Sermon Bible Commentary

Daniel 6:22

I. Notice the workings of a strange conspiracy. An influential deputation asks the king to make a law to this effect: that no man shall, within thirty days, make a request to God or men, save of the king; that if he should do so he be cast into the den of lions.

II. Notice the object of the conspiracy Daniel. They hated this man on account of his faith. Amidst the rabble of deities, gods, and goddesses, with all their splendour and all their circumstantial authority, in Babylon, he was true to his worship of the one living God; true to Jehovah and true to the covenant. Daniel was hated for his strange, holy, eccentric faith; he was hated for the life that sprang out of faith. They hated him also because he was a man of rare gifts; they sickened with envy at the sight of those rare gifts. He belonged by presidency to the Magi not to the sacerdotal, but to the scientific, order. They hated him for his supremacy in office.

III. Notice the effect of this conspiracy. (1) The effect was first, to bring out Daniel's confession. (2) God sent His angel to stop the lions' mouths, and we may imagine their bland, caressing movements, as John Foster has it, round Daniel just as they used to be round Adam in Paradise. We are not placed in similar circumstances, but every one of us is tried sometimes to the fullest extent of our powers. You have lions of some kind to face; open your windows towards Calvary; open your windows towards the Great Sacrifice.

C. Stanford, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 328; see also Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Old Testament,p. 297.

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Sermon Bible Commentary

Daniel 6:22

Old Testament

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