Daniel 6:25

The King's Second Decree.

‘Then the king wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages who dwell in the land. “Peace be multiplied to you.” '

This is a deliberate imitation of Daniel 4:1. The same word means both ‘earth' and ‘land'. But the king wrote to a far lesser audience than Nebuchadnezzar. However, the vanity of kings is such that they do see their kingdoms as constituting their ‘whole world', and this was the recognised greeting of Babylonian kings. Indeed ‘to all the peoples, nations and languages who dwell in the land' (Cyrus in contrast was known as ‘king of the lands') was probably the heading of the tablet, followed by the recognised, ‘peace be multiplied to you'. Daniel probably had a hand in this decree as his enemies had had their hand in the previous decree.