July 28, 2011 – Daniel 6

I didn’t realize this until this reading, but Daniel (granted he has a lot of faith in God) doesn’t appear to be saved by his prayers (although I imagined he did pray). The only prayer request we have to save Daniel is from the King. As he is putting Daniel in, he ask Daniel’s God “May your God, whom you serve so constantly, save you.” (17) I think this is something that is overlooked. Not only that, but the King’s longing to try and get Daniel out of the punishment in the first place.

Also, the amount of people that were killed by the lions is pretty high. The beginning of the chapter says that the king appointed 120 satraps and 3 supervisors (including Daniel). Then it says that Daniel was wiser than all the satraps and supervisors so they plotted against them. Then the king threw all that plotted against Daniel in the lion’s den, with their wives and children. It must have been close to 400 people thrown in. The fact that so many were killed tells us there were a lot of lions and they were very hungry, both increasing the miracle that saved Daniel.

This is also a good story to not only show what faith can do and the power of prayer intentions for others, but also God taking something that on its face is bad and using it for His own good. We might criticize the king for making such a law in the first place, but the creation of the bad law brought about the law at the end of the chapter allowing the God of Israel to be worshipped.