Biblion Bible Commentary
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Cast into the Den of Lions
Daniel 6:16-18
16 Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.” · WEB
The king carries out a sentence he spent all day fighting, seals the stone himself, and spends the night unable to eat or sleep while his prisoner rests.
Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions Daniel 6:16.
The law wins. A monarch who had labored until sunset to save this man Daniel 6:14 gives the order himself, and Daniel says nothing — not one word of protest, appeal, or self-defense appears in the chapter from the moment the writing was signed. He had prayed as usual and he goes as sentenced.
Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.
The most remarkable sentence in the scene, spoken by a pagan king to a man being lowered into a pit. It is not a hope but a statement, and the king had grounds for it. Whom you serve continually is the phrase of a man who had watched: the windows, the three hours, the years of it Daniel 6:10 — the same continual practice the conspirators had counted on, read by a friendlier observer as evidence. Consistency preaches to people who never mention that they are listening.
A stone was brought, and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel Daniel 6:17.
The sealing is meant to keep the conspirators out as much as to keep Daniel in — that nothing might be changed cuts both ways, and the king adds his lords' seals so that no faction can tamper with the outcome in the dark. He is fencing off the miracle he half expects. A stone on a mouth, sealed with official signets by a ruler who wanted the prisoner to live, is a scene Scripture will stage once more, on a hill outside Jerusalem Matthew 27:60 Matthew 27:66.
Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him Daniel 6:18.
And the narrative follows the wrong man home. We are given the king's night, not Daniel's: no food, no music, no sleep — the three consolations of a Persian court withdrawn one by one, by a man punishing himself in a palace while the condemned lies among lions. The contrast is the chapter's quietest argument. The one with everything to lose cannot rest; the one already thrown to the lions is, so far as the text lets on, at peace. Sleep in Scripture is repeatedly the mark of a conscience that has handed its case over Psalms 4:8 Psalms 3:5 Mark 4:38, and his sleep fled from him is the same phrase the book used for the troubled king of Babylon Daniel 2:1 — a second monarch kept awake by something he could not control.
held with reason What this mark means