HOMILETICS
SECT. XXI.—THE JUDGMENT IN BABYLON (Chap. Daniel 6:24-28)
The deliverance of Daniel was a signal display of the power of Jehovah and His presence with His people. Even the king, who seemed to have some idea that God might possibly interpose on His servant’s behalf, was probably taken by surprise; like the believers in Mary’s house when Peter, released in answer to their prayer, stood before the door. No sooner was Daniel taken up out of the den than judgment began on his enemies. “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.” Sooner or later “judgment taketh hold of the wicked.” Conspicuous reward also awaited God’s faithful servant. The whole scene exhibits one of judgment, and affords a picture of another on a larger scale yet to come. We notice separately—
I. The judgment on Daniel’s enemies (Daniel 6:24). That judgment was not long in following Daniel’s deliverance. According to the king’s command, they are immediately taken and cast into the den from which Daniel had been taken. Digging a pit for their friend, they fall into it themselves. Virtually guilty of murder, they suffer the murderer’s doom. Though hand joined in hand, they were not allowed to escape. Their rank and their number no screen from justice. Showing no mercy themselves, they receive none. Haman must be hung on his own gallows. The extension of the punishment to the wives and children, who were innocent, according to the custom of the time and people [148]. Great crimes sometimes made, by special command of God, to involve a man’s house and family as well as himself, even among the early Israelites (Numbers 16:27-33; Joshua 7:24-25). Forbidden, however, by the law of Moses that children should suffer for the sins of fathers (Deuteronomy 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6). Tradition relates, what is probable enough in itself, that these princes would not believe that any miracle had been wrought in Daniel’s favour, the lions having been abundantly fed before he was thrown in. To convince them of the contrary, “the lions brake all their bones before even they reached the bottom of the den.” Infidelity will believe in nothing supernatural till it finds itself in the hands of Him who says, “Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalms 50:22).
[148] “Them, their children, and their wives.” Keil observes: By the accusers, we are not (with Hitzig) to think of the 120 satraps, together with the two chief presidents, but only of a small number of the special enemies of Daniel, who had concerned themselves with the matter. The condemning to death of the wives and children along with the men was in accordance with Persian custom, as is testified by Herodotus, 3:119, Amm. Marcell. 23:6, 81, and also with the custom of the Macedonians in the case of treason (Curtius, Daniel 6:2), but was forbidden in the law of Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 24:16).
II. The royal decree (Daniel 6:25-27). The deliverance of Daniel was followed by a decree similar to that of Nebuchadnezzar on the return of his reason. The decree was in honour of the true God, who had delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. He is declared to be the living God and steadfast for ever, the Ruler of a kingdom that shall not be destroyed, and the possessor of an everlasting dominion; a God that rescueth and delivereth, and who worketh signs and wonders in heaven and earth. Men were to tremble and fear before Him in every part of his realm, which at least implied that they were to treat His name, worship, and religion with reverence and respect. This exaltation of Jehovah one of the objects of this as well as the other miracles recorded in the book, tending, at the same time, to the welfare of the people in general, and to that of the Jews in particular, as well in providing full toleration for their religion during their dispersion, as in preparing the way for their restoration to their own land. The great object of all God’s dealings in providence that men may fear Him, that fear being at once their excellence and their happiness. Such the final issue of the judgments yet to be displayed. “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest” (Revelation 15:4). The deliverance of Daniel as a faithful servant of Jehovah proclaimed in the decree, as a testimony at once to His power and faithfulness, and an encouragement to all to make Him their trust in like manner, as the God that delivers and rescues those who serve and trust in Him. Thus Daniel himself was honoured through all the widely-extended realm of Persia. “Them that honour me I will honour.” So at last in reference to those who fear the Lord and think upon His name in a God-forgetting age. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not” (Malachi 3:17-18).
III. Daniel’s prosperity and extended life (Daniel 6:28). Externally Daniel had seen the last of his trials. He lived to see the end of the short reign of Darius—how much is uncertain—and a portion, at least, of the longer reign of Cyrus, his successor [149]. During the whole of that last period of his life he prospered. He continued probably in his high office as chief of the three great presidents of the empire. At the accession of Cyrus, his influence at court was such that Cyrus, doubtless as the result of it, issued the decree recorded in the end of 2 Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra, giving permission to the Jews to return to their own land and rebuild their Temple at Jerusalem. It is said that the aged minister pointed the king to the passage in Isaiah, where he is mentioned by name as the conqueror of Babylon and the chosen deliverer of Jehovah’s covenant people (Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1). The prosperity of Daniel to be noted in connection with the fiery trial which had tried him and the death which had threatened him. “This Daniel;” the same whom his enemies had nearly swallowed up; the same who had been faithful unto death, and had been only delivered from the mouths of the lions by a divine interposition. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The happiness of believers to be able to say with Paul, “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). Observe among the lessons of the passage—
[149] “In the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” בְּמַלְכּוּת (bemalcuth), “in the reign,” the word denoting both reign and kingdom. From the repetition of the word before Cyrus, observes Keil, it does not follow that Daniel separates the Persian kingdom from the Median; for מַלְכּוּת here does not mean kingdom, but dominion, i.e., reign. The succession of the reign of Cyrus the Persian to that of Darius the Median does not show the diversity of the two kingdoms, but only that the rulers of the kingdoms were of different races. From this verse, taken in connection with the last of the preceding chapter, it appears that the Chaldean kingdom, after its overthrow by the Medes and Persians, did not immediately pass into the hands of Cyrus; but that between the last of the Chaldean kings and the reign of Cyrus, Darius, descended from a Median family, a son of Ahasuerus (Daniel 11:1), held the reins of government. This Darius and his reign are not distinctly noticed by profane historians; and hence modern critics have called in question his existence, and thence derived a supposed argument against the historical veracity of the whole narrative. The account given by Xenophon in his Cyropedia, differing somewhat from that of Herodotus, shows that this Darius the Mede is the same person whom he calls Cyaxares II. According to him, the Median king Astyages, son of Cyaxares I., gave his daughter Mandane in marriage to Cambyses, king of Persia, who was under the Median supremacy, of which marriage Cyrus was born. When Cyrus arrived at man’s estate, Astyages died and was succeeded by his son Cyaxares II., the brother of Mandane and uncle of Cyrus. When, after this, Crœsus, king of Lydia, concluded a treaty with the king of the Assyrians (Babylonians), with a view to the overthrow of the Medes and Persians, Cyrus received the command of the Medo-Persian army; and when, after a victorious battle, Cyaxares was unwilling to proceed farther, Cyrus carried forward the war by his permission, and destroyed the host of Crœsus and the Assyrians; at the report of which Cyaxares fell into a passion, and in a threatening letter to Cyrus, ordered the Medes to be recalled. These declaring their desire to remain with Cyrus, the latter entered on the war against Babylon independently of Cyaxares. Having driven the Babylonian king back upon his capital, he sent a message to Cyaxares, desiring him to come and decide regarding the vanquished and the continuance of the war. Cyaxares accordingly came to the camp, where Cyrus exhibited to him his power by reviewing his army before him, treated him kindly, and gave him a large share of the plunder. After this, the war against Babylon was carried on in such a way that Cyaxares, sitting on the Median throne, presided over the councils of war, while Cyrus, as general, had the conduct of it. After conquering Sardis and taking Crœsus prisoner, Cyrus returned to Babylon, and during a nocturnal festival of the Babylonians took the city, upon which the king of Babylon was slain. After the conquest of Babylon the army regarded Cyrus as king, and he began to conduct his affairs as if he were so. He went, however, to Media to present himself before Cyaxares, brought presents to him, and showed him that there was a house and palace ready for him in Babylon, where he might reside when he went thither. Cyrus now went to Persia and arranged that his father, Cambyses, should retain the sovereignty of it so long as he lived, and that then it should fall to him. He then returned to Media and married the daughter of Cyaxares, receiving with her the whole of Media as her dowry, Cyaxares having no son. He next went to Babylon, and placed satraps over the subjugated peoples; and so arranged that he spent the winter in Babylon, the spring in Susa, and the summer in Ecbatana. “This account given by Xenophon regarding Cyaxares,” says Keil, “so fully agrees with the narrative of Daniel regarding Darius the Mede, that, as Hitzig confesses, ‘the identity of the two is beyond a doubt.’ ”
1. The certainty of divine judgments. “Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.” Daniel’s enemies in fancied security after the king had affixed his seal to the stone over the mouth of the den. The night probably spent in pleasure and mutual congratulations. So on the slaughter of the Two Witnesses (Revelation 11:7-11). But “the triumphing of the wicked is short.” The wicked sometimes punished in this world, that men may know there is a God that judgeth; only sometimes, that they may know there is a judgment to come.
2. The godly ultimately delivered out of trouble. Daniel delivered a second time from imminent death when no human power could rescue him. “In six troubles He shall deliver thee, and in seven no evil shall befall thee.” Trouble and deliverance the common experience in the way to the kingdom. “Thou knowest what persecutions I endured; but out of them all the Lord delivered me” (2 Timothy 3:10-11). “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation) ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). The angel that redeemed Jacob from all evil, the Angel of the covenant, stands engaged to deliver the Israel of God from every evil work, and to preserve them to His heavenly kingdom (2 Timothy 4:18).
3. Events in providence made to promote the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom. “The Lord hath made all things for Himself.” The course of the world is but the course of divine providence, and divine providence is only God’s government of the world He has made, and His conducting it to the end for which He made it. In that providence He makes the wrath of man to praise Him, while the remainder of wrath He restrains. The decree of Darius a foreshadowing of the time when the kingdoms of the world shall become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). All things made to tend to this ultimate consummation. This the Redeemer’s reward, as it is the result of His redeeming work. “He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.” Adequate power provided for the object. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” What was done at Pentecost at the commencement of the Christian dispensation, only an earnest and pledge of what shall be done at its close. “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.”
4. The power and preciousness of divine grace. That grace seen in Daniel to be able to preserve the godly in a course of high-toned morality and religion during the course of a long life, in the midst of diversified temptations and in the most unfavourable circumstances. Daniel an example of Psalms 92:12-15. “As perseverance is the one final touchstone of man, so these scattered notices combine in a grand outline of one, an alien, a captive, of that misused class (the eunuchs) who are proverbially the intriguers, favourites, pests of Oriental courts, who revenge on man their ill treatment at the hand of man; yet himself in uniform integrity, outliving envy, jealousy, dynasties; surviving in untarnished, uncorrupting greatness; the seventy years of the captivity; honoured during the forty-three years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign; doing the king’s business under the insolent and sensual boy Belshazzar; owned by the conquering Medo-Persians; the stay, doubtless, and human protector of his people during those long years of exile.… Such undeviating integrity beyond the ordinary life of man, a worshipper of the one God in the most dissolute and degraded of the merchant cities of old, first minister in the first of the world-monarchies, was in itself a great fulfilment of the purpose of God in converting the chastisement of His people into the riches of the Gentiles.”—Pusey.