Dan. vi. 6, _char'ggishoo_; Vulg., _surripuerunt regi_; A.V. marg., "came tumultuously." The word is found in the Targum in Ruth i. 19 (Bevan).
[473] The den (_goob_ or _gubba_) seems to mean a vault. The Hebrew word for "pit" is _boor_.
[474] See Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, i. 335, 447, 475; Smith, _Hist. of Assur-bani-pal_, xxiv.
[475] The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ὑπερῷον on the roof. The "kneeling" in prayer (as in 1 Kings viii. 54; 2 Chron. vi. 13; Ezra ix. 5) is in the East a less common attitude than standing. See 1 Sam. i. 26; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11: but see Neh. viii. 6; Gen. xxiv. 26.
The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the _Kibleh_, or sacred direction of devotion (1 Kings viii. 44; Ezek. viii. 16; Psalm v. 7, xxviii. 2, lv. 17, etc.).
[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.
[477] Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.
[478] Esther i. 19, viii. 8.
[479] "Courage, till to-morrow" (ἕως πρωῒ θάῤῥει), adds the LXX.
[480] Comp. Lam. iii. 53. Seal-rings are very ancient (Herod., i. 195). It is useless to speculate on the construction of the lion-pit. The only opening mentioned seems to have been _at the top_; but there must necessarily have been side-openings also.
[481] Theodot., ἐκοιμήθη ἄδειπνος. Daniel, on the other hand, in the apocryphal _Haggada_, gets his dinner miraculously from the Prophet Habakkuk.
[482] Heb., _dachavān_; R.V., "instruments of music"; R.V. marg., "dancing-girls"; Gesenius, Zöckler, etc., "concubines."
[483] Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.
[484] Comp. Dan. iii. 8; Psalm xxxiv. 7-10; Acts xii. 11.
[485] Comp. Esther ix. 13, 14; Josh. vii. 24; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6. The LXX. modifies the savagery of the story by making the vengeance fall only on the _two_ young men who were Daniel's fellow-presidents. But comp. Herod., iii. 119; Am. Marcell., xxiii. 6; and "Ob noxam unius omnis propinquitas perit," etc.
[486] Psalm xxix. 1, x. 16, etc. Professor Fuller calls it "a _Mazdean_ colouring in the language"!