God’s Word for You
Daniel 6:17-18 The stone is rolled and sealed
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, November 4, 2025
17 And a stone was brought and set over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his nobles, so that nothing could be changed about Daniel’s place. 18 Then the king went back to his palace. He spent the night fasting, and no entertainments were brought to him. And sleep escaped him.
Here, without a doubt, we have a foreshadowing of the burial of Jesus Christ. For one of the Lord’s own Apostles, Matthew, writes: “Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and placed it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. Then he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away” (Matthew 27:59-60). And later on the same Apostle adds: “The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive: “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore, give orders for the tomb to be made secure until the third day, or else his disciples will go and steal his body and tell the people, “He has risen from the dead,” and this final deception will be worse than the first.’ So they went and made the tomb secure. They put a seal on the stone and they posted a guard” (Matthew 27:62-66). Here in Babylon, the king himself ordered the stone and the seal. We have already considered the stone along with the rest of the lions’ den. But what about the seal? Was the seal meant to keep the king or anyone else from rescuing Daniel, or was it to keep the prophet’s enemies from doing him even more harm?
Perhaps our modern minds side with Daniel’s enemies, that the seal was to prevent his friends (either Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or in this case, even the king himself) from rescuing him. But returning to Jerome’s (4th century AD) commentary, we hear a different point of view: “‘A single stone was brought and placed over the opening of the pit, and the king sealed it with his ring…’ He sealed with his ring the rock by which the opening of the pit was shut up, so that the enemies of Daniel might not make any attempt to harm him” (For he had entrusted him to the power of God, and although not worried about lions, he was fearful of men). “He also sealed it with the ring of his nobles,” in order to avoid all grounds for suspicion so far as they were concerned. (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel).
Jerome shows that it would have been easy for Daniel’s enemies to have opened what we are assuming was the secondary or lower entrance to the lions’ den, and in case the lions had been too complacent or disinterested in the prophet, they could have strangled or stabbed Daniel, or wounded him with spears, and then retreated, leaving the bleeding prophet to the ravenous creatures. This would have left no evidence, compared with throwing rocks, spears, or darts of some kind from above. Therefore it is altogether possible that the den was sealed for Daniel’s protection—that is, to keep wicked men out as well as to keep Daniel in.
About this, the king agonized all night. Daniel himself tells us in retrospect that Darius refused any dachavan “entertainments” that night. Many readers, living poor and humble lives, are at a loss to understand why this would be so remarkable, for to say, “Sir, I will eat no meat, I’ll not drink, sir… I’ll not sleep neither” is no sacrifice, but, as we say, “Just a Tuesday.” But a monarch, and perhaps especially a Medo-Persian monarch, had an image to maintain, and entertainments were expected for him at all times. Commentators speculate that this could be a lavish banquet of many kinds of food (not just a choice of pizza or ramen noodles), or offerings of many kinds of music (recall, perhaps, the variety of musical instruments in Daniel 3:5). More sensual pleasures are of course considered (Arabic daha “dancing girls, concubines”), but some (deDiu) have considered the Arabic word (duhan) for “incense, smoking drug.” Opium was known to Persian physicians in ancient times, but it does not seem to have become a social problem because of its general rarity.
Since any (or all!) of these were possible examples of the entertainments that were not brought the king—a euphemism for the king refusing them—we are left to consider that his sleep “escaped him.” His dilemma and concern for Daniel “drew sleep out of his eyes, blood from his cheeks, (brought) musings into his mind, with thousand doubts how he might stop this.”
He was tormented first by the thought, the likeliest thing of all, that he had sentenced Daniel to a terrible death. The death of innocent blood is a burden that every true leader faces. Kings perhaps most of all. For “if a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure” (Proverbs 29:14). But fairness is not always possible when the wicked surround his house, for “who can stand before jealousy?”
Darius was also tormented by the thought that Daniel, perhaps saved somehow from the fangs and claws of the lions, might still be murdered by his enemies. They would say, “This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it!” (Lamentations 2:16).
Darius was also tormented, without understanding it fully, by his own conscience. The conscience is a gift from God, a voice within the heart of all people, which cannot be correctly explained by ordinary science, medicine, or psychology. It is more than simply a sense of morality, or of right and wrong. The conscience is in fact the capacity mankind has to know the Law of God, and the limits of what is unacceptable and wrong as opposed to what is acceptable and right. We call this a part of the natural knowledge of God. A clear conscience is the great desire of man (Genesis 20:5-6). We want a conscience that “will not reproach me as long as I live” (Job 27:6).
This is possible for us, but only through the blood of Jesus Christ. We have what Darius did not. We know our Savior, and so when tough times come, hard times, desperate times, when our sleep escapes us and entertainments have no savor or appeal, we have a Lord who loves us. He is patient with us, caring, always concerned, and forgiving. Bask in his forgiveness, and let your sleep come stumbling back to you like a tired pet, and close your eyes, and leave the day gone by in the Lord’s hands. And then? Rest. For “the Lord grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:2).
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.