God’s Word for You
Daniel 6:11-13 Foreshadowing the Passion
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, November 1, 2025
11 Then these men, as a group, came and found Daniel praying and asking his God for help. 12 Then they went to the king and spoke to him about the decree: “O king, did you not sign a decree, that within these thirty days, anyone who prays to any god or man, except to you, O king, would be thrown into the lions’ den?” The king answered, “The decree stands, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 13 Then they said to the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, does not pay attention to you, O king, or the decree you have signed. He still prays three times a day.”
As this chapter unfolds, we see more and more how Daniel foreshadows Christ’s betrayal, trial, death, burial and resurrection. In these verses, we see the same attitude as that of the Pharisees and the chief priests, ready to accuse with any excuse simply to kill the prophet.
Here is his betrayal. Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, one of his brothers, as he called them (Matthew 28:10; Mark 3:34). And Daniel’s plight foreshadows this, because he was betrayed by men who held the same position under the same king; his brother wise men. They should have supported one another; they should have been delighted that such an excellent man as Daniel was to be promoted to better serve the king and his kingdom, but their jealousy made them betray him for no profit at all.
The conspirators, “as a group,” burst in on Daniel to find him in prayer. Did they even stop to listen to the words of the prayer? The first word is a general term (here, a participle) for asking or praying to God, “be’a.” The second term, a form of “hanan,” is in a reciprocal or passive stem (the hithpaal). In the plainer, peal stem, it would mean to show favor. Here it means to ask for favor, or to ask for help. This is the usual content of our prayers.
The conspirators now trap the king with legality. This, too, foreshadows the trial of Jesus. The Pharisees hated him so murderously that they cited blasphemy as his crime: “Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has spoken blasphemy. Why do we need more witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death’” (Matthew 26:65-66).
“Those that are betray’d do feel the treason sharply,” but Daniel does not report how he felt. He allows the proof of the text and the final conclusion of the matter to be testimony enough. He does not describe these men as either better than they were, nor worse. So it is with all of Holy Scripture. This subject came up today when my associate Pastor Scharf and I were discussing the inclusion of Lot in the “Heroes of Faith” section of Hebrews 13. Many of us would not consider Lot to be much of a hero of faith, but this is not the way the Holy Spirit sees things. And consider the point of view of Aristotle, who lived not long after Daniel’s time. He observed that, “since goodness and badness are the distinguishing marks of moral differences, it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are. It is the same in painting. One artist depicted men as nobler than they are, another as less noble (than they are), and yet another drew them true to life…. The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at representing men as worse, and Tragedy as better than in actual life” (Poetics II:1,4). We cannot say the same for Scripture. For in the Bible, in every case, whether in Genesis, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Job, Daniel, the Gospels, Acts, or the people Paul describes especially in the final chapters of so many of his letters, the people there are never described in such a way as to be lampooned as being worse than they truly were, or elevated into being better than they truly were. In Scripture, people are only presented in the way that they actually lived. Therefore Abimelech in Judges was truly a vicious murderer. In Samuel, Saul is accurately described as a flawed king with a jealous rage over David. And Lot? He was a flawed, sinful man but a believer as well, doing the best that he could in circumstances he got himself into.
And the Scriptures always depict people and nations according to God’s holy judgment of their relationship with him. These wicked, jealous Magi who conspired against Daniel were guilty of betrayal just as Judas was guilty of betrayal. They were guilty of conspiracy to murder the prophet just as the Pharisees and chief priests were guilty. But their punishment will be more clearly depicted for us by the end of the chapter—and this should have been a warning to Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, and the others.
For us, this passage proclaims that Christians, just like Old Testament believers, had crosses to bear on account of their faith. We have this to add to our regular prayers. For the devil is never our friend, and is always out to destroy our faith (Matthew 4:9) or to destroy our bodies (Mark 9:22), or both. He hates us because we love Jesus. Therefore look to Jesus at all times for help and protection, and pray, “Let your holy angel be with me, that the wicked foe may have no power over me.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.