Distinguished Above All
1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred twenty local governors, who should be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one, that these local governors might give account to them, and that the king should suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel was distinguished above the presidents and the local governors, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. 4 Then the presidents and the local governors sought to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom; but they could find no occasion or fault, because he was faithful. There wasn’t any error or fault found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We won’t find any occasion against this Daniel, unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”
An eighty-year-old exile rises to the top of a new empire, and his enemies audit his career for a fault and find none — so they go after his religion.
1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred twenty local governors, who should be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one, that these local governors might give account to them, and that the king should suffer no loss.
A new administration, and the Hebrew captive is in the top three of it. He had entered Babylon as a teenaged hostage roughly seventy years earlier Daniel 1:1–6; he is now an old man serving his third dynasty and his second empire, and the regime that conquered his employer has kept him on. Competence of that order is its own testimony — the incoming power looked at the outgoing court and found one man worth promoting.
Then this Daniel was distinguished above the presidents and the local governors, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.
And the reason given is not skill but an excellent spirit — the same phrase the queen had used of him a chapter earlier Daniel 5:12. The king intends to make him second in the empire, and here the danger begins. Nothing in this chapter happens because Daniel did anything wrong. It happens because a foreigner was about to be set over a hundred and twenty native-born officials.
Then the presidents and the local governors sought to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom; but they could find no occasion or fault, because he was faithful. There wasn’t any error or fault found in him.
They open an investigation, and the verse reports its result twice for emphasis. As touching the kingdom is the scope — they went through his administration of the state's affairs: revenues, judgments, appointments, the whole file of a man who had handled imperial money and power for two generations. No occasion, no fault, no error. A hostile audit conducted by rivals with every motive to find something, and the finding is a blank. Scripture rarely pays a man this compliment; it is the same clearance the New Testament asks of anyone in office Titus 2:7–8 1 Peter 2:12, and it is the reason the plot has to take the shape it does.
Then these men said, “We won’t find any occasion against this Daniel, unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”
They admit defeat and change the subject, and the sentence is a remarkable piece of testimony from the worst possible witnesses. His enemies concede there is no charge available in his conduct — and they know exactly where the one vulnerability lies. A lifetime of visible, unhidden obedience has told them precisely what to legislate against. They cannot make him a criminal; they can make his religion a crime. That is not a failure of his integrity but the final proof of it: the only way to convict this man was to outlaw what made him convictable of nothing else.
settled What this mark means