God’s Word for You
Daniel 6:6-9 Manipulation
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, October 29, 2025
6 So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “O King Darius, live forever! 7 The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 O king, issue this decree now and sign it, so that it cannot be altered, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 So King Darius signed the decree.
There are two lists of men here. A reader might let his eyes glaze over at such lists, wondering without realizing, why do we need these officials described this way? Does it really matter, or is it just ancient empty formality? We will see when we arrive at verse 24 that the difference between the two lists is a matter of life and death. On the one hand, there is the relatively smaller group of administrators and (a few?) satraps who brought this proposition to the king, and on the other hand, the so very obviously larger list of all of the administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors, whom the men in the smaller group claimed agreed with them. Of course, they did not. Daniel would have been an important name on such a list.
The smaller group is the one in verse 6, the group that actually came to the king with this outrageous suggestion. They were setting a trap for Daniel, but they were baiting the trap with flattery to get the king to literally sign off on their plan, “writing foul words in fair letters.”
They were insulting their king, and they knew it. But they also knew that he himself didn’t realize this. They knew that a small man is always willing to accept the grossest flattery at face value, because he cannot imagine that anyone could possibly flatter him without meaning every single word. This is because his own opinion of himself is just as big, just as puffed-up with sugary sweetness, as fairground cotton candy. And it is every bit as unhealthy, but he doesn’t care about that.
At the same time, they were giving Daniel a supreme compliment. Perhaps without understanding its full meaning, they were in full agreement with one another that Daniel could not be caught in any wrongdoing. The only weapon they could possibly use against him would be something in connection with his religion.
The trap was a month of idolatry. For thirty days, they said, nobody should be allowed to bow down, pray to, or worship any god except for Darius himself. They were going to make him a “dieu du jour” (“god of the day”), or rather, “dieu du mois” (“god of the month”). If Darius had considered this, he might have been furious. Only a month? If they were going to really make him a god, shouldn’t he be god forever? God eternal?
Like the Egyptians and their divine Pharaohs, these men were trying to set up a new god, at least on paper. The new king may not have been completely taken in by their proposal, but having signed it (verse 9) it fell under the irrevocable “laws of the Medes and Persians.” We encounter this term in Esther as well (Esther 1:19, 8:8), and Joyce Baldwin cites an incident in the reign of Darius III (336-331 BC) “when the king put to death a man he knew to be innocent, and ‘immediately repented and blamed himself, as having greatly erred, but it was not possible to undo what was done by royal authority’” (Tyndale Old Testament Commentary, Daniel, p. 128). This meant that once enacted (signed), the law was a law and couldn’t be repealed. We see in Esther that a clever man could circumvent such a law with another law, but that took great intelligence and ingenuity, not to mention caution.
The trap was now set. They only had to catch Daniel violating this law for the trap to be sprung. It would have been easy for almost anyone else to simply fail to pray for four weeks. But Daniel’s enemies knew that this wasn’t who Daniel was. What they couldn’t see was that this trap was digging their own hole in hell deeper and deeper still. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), but they, knowing Daniel and his faith and, yes, the miracles he had performed by interpreting dreams for the kings and the handwriting on the wall, they still refused to put their trust in the true God, even though Nebuchadnezzar had praised, exalted and honored God, the King of heaven, “because everything he does is true and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble” (Daniel 4:37). Therefore these rotten fools in their jealousy were becoming residents of cursed Capernaum. “For if the miracles that were performed right before their eyes had been performed in Sodom, then that city would have remained to this day. But I tell you,” Jesus said, “that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you” (Matthew 11:23).
But to all of us who believe in Jesus, who lift our eyes to heaven in prayer like Daniel, our Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Put your faith in him, and remember that you have a place with him forever in heaven.
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.