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The Jews passed into the hands of the conqueror of Babylon, and became the subjects of the great Cyrus, whose viceroy at Babylon is called in the Bible by the common name of Darius. The Persians were not idolaters. They believed in two principles the good and the evil, and they held that the former of these principles was visibly incarnate in the person of their kings. Hence arose the unalterableness of the royal edicts of the Medes and Persians. They could not be changed without reflecting on the sacred character of the king. This pretension enables us to understand the strange decree about prayer. It was promulgated in order that Darius might obtain from his new subjects in Babylon recognition of himself as the supreme personage, the representative of the supreme God. It was to wring from the conquered, idolatrous Babylonians an acknowledgment of the conqueror's Divinity. Observe that it was a negative, not a positive, decree. They were not commanded by it to worship any other god, they were not even required by it to pay any divine honour to the king. Persecution was not attempted; open apostasy was not required. Why, we may ask, should Daniel have fallen into a trap it was so easy to avoid? He need not drop one petition out of his daily prayers. He need not, by word or gesture, pay blasphemous honour to the new sovereign. Why should he obtrude his disobedience? There is something unspeakably sublime in the line taken by that Hebrew courtier, Daniel. No fanatic, no headlong zealot, but the wisest and most diplomatic of statesmen, and the farthest sighted of men, calmly continued his religious habits precisely as afore-time. Compare the Apostles before the Sanhedrin saying "We ought to obey God rather than men." There was no balancing of consequences, no thought of compromise. Most of us have some idea of what truth is, of the rights and claims of truth, and, above all, of the deepest truth given to us to know that which is the hope of our own spiritual life. We have an idea that we are ourselves in possession of some truth — that we know something which is important, sacred, sublime; something which others in the world do not know relating to this subject, — but which of us will dare to say that he has a deep hold, and a passionate love of truth, such as inspired these men to resist for the sake of it, and to strive against falsehood and sin? These are days of loose beliefs and hazy views, days when it is fashionable to be an honorary member of all creeds. To one who is infected with the indifferentism of such a time, the stand made by the heroes of the Book of Daniel must seem little better than fanatical folly, and sheer waste of life. So must all martyrdom appear to the man who is a spectator and not a disciple, who has never understood the claims or felt the value of the truth he professes to hold. Babylon has fallen, but it has had its counterpart in every age, for it is the type of that world, with its still subtler pomps and vanities, in which you and I have to pass through our probation; go where we will we cannot escape from it. It sets up its idols and demands worship for them; it has issued its imperious edicts, and attaches formidable penalties to the defiance of them. This will ever be the secret of moral victory — the victory which will overcome the world, even unto the end — our faith. The true self cannot be touched with the mightiest of persecutors or the cruellest of inquisitors, — the true self which comes from God, and belongs to God, and witnesses for God, cannot be delivered to the tormentors. It defies captivity; it is indestructible and immortal.

(Canon Duckworth.)

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KJV: Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree.

WEB: Therefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree.