Daniel 6

Translator Notes

1. This chapter continues in Aramaic. The Aramaic achashdarpanayya ('satraps') is a Persian loanword (Old Persian xsacapavan, 'protector of the realm'). The number 120 may reflect administrative divisions of the Persian empire; Herodotus mentions 20 satrapies under Darius I, but sub-provincial divisions could account for a larger number.
2. Note: some versification traditions number this chapter starting from what we call verse 2, placing 5:31 as 6:1. We follow the Aramaic text's own chapter division.

Translator Notes

1. The Aramaic sarkin ('administrators, chiefs') denotes the highest tier of imperial oversight. Daniel's appointment as one of the top three officials in the new Medo-Persian administration — after having served the Babylonian empire — demonstrates remarkable continuity and suggests his reputation transcended the regime change.
2. The phrase malka la leheve naziq ('the king should suffer no loss/damage') indicates the administrators' role was primarily fiscal — preventing corruption and mismanagement that would reduce royal revenue.

Translator Notes

1. The verb mitnatsach ('distinguished himself, surpassed') indicates Daniel's competence was not merely adequate but conspicuously superior. The phrase ruach yattirah ('extraordinary/surpassing spirit') is the same expression used by the queen mother in 5:12, creating textual continuity: the same quality that marked Daniel under Babylon marks him under Persia.
2. The king's plan to elevate Daniel over the entire kingdom triggers the conspiracy that drives the chapter. Daniel's excellence becomes his vulnerability.

Translator Notes

1. The Aramaic illah ('grounds, pretext, occasion') is a legal term — they are looking for formal charges, not gossip. The double negative is emphatic: no illah ('grounds') and no shechitah ('corruption, fault'). The reason is stated plainly: meheman hu ('he was trustworthy/faithful'). The word meheman is related to Hebrew emunah — Daniel's covenant faithfulness manifests as impeccable professional integrity.
2. The exhaustive investigation that yields nothing against Daniel is a rare biblical testimony of complete moral and professional integrity — paralleled only by Samuel's farewell speech (1 Samuel 12:3-5).

Translator Notes

1. This admission is remarkable — Daniel's enemies acknowledge his complete integrity and recognize that the only vulnerability is his religious devotion. The phrase bedat elaheh ('in the law/religion of his God') identifies Daniel's faithfulness to God as the single exploitable weakness. Their strategy is to make obedience to God and obedience to the state mutually exclusive, forcing Daniel to choose.

Translator Notes

1. The verb hargishu ('came as a mob, thronged, assembled tumultuously') suggests not an orderly delegation but a coordinated rush — they came together to create the impression of unanimous urgency and to prevent the king from consulting Daniel privately. The standard greeting 'live forever' (le-almin cheyi) carries dark irony given that they are engineering a situation designed to end Daniel's life.

Translator Notes

1. The claim that 'all the administrators' agreed is a lie — Daniel, the most prominent administrator, was not consulted. The five-tier list of officials (sarkei, signayya, achashdarpanayya, haddavrayya, pachavata) gives an impression of comprehensive consensus that is fabricated.
2. The decree targets prayer (yiv'eh va'u, 'makes a petition/request') to 'any god or person' (kol elah ve'enash) except the king — this is not merely a restriction on worship but a temporary assertion of the king's exclusive divine mediation, essentially claiming divine status for thirty days. The punishment — the lions' den (gov aryavata) — was a known form of execution in the ancient Near East.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase kedat Madai u-Pharas di la te'addei ('according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not pass away/cannot be revoked') is the key legal mechanism of the plot. Once the king signs, even he cannot undo it. This irrevocability of Persian law is also attested in Esther 1:19 and 8:8 and reflects a genuine feature of Persian legal culture — the king's word, once issued as formal law, was considered binding even on the king himself.
2. The conspirators exploit this feature deliberately: they know that once Darius signs, Daniel's fate is sealed and even royal favor cannot save him.

Translator Notes

1. The brevity of this sentence — six Aramaic words — underscores the speed of the trap. Darius signs without investigating, without consulting Daniel, and without considering the implications. The word resham ('signed, inscribed') makes the decree legally binding and irrevocable.

Translator Notes

1. Daniel's response to the decree is not defiance for its own sake but refusal to alter an established practice of covenant faithfulness. The key phrase is kol-qavel di hava aved min-qadmat denah ('just as he had been doing previously') — Daniel does not escalate or make a public protest. He simply continues what he has always done.
2. The windows open toward Jerusalem reflect the exile theology of Solomon's temple dedication prayer (1 Kings 8:46-50): 'If they pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen, and toward the house I have built for your name.' Daniel's physical orientation in prayer embodies his spiritual orientation — he remains a citizen of Zion even in Babylon.
3. Three times daily (zimnin telatah beyoma) corresponds to the morning, afternoon, and evening prayer times that became standardized in Jewish liturgical practice (cf. Psalm 55:17). The practice predates the formal synagogue liturgy but reflects the same impulse.

Translator Notes

1. The verb hargishu ('rushed together, thronged') is the same word used in verse 6 — they approach Daniel's house with the same coordinated urgency they used with the king. The phrase ba'eh u-mitchannan ('praying and pleading/seeking grace') combines two prayer terms: petition and supplication for mercy. They find Daniel doing exactly what they knew he would do.

Translator Notes

1. The conspirators first establish the inviolability of the decree before naming Daniel — they trap the king into reaffirming the law before revealing who has broken it. The king's confirmation yatstsiva milleta ('the matter stands firm/true') uses a term of legal certainty. He has locked himself in before he knows who the prisoner will be.

Translator Notes

1. The accusers frame Daniel's prayer as political disloyalty — la sam alakh malka te'em ('he has set no regard upon you, O king'). They cast his faithfulness to God as contempt for the king. The phrase min-benei galuta di Yehud ('from the sons of the exile of Judah') is calculated to remind the king that Daniel is a foreigner, a captive, an outsider — emphasizing his alien status to undermine royal sympathy.
2. Note the shift from 'makes a petition' (the decree's language) to the simpler ba'eh ba'uteh ('makes his request/prayer') — the accusers drop the formal legal language once the trap is sprung.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase saggi be'esh alohi ('greatly it was displeasing to him') shows the king's anger is directed at himself — he realizes he has been manipulated. The phrase sam bal ('set his mind/heart') indicates focused, determined effort. The detail 'until sunset' (ad me'alei shimsha) is significant because the execution must occur before the next day begins — the decree demands immediate enforcement.
2. Darius's genuine distress and his efforts to find a legal loophole contrast sharply with the conspirators' calculated malice. The king is trapped by his own law.

Translator Notes

1. The third use of hargishu ('came as a mob/group') emphasizes the relentless pressure of the conspiracy. The men are not offering legal counsel — they are closing the trap. Their reminder of the irrevocable law is not information the king needs; it is a demand that he stop looking for a way out. The phrase da' malka ('know, O king') is imperative — they are instructing their sovereign.

Translator Notes

1. Darius's words to Daniel — Elahakh di ant palach leh bi-tdira hu yeshezivinakh ('Your God whom you serve continually, he will rescue you') — can be read as a statement of hope, a prayer, or a wish. The king has exhausted his legal options and now places his hope in Daniel's God. The word bi-tdira ('continually, constantly') acknowledges Daniel's unwavering devotion — the same devotion that got him condemned is now his only hope.
2. The verb yeshezivinakh ('will rescue you') is the same root (sh-z-v) used for divine deliverance throughout Daniel's Aramaic sections.

Translator Notes

1. The dual sealing — the king's signet and the nobles' signets — creates mutual accountability. The king cannot secretly release Daniel (the nobles' seals would be broken), and the nobles cannot secretly harm Daniel further (the king's seal would be broken). The phrase di la tishne tsevu be-Daniyyel ('so that the situation/purpose concerning Daniel would not be changed') locks the outcome to divine intervention alone.
2. The sealing of the stone echoes, in reverse, the sealing of Jesus's tomb in Matthew 27:62-66 — in both cases human seals prove powerless against divine action.

Translator Notes

1. Three signs of Darius's anguish: fasting (bat tevat, 'he spent the night fasting'), no entertainment (dachavan la han'el qadamohi — the Aramaic dachavan is debated: it may mean 'diversions,' 'food,' 'concubines,' or 'musical instruments'), and sleeplessness (shinnteh naddat alohi, 'his sleep fled from him'). The king who should be celebrating his authority over the empire is instead consumed by grief over a single prisoner.
2. The word dachavan is one of the most disputed terms in Biblical Aramaic — proposed meanings include 'concubines,' 'musicians,' 'tables of food,' and 'diversions.' We render broadly as 'entertainment' to cover the range.

Translator Notes

1. The Aramaic bishafrpara ('at dawn') and benaghah ('at first light') together indicate the earliest possible moment — Darius could not wait for full daylight. The word behithbehalah ('in haste, in alarm, in agitation') from the root b-h-l (the same root describing Belshazzar's terror in 5:6) indicates the king's urgency. He runs to the den — hardly royal dignity, but consistent with his genuine attachment to Daniel.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase beqal atsiv ('in a sorrowful/anguished voice') reveals the king's emotional state — he calls out expecting the worst. The title aved Elaha chayya ('servant of the living God') is remarkable on the lips of a Persian king. Darius calls Daniel's God 'the living God' (Elaha chayya), distinguishing him from the inert gods of the nations — the same distinction Daniel drew in 5:23.
2. The question haykhil leshezavutakh ('has he been able to rescue you?') uses the Aramaic perfect — Darius is asking whether rescue has already occurred, not whether it will. He is asking for a report, not expressing a wish.

Translator Notes

1. Daniel's voice from the darkness of the pit, using the standard court greeting malka le-almin cheyi ('O king, live forever'), is at once reassuring and quietly triumphant. The same greeting that introduced the conspiracy (v. 6) now signals its failure. Daniel observes court protocol even from a lions' den.

Translator Notes

1. Daniel's explanation has two dimensions: divine (God sent an angel) and legal (innocence before God and before the king). The phrase zakhu hishtechat li ('innocence/purity was found in me') is a declaration of legal vindication — the lions' den has functioned as a divine trial, and Daniel has been acquitted.
2. The angel (malakheh, 'his angel/messenger') who shut the lions' mouths is not named. The verb segar ('shut, closed') is simple and physical — the divine intervention is described in utterly concrete terms. Daniel also asserts his loyalty to the king (chabula la avdet, 'I have done no injury/wrong') — his faithfulness to God did not constitute disloyalty to the crown.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase kol chaval la hishtekach beh ('no wound/injury at all was found on him') emphasizes the completeness of the deliverance — not a scratch, not a mark. The reason given is striking in its simplicity: di heimin be'elaheh ('because he trusted in his God'). The Aramaic heimin is the cognate of Hebrew he'emin (from the root '-m-n), the same root that produces emunah ('faithfulness'). Daniel's faith is presented as the operative cause of his deliverance.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase akhalu qartsohi ('ate his pieces' — an idiom meaning 'brought malicious accusations against') uses the Aramaic equivalent of a well-attested Akkadian legal idiom for slander. The punishment of the accusers along with their families reflects Persian legal practice (cf. Herodotus 3.119) and the principle that a false accuser receives the punishment they intended for their victim (cf. Deuteronomy 19:16-21).
2. The detail that the lions crushed them before they reached the bottom of the den serves to prove that Daniel's survival was miraculous — the lions were not old, toothless, or satiated. They were lethally active. The same beasts that left Daniel untouched destroyed his accusers instantly.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The address formula — all peoples, nations, and languages (ammayya, ummayya, velishannayya) — is the standard Danielic formula for universal humanity (cf. 3:4, 4:1, 5:19, 7:14). Darius's decree mirrors the structure of Nebuchadnezzar's decrees in 3:29 and 4:1, creating a pattern of pagan kings issuing proclamations about the God of Israel.
2. The greeting shelamkhon yisgei ('may your peace be multiplied') is the Aramaic form of the standard epistolary greeting, cognate to Hebrew shalom.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Darius's theology is remarkably developed for a pagan king: God is chayya ('living'), qayyam le-almin ('enduring forever'), ruler of an indestructible kingdom (malkuteh di la titchabbal), and possessing dominion that reaches to the end (sholtaneh ad sofa). This language echoes and expands Nebuchadnezzar's earlier confessions (4:3, 34) and anticipates the kingdom language of Daniel 7:14.
2. The decree does not mandate conversion to worship of Daniel's God exclusively — it mandates reverence (zayin vedachlin, 'trembling and fearing'). This is consistent with Persian religious policy, which typically honored local deities without demanding exclusive worship.

Translator Notes

1. Darius's doxology moves from general attributes to specific evidence: God rescues (mesheziv), delivers (matsil), and works signs and wonders (aved atin vetimhin) — and the proof is Daniel's deliverance. The phrase min yad aryavata ('from the hand/power of the lions') uses 'hand' (yad) metaphorically for the power of the beasts.
2. The structure mirrors ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions where a king praises a deity by listing general attributes and then citing a specific act of divine favor as evidence.

Translator Notes

1. The final verse summarizes Daniel's career across two reigns — Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian. The Aramaic hatsalach ('prospered, succeeded') indicates not merely survival but flourishing in public life. Some scholars read the Aramaic conjunction u- ('and') as explicative ('that is') rather than additive, which would identify Darius and Cyrus as the same person: 'in the reign of Darius, that is, in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.' The grammar allows both readings; we render with 'and' as the more natural translation.
2. This verse effectively closes the narrative section of the Aramaic portion. Chapter 7, though still in Aramaic, shifts to apocalyptic vision rather than court narrative.