Daniel 6:6

First, they sought occasion against him in connection with his administration of the kingdom. All these presidents and princes tried to find some fault in Daniel's management of the affairs of state. But because he was faithful, they could find neither "error" nor "fault" in him. They concluded that a complaint would only be possible through the law of his God. This is a wholesome lesson for the Christian. Our dealings with the world should be so faithful that the world could only condemn us by intruding into the things of God, and by passing decrees we could not keep without disobeying God.

They were all idolaters, and their king was an idolater too. So they thought it would be easy to trap Daniel on that ground. But Darius almost certainly knew what had happened between Daniel and Belshazzar, and that Daniel was a godly Jew. This explains the method these princes and presidents chose. They did not charge Daniel with worshipping his God. With greater subtlety they decided first to flatter the king, by offering him the place of absolute supremacy — supremacy over heaven as well as earth. Then they would bring Daniel into conflict with the king, and into disobedience to him.

First, the decree is in itself the very height of wickedness, for it is the awful attempt to dethrone God and set up man in His place. It seeks to install the king in a place of absolute supremacy over heaven and earth, above God and man. For thirty days no one may ask a petition of "any God or man." Nebuchadnezzar's sin was great, but this is far greater. Nebuchadnezzar had set up an idol in the place of God; but now Darius sets himself up in the place of God. It is the deification of man. Secondly, the motive of the decree is evil in the extreme. These men trade on Daniel's upright character and his known faithfulness to the law of his God. They design a decree they know he will not obey. Thirdly, the decree they frame looks very flattering to the king.

Here it is not idolatry, nor is it insult offered to Jehovah, but the exaltation of man himself, who would shut out all idea of God, who would have no God. This is one of the features that characterise the depths of the human heart.

Darius himself seems to be a man we can take a good deal of interest in, a man who drew back from what he had done. But as a picture he stands for the Beast — man's complete turning away from God. Daniel represents the remnant, the faithful few who in those last days will refuse to give up the worship of God. So they are thrown into the den of lions. They go through the great tribulation of the last days, when Satan the "roaring lion" would devour them, but his mouth is shut. They come out of it tested, faithful, and true for God.

In all this there is no showing off; he simply does what he had always done before. He had long been in the habit of praying in this open way. If he had suddenly closed the windows and prayed in secret, all Babylon would have read it as cowardice, or as agreement with the decree. In that idolatrous city Daniel had borne a public witness to the true God. He was not a secret disciple.