Who was Darius in the Bible?

DARIUS THE MEDE, son of Ahasuerus. He was probably the Astyages of the historians. Some supposed 'Darius' to be a title and not a name, but the name has been found on the monuments. On the death of Belshazzar he possessed Babylon, being about 62 years of age: B.C. 538-6. Dan. 5:31; Dan. 6:9-28; Dan. 9:1; Dan. 11:1. See BABYLON and DANIEL.

DARIUS HYSTASPIS, king of Persia: B.C. 521-485. He confirmed the decree of Cyrus in favour of the Jews, and the building of the temple. Ezra 4:5, 24; Ezra 5:5-7; Ezra 6:1-15; Hag. 1:1, 15; Hag. 2:10; Zech. 1:1, 7; Zech. 7:1. To this king is ascribed the consolidating of the empire of Persia.

DARIUS THE PERSIAN. Darius Ochus (Nothus) of the historians, B.C. 424-405. Only mentioned in Neh. 12:22. For a list of the Persian kings see PERSIA.

This also was prophesied of in scripture: it specifies that Cyrus was God's shepherd, and He had holden him to subdue nations: God would loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates should not be shut: the gates of brass should be broken, and the bars of iron be cut asunder. Isa. 45:1-2. Again the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack is also mentioned: "evil shall come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know." Isa. 47:11. We also find that it was on the night of the revelry of Belshazzar's feast that the king was slain. Dan. 5:30.

The monuments show that Babylon was taken by Gobryas the general of Cyrus, and that the capture of the city was, as some think, aided by treachery among its inhabitants. Dan. 5:31 says, "Darius the Median took the kingdom." This king has not been found mentioned by name on the monuments, but he is well accredited as king in Daniel. He was probably ASTYAGES, who was a Median king. He had been conquered by Cyrus, who may have found it to his advantage to let him reign at Babylon as long as he lived. Astyages being a Mede and Cyrus a Persian agree with the second great empire being called by the two names. Persia gained the ascendancy, and Babylon was a royal residence during part of the year. There were occasional revolts, in the putting down of which the city was more and more destroyed. In the year B.C. 478 Xerxes returning from his inglorious invasion of Greece passed through the city, robbed the temple of Belus of its wealth and left its lofty towers a heap of ruins. In B.C. 324 Alexander the Great attempted to rebuild that edifice, and employed 10,000 men; but his sudden death, before the ruins had been cleared away, left it still in desolation.

The first mention of them is when Shalmaneser took Samaria and carried away the Israelites, placing some of them 'in the cities of the Medes.' 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11. Under Cyaxares (about B.C. 634) a Median empire was founded. He is called Ahasuerus in Dan. 9:1. He pushed his conquests westward, and was able to overthrow the Assyrian empire. Astyages succeeded Cyaxares, but Cyrus the Persian was rising in power and subdued Astyages, but allowed him to reign as king, and he was probably Darius the Mede of Daniel. The kingdom was called at first that of the 'Medes and Persians,' as in Dan. 5:28; Dan. 6:8, 12, 15; but, at a later period, the Persians had the pre-eminence (cf. Dan. 8:3), and are mentioned first. Esther 1:3, 14, 18. They conquered Babylon and Asia Minor. On the death of Astyages, Cyrus reigned alone. It became the second great empire of the Gentiles. See DANIEL. There were some bearing the name of Medes present at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The Medes and Persians are considered to have been branches of the Aryan race and were one in origin, language, religion, etc. Esther 10:2; Isa. 13:17; Isa. 21:2; Jer. 25:25; Jer. 51:11, 28; Dan. 8:20; Acts 2:9. Darius in Dan. 5:31 is called the MEDIAN.

Mr. A. ought not to have confounded Darius the Mede, the ad interim and complimentary king after Babylon's fall before Cyrus succeeded, with Darius the Persian, who was conventionally chosen after Cambyses and the impostor Gomates. Ezra 4 makes this certain, Ahasuerus answering to the former, and Artaxerxes to the latter. Then comes Darius (Hystaspis) King of Persia.

After the conquest of Babylon through Darius the Mede (probably Gubaru or Gobryas) in the year 539/538 BC Daniel was appointed as one of the three presidents set over 120 satraps of the kingdom of the Medes and Persians (Dan. 6:2-3).

THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE now became the dominant world power, and Darius became king in Babylon. It appears that historians have difficulty in identifying this man. It may be that he was only a vassal king, under the suzerainty of Cyrus king of Persia; but this is a matter that need not detain us. In the Babylonian section of the new empire he arranged things as he saw fit, and again we find Daniel promoted to a place of great power. The hand of God was in it, though on the human side two things may have been in his favour. First, he was not a native of Babylon. Second, Darius almost certainly would have heard of the dramatic scene in the palace, just before he captured the city that seemed so impregnable, and thus of Daniel's superhuman understanding.

In the opening verses of Isaiah 45, the prophet speaks to Cyrus on God's behalf, though as yet he had no existence. He was to be raised up as anointed for this particular service and his hand would be holden of God till it was accomplished. The details given in verses 1-3 were strikingly fulfilled, as we find recorded in the book of Daniel, though Darius the Mede is the conqueror mentioned there. He was the commander of the Medo-Persian army, but the rising power of Cyrus the Persian lay behind him. As we read these verses, we see Belshazzar, and "the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another" (Dan. 5:6). We see the great gates of Babylon open and broken; and then, as a result of the fall of the great city "the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places" are in the hands of Cyrus. We see here an allusion to the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon, being restored, as recorded in Ezra 1:7-11.

Here we find a striking introduction before we hear of kings of the north and the south. "And now will I show you the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia." Cyrus was then the great ruling personage. Darius was in honour only as a sort of complementary king; the conqueror of Babylon put him forward in recognition of the Medes who joined his standard, whatever may have been the exact family tie which bound them together. For scripture is silent, and the facts are by no means cleared by the profane writers of history. As Ctesias says that Cyrus made his own grandfather, the dethroned king of the Medes a satrap, it is not improbable that he is Darius the Mede of the prophecy. Probable it seems that Astyages' daughter Mandane married Cambyses II., father of Cyrus, whom Herodotus mentions as a Persian noble, the monuments as the king, which appears to have been the fact. However this be, Cyrus was a man of real and widely extended power. Thenceforward Scripture proof of the succession appears in Ezra 4.

First we have Ahasuerus, the unworthy son of a great father, here (Ezra 4:6) called Ahasuerus, or Cambyses as he is named in ordinary history. It was not he that disturbed the Jewish remnant, after their restoration, but the usurper who followed him when the Samaritan enemies of Israel appealed to stop the work of rebuilding the temple and the city. This work Artaxerxes (Smerdis Magus) (Ezra 4:7-23) was the more ready to thwart, as he being a Mede paid no regard to the policy of Cyrus, whose son, Cambyses, did; he would be disposed naturally to reactionary measures. Darius Hystaspis became king on the revolt which set aside the pseudo-Smerdis; and he is the king of Persia who confirmed the decree of Cyrus. See Ezra 5:5, 24, and chs. 5, 6. This Darius H. is the third in Dan. 11:2, that is, the third after Cyrus the Great.

The various phases of the times of the Gentiles; as set forth in the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in the night vision, are seen in the power and splendour that are theirs according to the thought of God, and not in the decay into which some of them eventually fell. Belshazzar was a poor creature compared with Nebuchadnezzar; and though he became heir of the inheritance that was his grandfather’s, and that, as we have seen, by the will of God, he is not said to be the head of gold. The first ruler seems to have been that, “Thou art this head of gold” (chap. 2:38). Anyhow we see that dynasty, which is represented by the head of gold, set aside in the death of the King Belshazzar, and the kingdom taken by the Median Darius, a man far advanced toward the ordinary limit of human life. As regards the account we have of his doings, he does not seem to have been a man of evil disposition, or such a slave to the idolatry that characterized the Gentile nations, though far from possessing the forceful character of the head of gold. It could not be said of turn “Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive.” He seems to have been as truly bound by the laws of the kingdom as was the meanest of his subjects. He was not altogether an autocrat; hence it was not impossible for his lords to get the better of him, if he were not extremely watchful. He seems to have had some insight into the character of men, for he set Daniel above all the subordinate rulers in the kingdom, “and thought to set him over the whole realm.”

The Persians were located between Media and the Persian Gulf, but very little is known of their history until the time of Cyrus, when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been brought to an end. 2 Chr. 36:22-23. Apparently they were a union of tribes, the ancestors of Cyrus being the chiefs of the leading clan. They conquered Elam ('ANSHAM' on the monuments). Media ruled them in early times, but under Cyrus the yoke was shaken off, and, together with the Medes, they formed the second Gentile empire, succeeding that of Babylon. In the great image of Dan. 2 Nebuchadnezzar was represented by the head of gold. The empire that followed was an 'inferior' one, represented by the breast and arms of silver. Dan. 2:31-39. This refers to the Medo-Persian kingdom. It was inferior in that the nobles concurred in the king's laws, and the king could not alter them: the power was depreciated from gold. It is further described as a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in its mouth between the teeth, an emblem of its power and rapacity. To it was said, "Arise, devour much flesh. " Dan. 7:5.

The history in Dan. 5 relates that it was Darius the Mede that 'took the kingdom.' He was the first head of the empire, and his taking the kingdom does not clash with Cyrus taking the city of Babylon, which is implied in Isa. 45:1-2. See BABYLON. On the death of Darius, Cyrus succeeded and reigned in Babylon, and from thence the Persian element prevailed in the empire. The Persians are mentioned before the Medes in Esther 1:19. This agrees also with the above passage in Dan. 7 which represents the bear as raising itself on one side.