Three Times a Day, as He Did Before
10 When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before. 11 Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. 12 Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king’s decree: “Haven’t you signed a decree that every man who makes a petition to any god or man within thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “This thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.” 13 Then they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.” 14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him. 15 Then these men assembled together to the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no decree nor statute which the king establishes may be changed.”
Daniel's response to the decree is to change nothing, and the four words that carry the chapter are the least dramatic in it.
When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.
He knew, and he went home and prayed. The verse is built so that the last four words carry it: as he did before. No increase, no reduction, no defiant relocation to the courtyard and no prudent retreat to a cellar — the same room, the same windows, the same three hours, the same posture. There is nothing here of protest; the conspirators had to come and find him at it Daniel 6:11. The most consequential act of civil disobedience in the book consists of an old man declining to alter his schedule.
Each detail is load-bearing. Toward Jerusalem, a city he had not seen since boyhood and which lay in ruins, because Solomon had asked God to hear exiles who prayed toward the place 1 Kings 8:48–49 — the windows were an act of faith in a promise, not a gesture at a monument. On his knees, the body's confession that the man is not the highest authority in the room, which is exactly what the decree denied. Three times a day, the discipline of the Psalms Psalms 55:17. And gave thanks — on the day a death sentence was signed against his prayers, the content of them included gratitude.
The habit is the whole point. A man who had prayed this way for seventy years did not have to decide anything on the day the writing was signed; the decision had been made thousands of times already, in ordinary weeks when nothing was at stake. Courage here is not a summoned emotion but the visible shape of a long practice — the same lesson as the boy who purposed in his heart about a meal Daniel 1:8.
Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.
They knew where to be and when. And their approach to the king is as skilled as their drafting was: first they get him to reaffirm the decree in the abstract — haven't you signed a decree...? — and only when he has confirmed it, citing the law that doesn't alter with his own mouth Daniel 6:12, do they produce the name. That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn't respect you Daniel 6:13: the foreigner label again Daniel 5:13, and the charge phrased as personal disrespect rather than religious practice.
Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him.
The king spends a whole day trying to find a way out, and the picture is of a monarch discovering the limits of monarchy — no anger at Daniel, only at himself and at the men in front of him. He labored, hour after hour, until sunset. And they wait him out, returning at the end to recite his own constitution back to him Daniel 6:15. The most powerful man in the world cannot save his best servant, because he signed something.
settled What this mark means