When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before. Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king’s decree: “Haven’t you signed a decree that every man who makes a petition to any god or man within thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “This thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn’t alter.”
Then they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.” Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him.
Then these men assembled together to the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no decree nor statute which the king establishes may be changed.”
Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.”
A stone was brought, and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.
Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste to the den of lions. When he came near to the den to Daniel, he cried with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions?”
Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; because as before him innocence was found in me; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.”
Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Daniel now relates how he was clothed in the…
Daniel now relates how he was clothed in the boldness of the Spirit of God to offer his life as a sacrifice to God, because he knew he had no hope of pardon left, if his violation of the king’s edict had been discovered; he knew the king himself to be completely in shackles even if he wished to pardon him — as the event proved. If death had been before the Prophet’s eyes, he preferred meeting it fearlessly rather than ceasing from the duty of piety. We must remark that the internal worship of God is not treated here, but only the external profession of it. If Daniel had been forbidden to pray, this fortitude with which he was endued might seem necessary; but many think he ran great risks without sufficient reason, since he increased the chance of death when only outward profession was prohibited. But as Daniel here is not the herald of his own virtue, but the Spirit speaks through his mouth, we must suppose that this magnanimity in the holy Prophet was pleasing to God. And his liberation shewed how greatly his piety was approved, because he had rather lose his life than change any of his habits respecting the worship of God. We know the principal sacrifice which God requires, is to call upon his name. For we hereby testify him to be the author of all good things; next we shew forth a specimen of our faith; then we fly to him, and cast all our cares into his bosom, and offer him our prayers. Since, therefore, prayer constitutes the chief part of our adoration and worship of God, it was certainly a matter of no slight moment when the king forbade any one to pray to God; it was a gross and manifest denial of piety.
And here, again, we collect how blind was the king’s pride when he could sign so impious and foul an edict! Then how mad were the nobles who, to ruin Daniel as far as they possibly could, endeavored to abolish all piety, and draw down God from heaven! For what remains, when men think they can free themselves from the help of God, and pass him over with security? Unless he prop us up by his special aid, we know how entirely we should be reduced to nothing. Hence the king forbade any one to offer up any prayer during a whole month — that is, as I have said, he exacts from every one a denial of God! But Daniel could not obey the edict without committing an atrocious insult against God and declining from piety; because, as I have said, God exacts this as a principal sacrifice. Hence it is not surprising if Daniel cordially opposed the sacrilegious edict. Now, with respect to the profession of piety, it was necessary to testify before men his perseverance in the worship of God. For if he had altered his habits at all, it would have been a partial abjuration; he would not have said that he openly despised God to please Darius; but that very difference in his conduct would have been a proof of perfidious defection. We know that God requires not only faith in the heart and the inward affections, but also the witness and confession of our piety.
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Daniel, therefore, was obliged to persevere in the holy practice to which he was accustomed, unless he wished to be the very foulest apostate! He was in the habit of praying with his windows open: hence he continued in his usual course, lest any one should object that he gratified his earthly king for a moment by omitting the worship of God. I wish this doctrine was now engraven on the hearts of all men as it ought to be; but this example of the Prophet is derided by many, not perhaps openly and glaringly, but still clearly enough, the Prophet seems to them too inconsiderate and simple, since he incurs great danger, rashly, and without any necessity. For they so separate faith from its outward confession as to suppose it can remain entire even if completely buried, and for the sake of avoiding the cross. they depart a hundred times from its pure and sincere profession. We must maintain, therefore, not only the duty of offering to God the sacrifice of prayer in our hearts, but that our open profession is also required, and thus the reality of our worship of God may clearly appear.
I do not say that our hasty thoughts are to be instantly spread abroad, rendering us subject to death by the enemies of God and his gospel; but I say these things ought to be united and never to be separated, namely, faith and its profession. For confession is of two kinds: first, the open and ingenuous testimony to our inward feelings; and secondly, the necessary maintenance of the worship of God, lest we shew any sign of a perverse and perfidious hypocrisy, and thus reject the pursuit of piety. With regard to the first kind, it is neither always nor everywhere necessary to profess our faith; but the second kind ought to be perpetually practiced, for it can never be necessary for us to pretend either disaffection or apostasy. For although Daniel did not send for the Chaldeans by the sound of a trumpet whenever he wished to pray, yet he framed his prayers and his vows in his couch as usual, and did not pretend to be forgetful of piety when he saw his faith put to the test, and the experiments made whether or not he would persevere in his constancy. Hence he distinctly says, he went home, after being made acquainted with the signing of the decree. Had he been admitted to the council, he would doubtless have spoken out, but the rest of the nobles cunningly excluded him, lest he should interfere with them, and they thought the remedy would be too late, and utterly in vain as soon as he perceived the certainty of his own death. Hence, had he been admitted to the king’s council, he would there have discharged his duty, and heartily interposed; but after the signing of the edict, and the loss of all opportunity for advising the king, he retired to his house.
We must here notice the impossibility of finding an excuse for the king’s advisers, who purposely escape when they see that unanimity of opinion cannot be obtained, and think God will be satisfied in this way, if they only maintain perfect silence. But no excuse can be admitted for such weakness of mind. And, doubtless, Daniel is unable to defend them by his example, since, as we have already said, he was excluded by the cunning and malice of the nobles from taking his place among them as usual, and thus admonishing the king in time. He now says, His windows were open towards Jerusalem The question arises, Whether it was necessary for Daniel thus to open his windows? For some one may object — he did this under a mistaken opinion; for if God fills heaven end earth, what signified his windows being open towards Jerusalem? There is no doubt that the Prophet used this device as a stimulus to his fervor in prayer. For when praying for the liberation of his people, he directed his eyes towards Jerusalem, and that sight became a stimulus to enflame his mind to greater devotion. Hence the opening of the Prophet’s windows has no reference to God, as if he should be listened to more readily by having the open heaven between his dwelling and Judea; but he rather considered himself and his natural infirmity. Now, if the holy Prophet, so careful in his prayers, needed this help, we must see whether or not our sloth in these days has need of more stimulants! Let us learn, therefore, when we feel ourselves to be too sluggish and cold in prayer, to collect all the aids which can arouse our feelings and correct the torpor of which we are conscious. This, then, was the Prophet’s intention in opening his windows towards Jerusalem Besides, he wished by this symbol to shew his domestics his perseverance, in the hope and expectation of the promised redemption. When, therefore, he prayed to God, he kept Jerusalem in sight, not that his eyes could penetrate to so distant a region, but he directed his gaze towards Jerusalem to shew himself a stranger among the Chaldeans, although he enjoyed great power among them, and was adorned with great authority, and excelled in superior dignity. Thus he wished all men to perceive how he longed for the promised inheritance, although for a time he was in exile. This was his second reason for opening his windows.
He says, He prayed three times a-day. This is worthy of observation, because, unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer, it easily slips from our memory. Although, therefore, Daniel was constant in pouring forth prayers, yet he enjoined upon himself the customary rite of prostrating himself before God three times a-day. When we rise in the morning, unless we commence the day by praying to God, we shew a brutish stupidity, so also when we retire to rest, and when we take our food and at other times, as every one finds most advantageous to himself. For here God allows us liberty, but we ought all to feel our infirmities, and to apply the proper remedies. Therefore, for this reason, Daniel was in the habit of praying thrice. A proof of his fervor is also added, when he says, He prostrated himself on his knees; not that bending the knee is necessary in prayer, but while we need aids to devotion, as we have said, that posture is of importance. First of all, it reminds us of our inability to stand before God, unless with humility and reverence; then, our minds are better prepared for serious entreaty, and this symbol of worship is pleasing to God. Hence Daniel’s expression is by no means superfluous: He, fell upon his knees whenever he wished to pray to God. He now says, he uttered prayers and confessions before God, or he praised God, for we must diligently notice how many in their prayers mutter to God. For although they demand either one thing or another, yet they are carried along by an immoderate impulse, and, as I have said, they are violent in their requests unless God instantly grants their petitions.
This is the reason why Daniel joins praises or the giving of thanks with prayers; as, also, Paul exhorts us respecting both. Offer up, says he, your prayers to God, with thanksgiving, (Philippians 4:6,) as if he had said, We cannot rightly offer vows and prayers to God unless when we bless his holy name, although he does not immediately grant our petitions. In Daniel’s case we must remark another circumstance: he had been an exile for a long time, and tossed about in many troubles and changes; still he celebrates God’s praises. Which of us is endued with such patience as to praise God, if afflicted with many trials through three or four years? Nay, scarcely a day passes without our passions growing warm and instigating us to rebel against God! Since Daniel, then, could persevere in praising God, when oppressed by so many sorrows, anxieties, and troubles — this was a remarkable proof of invincible patience. And, doubtless, he signifies a continuous act, by using the demonstrative pronoun דנה, deneh, which refers to his ordinary habit — as he had done before, and from former times By noticing the time, he marks, as I have said before, a perseverance, since he was not only accustomed to pray once or twice, but by a regular constancy he exercised himself in this duty of piety every day. It afterwards follows: —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv10, 15, 20, 22, 23 Because he would not by his silence show that…
Because he would not by his silence show that he consented to this wicked decree, he set open his windows toward Jerusalem, when he prayed: both to stir up himself with the remembrance of God’s promises to his people, when they should pray toward that Temple, and also that others might see, that he would neither consent in heart nor deed for these few days to anything that was contrary to God’s glory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv10–23 Dan 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing…
Dan 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
Ver. 10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed.] Which he knew not, belike, till it was proclaimed and published; and then, it may be, he did as much against it as Latimer did here in like case, by writing his mind unto King Henry VIII, after the proclamation for abolishing English books. See his letter in the Book of Martyrs, and marvel at his heroic boldness and stoutness; who as yet being no bishop, so freely and fearlessly adventuring his life to discharge his conscience, dared so boldly to so mighty a prince, in such a dangerous case, against the king’s law and proclamation, set out in such a terrible time, take upon him to write and to admonish that which no counsellor dared once speak unto him in defence of Christ’s gospel. {a}
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He went into his house.] He left the court, as no fit air for piety to breathe in, and got home, where he might more freely and comfortably converse with his God. Exeat aula qui velit esse pius. Tutissimus est qui rarissime cum hominibus, plurimum cum Deo colloquitur, saith a good divine - that is, he is safest who speaketh seldom with men, but oft with God.
And his windows being open in his chamber.] This was his wont, belike, at other times; and now he would not break it, to the scandal of the weak, and the scorn of the wicked, who watched him, and would have charged him with dissimulation, should he have done otherwise. Say not therefore, what needed he thus to have thrust himself into observation? could he not have kept his conscience to himself, and used his devotions in more secrecy? Our political professors and neuter passives indeed could and would have done so. But as Basil answered once to him that blamed him for venturing too far for his friend, Non aliter amare didici, I never learned to love any otherwise; so might good Daniel here have done, his zeal for God would not suffer him to temporise, or play on both hands. It shall well appear to his greatest enemies that he is true to his principles, and no flincher from his religion. His three companions were alike resolved, {Dan 3:16-18} and Paul, {Act 21:13} and Luther, when to appear at Worms, and many more that might here be mentioned.
Toward Jerusalem.] For the which he was now a petitioner, since "the time to favour her, yea, the set time was come." {Psa 102:13} There also some time had stood the temple, not without a promise of audience to prayers made in or toward that holy place, {1Ki 8:43} which also was a type of Christ, &c.
He kneeled upon his knees.] Constantine the Great, as Eusebius telleth us, would have this as his portraiture - a man on his knees praying; to show that that was his usual practice and posture.
Three times a day.] At morning, noon, and night: thus constantly, beside other times also upon emergent occasions. All the power and policy of Persia could not keep God and Daniel asunder, no, not for a few days: {Php 3:20 Eph 2:19} it is a part of our πολιτευμα, our city employment or spiritual trading with God, to pray; and if prayer stand still, the whole trade of godliness standeth still too. Clean Christians, therefore, typed by those clean beasts in the law, {Lev 11:3} must rightly part the hoof, rightly divide their time, giving a due share thereof to either of their callings as Daniel did; sanctifying both by prayer, and at hours of best leisure. {Psa 55:17}
And prayed, and gave thanks before his God.] Chald., Confessed; either his sins, that he might get pardon thereof; or else God’s benefits, the glory whereof he thankfully returned unto him. Prayers and praises are like the double motion of the lungs. "Let every breath praise the Lord."
As he did aforetime.] An excellent custom doubtless and most worthy to be kept up:
“Pαλλας δη φιλιας απροσηγορια διελυσε” {b}
{a} Acts and Mon., 1591.
{b} Arist. Ethic., lib. viii. cap. 5.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv10–23 His windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem:…
His windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem: this was, 1Ki 8:47-49, according to Solomon’s prayer, which doubtless all the devout Jews in their captivity did observe.
Toward Jerusalem; not towards the east, which was the manner of the Gentiles; nor towards the king’s palace, lest that, in compliance with the king’s edict, he should seem to worship him; but towards the west and the temple in Jerusalem, where the holy of holies stood in the west end, and because the temple was the place where the Lord placed his name and worship, and promised to appear, and accept his people and their sacrifices, all being a type of Christ, through whom only the saints are accepted; which doubtless Daniel by faith had an eye to; believing also that God in his own time would deliver them out of this captivity, and bring them back again, and that he faithfully minded these things in the midst of his honours, and riches, and employments.
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Kneeled upon his knees: this posture was always used in times of mourning and danger; not that we are tied to this gesture, but it is a comely posture before the great God; noting of guilt at the bar of God’s tribunal, and begging for our lives, by humble confession and humiliation, and craving pardon, and blessing God for his mercies.
Three times a day: thus David, Psa 55:17. These three times were, one at nine in the morning, which was their third hour of the day, Act 2:15; the sixth hour was at twelve o’clock, then Peter prayed, Act 10:9; the ninth hour was our three in the afternoon, which was the time of the evening sacrifice, 1Ki 18:36; Act 3:1; it is called
the hour of prayer, and at that our Saviour Christ offered up himself a sacrifice for us, Mat 27:46,50. Now Daniel ordered his affairs so, that, though great, they should not hinder his solemn devotions to God.
As he did aforetime; by which we see he was a holy man, also that he did not abate his prayers for the king’s command, nor did he rashly break the law, by doing it purposely, because he did no more than he was wont to do in serving his God. Daniel did not imprudently, much less sinfully, in this action.
1. Because he would have declared by it that he preferred man before God.
2. It was against the law of nature, which commands God to be worshipped.
3. Against the dictates and peace of his own conscience.
4. Against the people of God, whom he would grieve and stumble by this forbearance.
5. Against his enemies, by hardening them in their evil way, and giving them occasion of triumphing and blaspheming.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv11, 18 Here is 1. Proof made of Daniel's praying to…
Here is 1. Proof made of Daniel's praying to his God, notwithstanding the late edict to the contrary (Dan 6:11): These men assembled; the came tumultuously together, so the word is, the same that was used Dan 6:6, borrowed from Psa 2:1, Why do the heathen rage? They came together to visit Daniel, perhaps under pretence of business, at that time which they knew to be his usual hour of devotion; and, if they had not found him so engaged, they would have upbraided him with his faint-heartedness and distrust of his God, but (which they rather wished to do) they found him on his knees praying and making supplication before his God. For his love they are his adversaries; but, like his father David, he gives himself unto prayer, Psa 109:4. 2. Complaint made of it to the king. When they had found occasion against Daniel concerning the law of his God they lost no time, but applied to the king (Dan 6:12), and having appealed to his whether there was not such a law made, and gained from him a recognition of it, and that it was so ratified that it might not be altered, they proceeded to accuse Daniel, Dan 6:13. They so describe him, in the information they give, as to exasperate the king and incense him the more against him: "He is of the children of the captivity of Judah; he is of Judah, that despicable people, and now a captive in a despicable state, that can call nothing his own but what he has by the king's favour, and yet he regards not thee, O king! nor the decree that thou hast signed." Note, It is no new thing for that which is done faithfully, in the conscience towards God, to be misrepresented as done obstinately and in contempt of the civil powers, that is, for the best saints to be reproached as the worst men. Daniel regarded God, and therefore prayed, and we have reason to think prayed for the king and his government, yet this is construed as not regarding the king. That excellent spirit which Daniel was endued with, and that established reputation which he had gained, could not protect him from these poisonous darts. They do not say, He makes his petition to his God, lest Darius should take notice of that to his praise, but only, He makes his petition, which is the thing the law forbids. 3. The great concern the king was in hereupon. He now perceived that, whatever they pretended, it was not to honour him, but in spite to Daniel, that they had proposed that law, and now he is sorely displeased with himself for gratifying them in it, Dan 6:14. Note, When men indulge a proud vain-glorious humour, and please themselves with that which feeds it, they know not what vexations they are preparing for themselves; their flatterers may prove their tormentors, and are but spreading a net for their feet. Now, the king sets his heart to deliver Daniel; both by argument and by authority he labours till the going down of the sun to deliver him, that is, to persuade his accusers not to insist upon his prosecution. Note, We often do that, through inconsideration, which afterwards we see cause a thousand times to wish undone again, which is a good reason why we should ponder the path of our feet, for then all our ways will be established. 4. The violence with which the prosecutors demanded judgment, Dan 6:15. We are not told what Daniel said; the king himself is his advocate, he needs not plead his own cause, but silently commits himself and it to him that judges righteously. But the prosecutors insist upon it that the law must have its course; it is a fundamental maxim in the constitution of the government of the Medes and Persians, which had now become the universal monarchy, that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed. The same we find Est 1:19; Est 8:8. The Chaldeans magnified the will of their king, by giving him a power to make and unmake laws at his pleasure, to slay and keep alive whom he would. The Persians magnified the wisdom of their king, by supposing that whatever law he solemnly ratified it was so well made that there could be no occasion to alter it, or dispense with it, as if any human foresight could, in framing a law, guard against all inconveniences. But, if this maxim be duly applied to Daniel's case (as I am apt to think it is not, but perverted), while it honours the king's legislative power it hampers his executive power, and incapacitates him to show that mercy which upholds the throne, and to pass acts of indemnity, which are the glories of a reign. Those who allow not the sovereign's power to dispense with a disabling statute, yet never question his power to pardon an offence against a penal statute. But Darius is denied this power. See what need we have to pray for princes that God would give them wisdom, for they are often embarrassed with great difficulties, even the wisest and best are. 5. The executing of the law upon Daniel. The king himself, with the utmost reluctance, and against his conscience, signs the warrant for his execution; and Daniel, that venerable grave man, who carried such a mixture of majesty and sweetness in his countenance, who had so often looked great upon the bench, and at the council-board, and greater upon his knees, who had power with God and man, and had prevailed, is brought, purely for worshipping his God, as if he had been one of the vilest of malefactors, and thrown into the den of lions, to be devoured by them, Dan 6:16. One cannot think of it without the utmost compassion to the gracious sufferer and the utmost indignation at the malicious prosecutors. To make sure work, the stone laid upon the mouth of the den is sealed, and the king (an over-easy man) is persuaded to seal it with his own signet (Dan 6:17), that unhappy signet with which he had confirmed the law that Daniel falls by. But his lords cannot trust him, unless they add their signets too. Thus, when Christ was buried, his adversaries sealed the stone that was rolled to the door of his sepulchre. 6. The encouragement which Darius gave to Daniel to trust in God: Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee, Dan 6:16. Here (1.) He justifies Daniel from guilt, owning all his crime to be serving his God continually, and continuing to do so even when it was made a crime. (2.) He leaves it to God to free him from punishment, since he could not prevail to do it: He will deliver thee. He is sure that his God can deliver him, for he believes him to be an almighty God, and he has reason to think he will do it, having heard of his delivering Daniel's companions in a like case from the fiery furnace, and concluding him to be always faithful to those who approve themselves faithful to him. Note, Those who serve God continually he will continually preserve, and will bear them out in his service.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv10–23 Then these men assembled,.... Gathered together, and went in…
Then these men assembled,.... Gathered together, and went in a body to Daniel's house; knowing his times of prayer, and where, and in what manner, he used to pray, to see if they could find him at it as aforetime; that so they might have to accuse him with it. Saadiah says, they found a girl, and asked her what Daniel was doing? she told him that Daniel was on his knees, praying to his God in his chamber; immediately they went, and found as she had said:
and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God; they went into his house, and up into his chamber, the doors not being locked, pretending perhaps business with him, and saw him at his devotions; so that they were able, upon their own knowledge, to bring in an accusation against him for breach of the king's law, and prove it.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv10, 14, 20, 22 Toward Jerusalem - The temple was the place where…
Toward Jerusalem - The temple was the place where the Lord placed his name, and promised to appear, and accept his people, all being a type of Christ, through whom only sinners are accepted. As he did aforetime - He did not abate his prayers for the king's command, nor did he break the law purposely, because he did no more than he was wont to do in serving his God.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 Verse 10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing…
Verse 10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed] He saw what was designed, and he knew whom he served.
His windows being open] He would not shut them to conceal himself, but "kneeled down with his face turned toward Jerusalem, and prayed thrice each day, giving thanks to God as usual." When the Jews were in distant countries, in prayer they turned their faces towards Jerusalem; and when in Jerusalem, they turned their faces towards the temple. Solomon, in his prayer at the dedication of the temple, 1Kg 8:48, had entreated God to hear the prayers of those who might be in strange lands, or in captivity, when they should turn their faces towards their own land, which God gave unto their fathers; and towards the city which he had chosen, and the house which was dedicated to his name. It was in reference to this that Daniel turned his face towards Jerusalem when he prayed.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21 Dan 6:10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing…
Dan 6:10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, &c. — He did not retire to the country, or abscond for some time, though he knew that the law was levelled against him; but because he knew it was so, therefore he stood his ground, knowing that he had now a fair opportunity of honouring God before men, and showing that he preferred his favour, and his own duty to him, before life itself. And his windows being open in his chamber — The LXX. read, εν τοις υπερωοις αυτου, in his upper rooms. It seems to have been a custom among the devout Jews to set apart some upper room, or rooms, in their houses, for their oratories, as places the farthest from any noise or disturbance. So we read, Tob 3:17, that Sarah came down from her upper chamber: and, the apostles assembled in an upper room, Act 1:13. Toward Jerusalem — According to the ancient custom of the Jews; for those who were in the country, or in foreign lands, turned themselves toward Jerusalem; and those who were in Jerusalem turned themselves toward the temple to pray, conformably to Solomon’s consecration-prayer, 1Ki 8:48-49. He prayed, it seems, with his windows quite open to view, the shutters being removed, since he chose to make his testimony to the exclusive worship of God, neglected by others, as public as might be, that he might show he was neither ashamed of worshipping Jehovah, the God of his fathers, nor afraid of any thing he might suffer on that account; and he had them open toward Jerusalem, to signify his affection for the holy city, though now in ruins, and the remembrance he had of its concerns daily in his prayers. He kneeled upon his knees — The most proper posture in prayer, most expressive of humility before God, of reverence for him, and submission to him; three times a day — Morning, noon, and evening, the hours of prayer observed by devout men of former times, Psa 55:17; which religious custom was continued by the apostles, with whom the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours were times of prayer; and prayed, and gave thanks before his God — He joined prayer and thanksgiving together in all his devotions, in which he is an example for our imitation. Thanksgiving ought to make a part of every one of our prayers; for when we pray to God for the mercies we want, we ought to praise him for those we have received. Observe, reader, though Daniel was a great man, he did not think it below him to be thrice a day upon his knees before his Maker; though he was an old man, and it had been his practice from his youth up, he was not weary of this kind of well-doing; and though he was a man of business, of great and important business, and that for the service of the public, he did not think this would excuse him from the daily exercises of prayer and praise. How inexcusable then are they who have but little to do in the world, and yet will not do thus much for God and their souls! As he did aforetime — He did not abate his prayers because of the king’s command, and through fear of death by the lions; nor did he break the law purposely: for he did no more than he had been wont to do aforetime, he only persevered in his former long-continued course.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv10–23 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed…
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed - Probably there was some proclamation made in regard to that decree.
He went into his house - That is, he went in in his usual manner. He made no change in his habits on account of the decree.
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And his windows being open in his chamber - Open in the usual manner. It does not mean that he took pains to open them for the purpose of ostentation, or to show that he disregarded the decree, but that he took no care to close them with any view to avoid the consequences. In the warm climate of Babylon, the windows probably were commonly open. Houses among the Jews in later times, if not in the time of the exile, were usually constructed with an upper chamber - ὑπερῷον huperōon - which was a room not in common use, but employed as a guest chamber, where they received company and held feasts, and where at other times they retired for prayer and meditation. See the note at Mat 9:2. Those “upper rooms” are often the most pleasant and airy part of the house. Dr. Robinson (Researches, vol. iii. p. 417), describing the house of the American consularagent in Sidon, says, “His house was a large one, built upon the eastern wall of the city; the rooms were spacious, and furnished with more appearance of wealth than any I saw in the country. An upper parlour with many windows, on the roof of the proper house, resembled a summer palace; and commanded a delightful view of the country toward the east, full of trees and gardens, and country-houses, quite to the foot of the mountains.”
Toward Jerusalem - It is not improbable that the windows were open on each side of the chamber, but this is particularly mentioned, because he turned his face toward Jerusalem when he prayed. This was natural to an exile Hebrew in prayer, because the temple of God had stood at Jerusalem, and that was the place where he abode by a visible symbol. It is probable that the Jews in their own country always in their prayers turned the face toward Jerusalem, and it was anticipated when the temple was dedicated, that this would be the case in whatever lands they might be. Thus in the prayer of Solomon, at the dedication, he says, “If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name,” etc., 1Ki 8:44. And again 1Ki 8:46-49, “If they sin against thee, and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent - and pray unto thee toward their land which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name, then hear thou their prayer,” etc.
Compare 1Ki 8:33, 1Ki 8:35, 1Ki 8:38. So in Psa 5:7 : “As for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.” So Jonah it. 4: “Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.” So in the first book of Esdras (Apocrypha), 4:58: “Now when this young man was gone forth, he lifted up his face to heaven, toward Jerusalem, and praised the King of heaven.” Compare Intro. Section II. V. C. Daniel, therefore, in turning his face toward Jerusalem when he prayed, was acting in accordance with what Solomon had anticipated as proper in just such a supposed case, and with the prevailing habit of his people when abroad. This was not, indeed, particularly prescribed as a duty, but it was recognized as proper; and it was not only in accordance with the instinctive feelings of love to his country and the temple, but a foundation was laid for this in the fact that Jerusalem was regarded as the peculiar dwelling-place of God on earth.
In the Koran it is enjoined as a duty on all Mussulmen, in whatever part of the earth they may be, to turn their faces toward the Caaba at Mecca when they pray: “The foolish men will say, What hath turned them from their Keblah toward which they formerly prayed? Say, unto God belongeth the East and the West; he directeth whom he pleaseth in the right way. Thus have we placed you, O Arabians, an intermediate nation, that ye may be witnesses against the rest of mankind, and that the apostle may be a witness against you. We appointed the Keblah, toward which thou didst formerly pray, only that we might know him who followeth the apostle from him that turneth back on his heels: though this change seem a great matter, unless unto those whom God hath directed. But God will not render your faith of none effect, for God is gracious and merciful unto man. We have seen thee turn about thy face toward heaven with uncertainty, but we will cause thee to turn thyself toward a Keblah that will please thee.
Turn, therefore, thy face toward the holy temple of Mecca; and wherever ye be, turn your faces toward that place.” - Sale’s Koran, chapter ii. Wherever Mussulmen are, therefore, they turn their faces toward the temple at Mecca when they pray. Daniel complied with what was probably the general custom of his countrymen, and what was natural in his case, for there was, in the nature of the case, a reason why he should turn his face toward the place where God had been accustomed to manifest himself. It served to keep up in his mind the remembrance of his beloved country, and in his case could be attended with no evil. As all visible symbols of the Devine Being are now, however, withdrawn from any particular place on the earth, there is no propriety in imitating his example, and when we pray it is wholly immaterial in what direction the face is turned.
He kneeled upon his knees three times a day - In accordance, doubtless, with his usual custom. The amount of the statement is, that he did not vary his habit on account of the command. He evidently neither assumed a posture of ostentation, nor did he abstain from what he was accustomed to do. To have departed from his usual habit in any way would have been a yielding of principle in the case. It is not mentioned at what time in the day Daniel thus kneeled and prayed, but we may presume that it was evening, and morning, and noon. Thus the Psalmist says: “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud; and he shall hear my voice” Psa 55:17. No one can doubt the propriety of thus praying to God; and it would be well for all thus to call upon their God.
As he did aforetime - Without making any change. He neither increased nor diminished the number of times each day in which he called upon God; nor did he make any change in the manner of doing it. He did not seek ostentatiously to show that he was a worshipper of God, nor was he deterred by the fear of punishment from doing as he had been accustomed to do. If it should be said that Daniel’s habit of worship was ostentatious; that his praying with his windows open was contrary to the true spirit of retiring devotion, and especially contrary to the spirit required of worshippers in the New Testament, where the Saviour commands us when we pray to “enter into the closet, and to shut the door” Mat 6:6, it may be replied,
(1) That there is no evidence that Daniel did this for the purpose of ostentation, and the supposition that he did it for that purpose is contrary to all that we know of his character;
(2) As we have seen, this was the customary place for prayer, and the manner of the prayer was what was usual;
(3) The chamber, or upper part of the house, was in fact the most retired part, and was a place where one would be least likely to be heard or seen; and
(4) There is no evidence that it would not have been quite private and unobserved if these men had not gone to his house and listened for the very purpose of detecting him at his devotions. No one could well guard against such a purpose.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 22, 23 Before. He did not open the windows that he…
Before. He did not open the windows that he might be seen, as that would have been rashness; nor did many perceive what he was doing, (ver. 11.) (Worthington) as it was in an upper room, but only those who rushed in. (Haydock) --- It was the usual practice of the Jews, (Calmet) to pray turning towards the temple, as Solomon had directed, (3 Kings viii. 48; St. Jerome in Ezechiel viii. 16.) though it was now in ashes. (Haydock) --- Daniel observed the third, sixth, and ninth hours, as the Church still does. (Acts ii. 15. and x. 9.) (St. Jerome)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 when Daniel knew . . . writing . .…
when Daniel knew . . . writing . . . signed--and that, therefore, the power of advising the king against it was taken from him.
went into his house--withdrawing from the God-dishonoring court.
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windows . . . open--not in vainglory, but that there might be no obstruction to his view of the direction in which Jerusalem, the earthly seat of Jehovah under the Old Testament, lay; and that the sight of heaven might draw his mind off from earthly thoughts. To Christ in the heavenly temple let us turn our eyes in prayer, from this land of our captivity (Kg1 8:44, Kg1 8:48; Ch2 6:29, Ch2 6:34, Ch2 6:38; Psa 5:7).
chamber--the upper room, where prayer was generally offered by the Jews (Act 1:13). Not on the housetop (Act 10:9), where he would be conspicuous.
upon his knees--Humble attitudes in prayer become humble suppliants.
three times a day-- (Psa 55:17). The third, sixth, and ninth hour; our nine, twelve, and three o'clock (Act 2:15; Act 10:9; Act 3:1; Act 10:30; compare Dan 9:21).
as . . . aforetime--not from contempt of the king's command.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23 10. Through the latticed windows of “his upper room”…
10. Through the latticed windows of “his upper room” his enemies see Daniel offer his prayers and thanksgivings as heretofore three times a day (Psa_55:17) with his face toward the ruined temple. (Compare 1Ki_8:33; 1Ki_8:35; 1Ki_8:38; 1Ki_8:44.) This fixed order of prayer at 9 A.M., 12 M., and 3 P.M., is generally acknowledged to date back among the Jews at least to the captivity. It was probably the omission of sacrifice during the exile which led to this. It is interesting to note that even as early as the fourteenth century B.C. recesses probably for prayer — corresponding to the modern Mohammedan kibla, which originally faced Jerusalem, not Mecca — are found in ancient Egyptian houses. “The orientation of many Christian churches and the eastward position frequently observed during certain parts of the service are survivals of this early Jewish custom.” — Prince. Daniel is not necessarily represented here as overvaluing the ritual of prayer, as the Jews did, for example, in Maccabean time. He simply shows himself too brave to hide himself away during his devotions because his religion had become unpopular. This picture of courage and calm trust has inspired many a persecuted band of Christians in the stormy centuries of the past, who have rejoiced in the steadfastness of this hero who, at any risk, “three tymes in the day bowide his knees and wirshepide and knawelichide byfore his God” (Wyclif’s Bible). In the catacombs the fresco of Daniel in the lions’ den is common, and at least one of these probably dates back to the first part of the second century (American Journal of Archaeology, July-September, 1894).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv10–23 10. and his windows, &c.] more exactly, and also…
10. and his windows, &c.] more exactly, and also more clearly, now he had in his roof-chamber open windows fronting Jerusalem. The clause is parenthetical, and describes the constant and habitual arrangement of Daniel’s windows.
roof-chamber] usually rendered upper chamber, which however does not at all suggest to an English reader what is intended. The ‘roof-chamber’ was (and still is) an apartment ‘raised above the flat roof of a house at one corner, or upon a tower like annex to the building, with latticed windows giving free circulation to the air’ (Moore on Jdg_3:20). It was thus cool in summer (Judg. l. c.), and a part of the house to which anyone would naturally retire if he wished to be undisturbed (cf. 1Ki_17:19; 2Ki_1:2; 2Ki_4:10-11). In the N.T. the roof-chamber is mentioned as a place of meeting for prayer (Act_1:13; Act_20:8; cf. Act_10:9 : see also Act_9:37; Act_9:39). Comp. Thomson’s The Land and the Book, ed. 2, ii. 634, 636 (with an illustration).
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open] i.e., either without lattices at all, or without fixed lattices (cf. 2Ki_1:2; 2Ki_13:17) opp. to ‘closed windows’ (Eze_40:16; Eze_41:16; Eze_41:26), or ‘windows with closed wood-work’ (1Ki_6:4), the lattices of which did not admit of being opened.
toward Jerusalem] To pray, turning towards Jerusalem—or, if in Jerusalem, towards the Temple—became in later times a standing Jewish custom: we do not know how early it began; but it was based doubtless upon 1Ki_8:35; 1Ki_8:38; 1Ki_8:44; 1Ki_8:48 (in this verse with reference to exiles in a foreign land), cf. Psa_5:7; Psa_28:2. The custom is alluded to in the Mishna (Bìrâchôth, iv. 5, 6); and in Sifrê 71b it is said that those in foreign lands turn in prayer towards the land of Israel, those in the land of Israel towards Jerusalem, and those in Jerusalem towards the Temple. Mohammed at first commanded his disciples to pray towards Jerusalem; but afterwards he altered the ḳibla (‘facing-point’) to Mecca.
and he continued kneeling.… and praying, and giving thanks before his God, forasmuch as he had been wont to do (it) aforetime] inasmuch as it had been his regular custom, he still adhered to it.
three times a day] Cf. Psa_55:17 (‘at evening, and at morning, and at noonday will I complain and moan’). In later times, the three hours of prayer were—not as is often supposed, the third, sixth and ninth hours, but—the time when the morning burnt-offering was offered (תפלת שחר), in the afternoon at the ninth hour (our three o’clock; cf. Act_3:1; Act_10:30), when the evening meal-offering was offered (תפלת מנחה), and sunset (תפלת הערב) see Schürer, ii. 237. The custom may well have arisen before the 2nd cent. b.c. On the prayers which, at least in later days, were used at the three times, see Hamburger, Real-Encyclop. vol. vii., arts. Morgen-, Mincha-, and Abendgebet.
before his God] a usage of the later Jews (as in the Targum constantly), who, from a feeling of greater reverence, said ‘to speak, pray, confess, &c. before God,’ rather than ‘to Him.’ Cf. Dan_6:22, end; also Dan_2:9, with the note. The later Jews even extended the same usage to cases in which God was really the agent: cf. Mat_11:26 (οὔτως ἐγένετο εὐδοκία ἔηπροσθέν σου) Mat_18:14 (see R.V. marg.); Luk_12:6 (ἐπιλελησμένον ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ); Num_14:8 Onk. (‘if there is good pleasure in us before Jehovah’); and see Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, pp. 172–174.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 (10) Toward Jerusalem.—On the custom of praying thus see…
(10) Toward Jerusalem.—On the custom of praying thus see 1Ki_8:33; 1Ki_8:35; Psa_5:7; Psa_28:2; and on prayer at the intervals mentioned here, see Psa_55:17. There is nothing ostentatious in Daniel’s prayer. He removed the lattices (see Eze_40:16) from his window, that he might see as far as possible in the direction of Jerusalem, and then continued his devotions just as though the king’s decree had not been recorded. The prophet must by this time have been close upon ninety years of age, but still his faith is as firm and unwavering as that of his three companions many years before.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed,…
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. The Septuagint rendering differs only slightly from the Massoretic. "And when Daniel knew the decree which was passed (esthse) against him, he opened the windows of his upper chamber, and fell on his face three times a day, according as he did aforctimc, and prayed." The Septuagint translator read hl, "against him," instead of l, "went." It seems to us that the Massoretic reading, "went to his house," is an addition due to misreading hl. That the variations of the Septuagint arc not due to paraphrase is proved by the tact that the next clause is literally translated. It would seem that the text before the LXX had been altered, so that we have "fell upon his face," instead of "knelt upon his knees." The former phrase is an echo Dan_2:46. It is to be observed that "prayed and gave thanks" is omitted from the Septuagint. As the omission can have no purpose, and we can understand the reason of the words being added, we prefer the LXX reading here. Theodotion and the Peshitta are at one with the Massoretic. The action of Daniel is here that of a man of true conscientiousness; he does not obtrude his religion now that the practice of it implies danger, as did some Christian fanatics in the persecution of the three first centuries; nor, on the other hand, does he hide his acts of worship he simply continued his previous habits. Had a Jewish fanatic of the time of the Maccabees written this, the action attributed to Daniel would have been much more uncompromising, as the story in the Midrash Rabba of Moses in regard to the crown of Pharaoh. Or Daniel would be represented as doing, as the Jews arc said in Third Maccabees to have done to Ptolemy, bowing himself down in humble abasement before the king, to get him to reverse his decree, or, if not, to devise some means of its effect being averted. Daniel does none of these things. His windows being open toward Jerusalem. The windows were lattices, and as the room was an upper one on the roof of the house, the opening of the windows enabled everything done in the apartment to be seen. The practice of prayer "toward Jerusalem" is acknowledged to have arisen in Babylon during the Captivity. Solomon, in his prayer at the dedication of the temple, refers to the contingency of captivity, (1Ki_8:48) and prays that if the captives "pray unto thee toward their land, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy Name, then hear thou their prayer" (see also Psa_5:8 Psa_5:7). The practice of praying towards a particular point has been maintained by the Mohammedans, who pray towards Mecca. Mohammed originally made Jerusalem the qiblah, or point of prayer; but the Jews would not receive him as their Messiah, and so from Jerusalem it was changed to Mecca. The objection of Bertholdt hardly needs to be mentioned, that "the temple was in ruins the place was holy ground. "Three times a day" is referred to Psa_55:18 (17), "Evening and morning and at noonday will I complain.
Habitual prayer.
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This glimpse into the daily habits of Daniel is enough to reveal to us the secret of his fidelity and integrity among the fearful temptations of the world in which he was called to serve. Here we see the oil which saved the fire from being quenched. Daniel was a man of prayer.
I DANIEL WAS NOT FORGETFUL OF HIS GOD IN SPITE OF THE DISTRACTIONS OF COURT LIFE. It was a heathen court, yet he remained faithful to the true God. It was a dissolute court, yet he lived in devotion to the God of holiness. It is more easy to withstand the outbreak of violent persecution than to remain pure and true amongst the daily and insidious allurements of a world of sinful pleasures.
II DANIEL FOUND TIME FOR PRAYER AMONG THE MANY CLAIMS OF A BUSY LIFE. He had the responsibilities attendant on the highest office in the kingdom, and he fulfilled them so well that his most jealous enemies could find no fault with him. Yet he did not regard these public duties as an excuse for the neglect of prayer.
1. As our duty to God is of primary obligation, no human duties can afford an excuse for neglecting it.
2. Prayer is a help to the performance of duty. Time spent in prayer is not lost time, even as regards the work of the world. Hours of prayer can no more be neglected with profit, than the time for meals and sleep. Christ spent much time in prayer in the most active part of his life, and the more he worked the more he prayed.
III DANIEL PRACTISED REGULAR HABITS OF PRAYER. The observance of regular hours of prayer as a thing meritorious in itself is simply superstitious. Moreover, a spiritually minded man will live in an atmosphere of prayer, and not confine his devotions to set seasons. (1Th_5:17)
1. But on the other hand, there is great reason for observing regular habits of prayer. It is well that the mind should be at times entirely withdrawn from the world for spiritual exercises. The deeper and more far-reaching acts of prayer are only possible when we have leisure to collect our thoughts and meditate upon Divine things.
2. It is desirable, too, that these habits should be regular, because otherwise they may be neglected and crowded out by other concerns, and because the laws of habit will then help us to enter into them the more readily.
IV DANIEL CONFESSED HIS PATRIOTISM IN HIS PRAYER, Praying towards Jerusalem was a touching proof of his true patriotism. Prayer brings out our deepest affections. We should remember our country in our prayers. It is well when high promotion does not lead a man to forget the associations of humbler days. (Psa_137:6)
V DANIEL SHOWED HIS SIMPLICITY AND HIS COURAGE BY THE PUBLICITY OF HIS PRAYER. He prayed with his windows open. Of course, prayer should never be ostentatious. (Mat_6:5, Mat_6:6) But if there are times when we should pray in the closet, and with the door shut, there are also times when it may be our duty to let devotional habits be known. If the hiding of them suggests the abandonment of them in face of danger, it is our duty to let them be open and visible. We should thus avoid the appearance of evil. It is always wrong to be ashamed of our religion. (Luk_9:26) it is our duty to make a simple unpretentious confession of religion in face of persecution or of ridicule.
Vers. 10-13.
Piety in perilous circumstances.
Daniel was at this time advanced in years. His principles, good at the first, had grown in strength and mutual support. At his age ha was not to be surprised by alarm nor driven into rashness. His character had been moulded into heavenly shape under the rough handling of oppression and persecution, and now every fibre of his moral nature had toughness and tenacity. He was manly because he was eminently devout.
I TRUE PIETY FINDS ITS CHIEF EXPRESSION IN PRAYER. Piety shows itself in many acts, some of which, though useful, are accidental; one, however, is essential, viz. prayer. If there be no outgoing of desire from the soul Godwards, there is no real piety; if there be prayer, vocal or silent, there is piety. Pious men, when placed in perilous circumstances on account of their faith, may suspend (sometimes must suspend) overt acts of public worship; they may never relinquish prayer A beggar asking alms, a child thanking its parent, a subject honouring his monarch, these are earthly acts parallel to prayer. When first the gospel found its way into the hearts of the Malagasy, they did not style themselves Christians they simply styled themselves the praying people. Prayer is the distinctive mark and badge of piety. What colour is to the rainbow, what saltness is to the sea, what roundness is to the circle, such prayer is to piety. It is its essential element. It is the breath of spiritual life.
II TRUE PIETY HAS RESPECT TO MINUTE PRECEPTS. For Daniel to pray was the first principle of his religion. To pray three times a day, to pray with his window open, to pray with his face toward Jerusalem, these things were non-essentials. Nevertheless, there was a fitness and a propriety in these minuter acts. If not positive commands from God, they were indications of God"s pleasure. Daniel had found them helpful to his spirit"s health. Such habits of piety had been sanctioned by the most eminent saints who had gone before him. David had ascribed his elevation and his prosperity to the favour of God, and David had been accustomed to pray three times a day. The temple in Jerusalem had contained the only visible symbol of the Divine Presence on earth. Thither the longing heart of every pious Jew turned. On what ground should these pious habits be abandoned? It would not conciliate the unreasonable hostility of Daniel"s detractors. The king"s decree was not directed against these minor forms, but against prayer itself. Amidst so many unfriendly influences, it is wise to secure every vantage-ground for piety.
III TRUE PIETY IS SELF-CONSISTENT. When the ridiculous decree of the king was promulgated, Daniel wisely resolved not to alter his course by a single point. He will steer his bark straight for the port of heaven, come what may. To a self-willed man, the temptation would be strong to resist the imperious interference of the king, and to pray more frequently and more prominently than before. To a timid man the inducement would be to close his chamber-window, and clandestinely do that which the new law disallowed. But Daniel leant neither to temerity nor to timidity. He maintained an upright and straightforward demeanour. Every habit of his life had been formed under the guidance of wisdom and discretion, and terror shall not rob him of advantages which experience has given. His loyalty to God is an obligation earlier, stronger, deeper, than loyalty to an earthly king. As God bad been a true and trusty Friend for seventy years and more, it would be base ingratitude to neglect him now.
IV TRUE PIETY ACTS WITHOUT REGARD TO MAN"S JUDGMENT. In every circumstance of life, God"s honour being first secured, the pious man will find a delight in serving his fellow-men. But to attempt to appease malice by abandoning honest principle, would be, in very deed, to "cast pearls before swine," Full well Daniel knew that his enemies were watching his every step, yet would he not submit to the slightest compromise or concealment. These princes and presidents degraded themselves into spies and informers. They watched, as with wolves" eyes, the open lattice of this man of God. Their organs of bearing were made sensitively alive by keen suspicion. As the fowler watches for his prey in the net which he has spread, so these inhuman spies watched for the successful issue of their plot. In breathless haste they press into the council-chamber of the king, and divulge what they have heard and seen. They employ every stratagem that can arouse his anger and enflame his wrath. They meanly point to Daniel"s foreign origin. They knavely describe his deed as treason against the king. "This fellow," urged they, "doth not regard thee, O king. He tramples on thy authority, and treats as a dead letter thy royal edict." Not a stone was left unturned by which they might injure the innocent man. Nevertheless, Daniel maintained a dignified and peaceful demeanour. To be right was with him a higher honour than to be respected. He was no stoic. He had all the better feelings of a man. He entertained the good opinion of his fellows at its true value. He would be delighted to enjoy that good opinion if he could have, at the same time, the approbation of his God. But the latter was paramount, transcendent, priceless. And if, as the result of his loyalty to God, men maligned and hated him, much as he lamented the fact, he was content to face the consequence. It is, after all, comparatively a little thing to be approved or reprobated by man"s judgment. "He that judgeth us is the Lord. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 15, 16, 20, 21 Now when Daniel knew that the Writing was signed.
Dan_6:10
Now when Daniel knew that the Writing was signed.
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Faithful Serving
The grandeur of the Book of Daniel is not only the sweep of these majestic visions which opened the mysteries of future time, but the vivid portrait it holds before us of a man who has all the springs of his actions in faithfulness to God:--A man so thoroughly forgetful of himself that the one only question which rises in him, when anything is to be done or suffered, is whether that thing is his Lords will. If it is, no doubt remains; nothing is to be said or thought about costs and consequences. If it is not, no consequences will justify it. The probable consequences of our actions are one proper test, among others for deciding, in doubtful cases, before we act, whether a given course is, or is not according to God s will; but when that last point is once settled, whether by Scripture, an enlightened conscience, or any rightful authority, the expected consequences can never furnish ground for hesitation. What is right is to be done. What will come of doing right--whether dens of lions or chairs of state--is not our concern. Still, the weakness of human virtue makes men more prompt and stedfast in well-doing, if they know beforehand how it will come out, and that no hurt will be found upon them. Recall Daniels four great experiences. Each of these four sorts of hostility to Christian faithfulness has its ever-present examples.
1. The royal meat, dishes, and wine-vessels, in the low opportunities of the flesh, tempting the senses to excess
2. The golden image set up on the plains of Dura, as the thousand-fold attractions of outward possession and prosperity, office and station sanction the lust of them.
3. The princely court and crown and ceremony of Babylon, over-riding common consciences, in the whole fascination and imposing influence of earthly power, invested with the highest advantages and brilliant paraphernalia of social distinction.
4. The decree of an idolatrous worship, in everything among us which goes to put man in place of God, mans opinions in place of Gospel truths, and human fancies for a revealed and justified faith. We need not use the hard names, which describe the extreme indulgences and servitudes of these four formidable passions; we need not say, gluttony, avarice, sycophancy, or infidelity. Let us choose moderate words, and try to put it home to ourselves fairly, just as it is. Look at the same four thus: sins of the appetites; sins of selfish accumulation; sins of inordinate desire for position; sins of religious laxity and negligence. These beset us all, with all the artful and boundless possibilities of growth, mastery, perdition of the soul. Over all these perilous tempters we are shown here one steadfast and victorious master--religious fidelity. It wears in this saintly prophet a peculiar charm. It is a fidelity intensified, yet without boasting or pretension, incorruptible without self-confidence, fixed without obstinancy, patient without pusillanimity, invincible in front of men and princes, but humble and docile as the pet of the Lord. For a fidelity like this there is an involuntary and almost universal admiration among men that fall farthest short of it. So far the best sentiments of human nature second the requirements of our religion. Place a Daniel, an Elijah, a Gideon, or a Joshua before them, and they see, they confess the stamp of greatness on his spirit. So far the Bible and the soul answer to each other. The same divine hand that has wrought this feeling into the common human heart has woven traces of it into human history.
The four successive steps which mark the birth and growth of each great cause, institution, or reformation among men, are these:
1. The great truth wakened m the mind of some man or men, in the form of an idea, and a faith by the Spirit from whom all good gifts come.
2. The jealous and the selfish opposition of worldly interest--the Pharaohs and Caesars and Herods, the Nebuchadnezzars and Belihazzars, the scribes and Pharisees, of Society, of the state, and even of the church--carrying on a determined warfare with the light.
3. The triumph of fidelity, brave and patient.
4. The general recognition and confession of the glory and beauty of the faithful life. Only let in time enough after a man sacrifices himself for a true principle, and the common testimony of men will honour him. More than that, it will not effectually and unanimously honour anything else on earth, but such fidelity. It is one of the most striking proofs that a righteous God really rules the earth, to see this constant reversal of human judgements going on--the humble exalted, and the rejected canonised. Recall the case of Bernard Palissy, a poor, but thinking and believing mechanic of France, thrown into the old Bastile, on St. Bartholomews day, for his Protestanism. Charles the Ninth came to visit and threaten him in the prison, saying to him, Palissy, I am forced to give you up to death, unless you renounce your religion. Forced! answered the triumphant prisoner; they that force you, King Charles, cannot force me. I can die, and so I am free. But you and all your nation cannot compel me, simple potter as I am, to bend my knee to an idol, or a lie. Everybody knows whence the spirit in that man came, and everybody acknowledges its power. Men are heard to say, There are terrible times coming. It may be so, we know nothing of the future. But prosperity is a harder test of fidelity to Christ than misfortune. But instead of looking out for dangers that shall imperil mens souls when worse days come, we should be wiser if we were looking for them just where we are. In business, in politics, in company, in families, in schools, the question will have to go forth once more like a dividing sword, Who is on the Lords side? Many persons are now pleading for mild and liberal exhibitions of Christian conviction. The greater truth is, we are all servants answerable only for doing declared duties, for confessing Christ before men, and seeking not our own glory, and being found faithful unto death. Ours is not to order results, but to do duties. The prophet stands in just this trial-place of his holy independence The special peril of this sort of character, is that it becomes conscious of its strength, proud of its independence, and before it is aware, substitutes the human heroism of self-reliance for the holy fidelity of Christs self-sacrifice. How many high examples of Christian courage have fallen by that cunning temptation--the humility of the cross vanished! See in Daniel the graceful freedom from that ostentation of conceited and opinionated firmness. Christian fidelity is as meekly dependent on God as it is fearless of his enemies. (Bishop Huntington, D.D.)
The Character of Daniel
I. HIS PIETY. It was not mere profession. It was in the heart, real, deep, and vital. He had brought his religion into Babylon, and it grew and flourished in that most unfavourable climate. It was tried--and tried severely, and it is only by trials such as those which Daniel endured, that a mans religion is proved to be sincere. He was so devoted, and so holy and excellent a character, because he was a man of prayer. The remarkable thing about his piety is, that it made him a thoroughly consistent character.
II. HIS PERSECUTION. Though he was a good man, he had many enemies. A man may be hated and persecuted, merely because he is religious.
III. HIS UNCOMPROMISING DECISION. He had never yet swerved from the path of duty--that duty which he owed to God, all the time that he had been at Babylon. If lie had yielded, or seemed to yield, by not praying, as he did before, what would his enemies have said of him? Doubtless, that his principles were not worth much, his religion was no better than that of others. What then does he do? Precisely what he did before.
IV. THE BOLDNESS OF DANIEL ARISING FROM HIS CONFIDENCE IN GOD. He looked at the lions den, and was not afraid of it. He knew that God could be with him there. O this cold, calculating prudence, this worldly forethought! It thinks only of the present. Let it not enter--never let it be once harboured in your breasts. Act with decision, act with uncompromising boldness: do your duty at all times, and under all circumstances, and leave results to God.
V. HIS WONDERFUL DELIVERANCE. The king did all he could to save his servant; and was delighted when he found Daniels God had proved able to protect him. Adhere then to your principles, at all times and under all circumstances; adhere to those principles that will answer conscience, and practise them at all times, and under all circumstances, and then God will give you his blessing. (William Girling.)
Daniel,--or the Believer in Persecution
Daniels example is left as an encouragement in stripping off the incumbrances of worldlings and sin, so that we may witness steadfastly in our career till we receive the seed of faith, even the salvation of our souls. In Daniel we have a believer persecuted for righteousness sake, and delivered from the hands of his persecutors, and blessed in his very tribulation.
1. The encouragement this narrative affords us to make a faithful and becoming stand for the truth, and, 2, against any encroachment upon its sacred boundaries. It will be necessary
(1) to make a stand for the truth.
(2) To make a stand for the sufficiency and supremacy of the
Scriptures.
(3) To make a stand for the sinners justification by faith alone.
(4) To make a stand for the fact of Christs one true holy universal Church.
(5) To make a stand for simplicity and spirituality in the outward circumstances, and inward essence of worship.
(6) To make a stand against the introduction of worldly principles into the Church.
(7) To make a stand against all that would not minister to edification in the devotional exercises of the sanctuary. (C. Marshall, M. A.)
Character and Conduct of Daniel
In all ages the truth has had its champions, those who have stood for righteousness and for God. It seems quite right to say that God has never left himself without witnesses. This text comes from the lip of one who was a brilliant example.
I. DANIELS CHARACTER. It may be almost doubted if any one in the Old Testament of whom we learn as much was so entirely free from faults and sins. No one can doubt for a moment that Daniel was subject to the infirmities which mark our poor human nature; but the blemishes are not recorded. The character of Daniel appears all the more beautiful if we consider where and when the owner is supposed to have lived. In an Eastern Court. Learn,
1. This man is a marvellous example to us all. His pure life is a proof that God can keep his people in all positions.
2. This mans good life in high office shows that faithfulness to God is quite consistent with the faithful discharge of proper duties in the highest office. Daniel did not neglect religious duties, yet he did not neglect his duty to his King.
3. This mans conduct teaches us that our first duty is to conscience and God. Here is a man who cares more for God than for his own ease, comfort, and safety. This was the spirit of the martyrs.
II. DANIELS TRIALS. His were real. And yet he does not seem to have felt them much. Some of the holiest and best men have had crosses to bear. All the saints of God, ancient and modern, have had them.
III. DANIELS CONDUCT UNDER TRIAL. He kept silence while the plot was being hatched. He did exactly what he was accustomed to do when the decree was signed.
IV. DANIELS DELIVERANCE. It was as complete and glorious as were his obedience and faith. The deliverance is a remarkable illustration of the power of faith and prayer. More things are wrought by prayer than some men think. Do not lose your belief in a God who hears and answers prayer. (Charles Leach, D.D.)
Daniel a man of religious principle
I. THIS CASE TEACHES YOU THAT GOD SOMETIMES ALLOWS HIS PEOPLE TO BE PLACED IN SITUATIONS IN WHICH THEY ARE SHUT UP BY HIS PROVIDENCE EITHER TO SUFFER OR TO SIN.
II. LEARN FROM DANIEL TO POSSESS YOUR SOUL IN PATIENCE AND PRUDENCE IN THE DAYS OF SEVERE TRIAL. Daniel adds nothing, by way of insult, to his persecutors, nor of defiance toward his sovereign, nor yet does he omit any thing from fear of danger. He worships God just as he had been accustomed to do. It is sometimes said Daniel did wrong in disobeying a law which had been passed by the highest legislative power in the country. First, I have no sympathy with the higher law faction of our times; but it is certainly clear that the foundation of all law is the will of God. Governments are ordained of God. The will of God is aback of and above all social compacts or civil enactments. Secondly, as all the authority which man possesses over man is derived from God, so that authority is limited by the Divine law, and therefore the laws of man only bind when they are not inconsistent with the law of God. The moment any decrees of man require what God has forbidden, or forbid what God has commanded, they cease to be binding upon the conscience, and in such cases it is our solemn duty to protest against them, and to disobey them. Resistance and passive obedience may be pressed to a point when they become sinful. The edict of Darius, thirdly, was tyrannical, and opposed to the plainest commands of God. It would have been, therefore, sinful in Daniel to obey it.
III. Learn then, young men, THE DUTY OF SURRENDERING YOURSELVES AT ONCE CORDIALLY AND WITH A WHOLE-HEARTED MAGNANIMITY TO THE SERVICE OF GOD. Daniel kept back nothing. He did not waver or hesitate. But as soon as his hour of prayer comes, though he knows the decree is signed, he goes to his chamber, there to offer his protest against this impious decree, and to give his testimony for the supremacy of his God. Why do you peril your life, Daniel, for a mere form? why will you make yourself a martyr for the little matters of keeping your windows open, kneeling down, and speaking your prayers aloud? Surely, you are not going to sacrifice your splendid emoluments and high station by refusing to obey the king for the short space of thirty days. Consider too, O mighty man! chief of the presidents, how valuable your life is to others. Consider how much you owe to your countrymen, whose cause is in your hands, and to the Church of the Living God. Surely, you will not put in peril all these great matters by such obstinacy. How many, or which, or whether any of these pleas were suggested to Daniel, I know not. There are always plausible apologies at hand for treachery to the immortal soul, and treason to God; but no one can doubt how Daniel replied to such cowardly proposals, if indeed any one ventured to name them to him. I would rather refrain from praying altogether, than pretend to neglect it while I was secretly engaged in it. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
Daniel, a Model
The character of Daniel is a very noble one. His princely spirit shone in his captivity. He was one of those noble natures that no circumstances can keep from rising to the proper level
I. HIS UNIMPEACHABLE INTEGRITY. Not even his most virulent enemies could find occasion against him or detect a flaw.
II. HIS UNFAILING FIDELITY.
III. HIS UNFLINCHING COURAGE. He served his God without ostentation on the one hand or concealment on the other.
IV. HIS HABITUAL PIETY. He was not hardened by his captivity nor exalted by his honour.
V. HIS CHILDLIKE FAITH. He never distrusted his Lords purposes, plans or power. (Homilist.)
Daniel: the Man and the Book
Daniel was a heroic believer. He was marked by
I. FAITH. This was the life of his life.
1. His faith was an early possession. As a youth he believed in right, and in the Invisible God of right. It was this principle that was the moulding force in his boyhoods character, conquering all that was adverse to him in the temptations of his masters, or the example of his companions, and compelling the admiration and trust of those who could not understand the secret spring of his conduct.
2. His faith was cherished in adverse circumstances. Not only was there the temptation to paganism, and materialism, and animalism which Babylonish life cast like so many meshes about the young captive, but there was the deprivation of all the ordinary outward aids to religious faith. No temple, no ceremonial, no sacrifice came to his aid. He had solely to depend on the personal but, thank God, inalienable means of grace, of private prayer.
3. His faith discovered in him a glorious future. He had visions of the colossal dynasties of men falling under the blessed dominion of the Son of Man.
4. His faith realised the Invisible Present. True faith ever does that, even though it cannot always descry the future. His faith saw God, Duty, Conscience. And so, whilst it was, in its visions of the future, the substance of things hoped for, it was, in its perception of the present, the evidence of things not seen. He was marked by,
II. HUMILITY. He does not talk of his faith; he simply and, as in the act before us, with all the simplicity of naturalness, manifests it. Dr. Pusey strikingly calls attention to this reserve of Daniel Chief statesman of the first empire in the world, he has not recorded one single voluntary act of his own. Notice,
1. The signs of his humility. He says little of himself or his exploits; his book tells much more of what befell him than of what he did.
2. The producing cause of this humility. It was doubtless his faith, his vision of the unseen present and the unseen future, that hushed and awed and humbled him. Just as grandeur of scenery hushes all thoughtful men, making them feel nothing amid its immensities so the scenery of the invisible world and the sight of the Invisible God abashes all pride, and quickens, in Daniel as in Isaiah, the spirit that cries, Woe is me: I have seen the Lord of Hosts. Unbelief may be proud, half belief may be conceited, thorough belief is ever reverent and lowly.
III. CONSTANCY. The very name of Daniel has come to be a synonym for resolution and endurance. And deservedly, for his faith enabled him to be firm.1. In spite of subtle temptation. The great ordeal of his life was much more searching than that which came to the three Hebrew youths. They were challenged to open idolatory; and they nobly refused, choosing rather the burning fiery furnace. Daniel was invited simply to neglect prayer to the true God. He was constant,
2. In spite of protracted trial. There were repeated efforts on the part of the envious and the malign. There was a long-continued captivity. He taught, and he worked, even as he prayed, at the end just as he did aforetime. He was marked by--IV. COURAGE. This is involved in constancy, and yet is so conspicuous that it commands separate notice. Evidenced by
1. His openness.
2. His dignity.
3. His calmness. The spirit of the worked towards the godly remains unchanged. (U. R. Thomas.)
Lessons from the history of Daniel.
1. In order to succeed in life a man must possess decision of character. Sir Fowell Buxton says, The longer I live the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. The reason why so many men fail in life is want of purpose. They start for a certain goal, and then allow themselves to be diverted from their purpose.
2. Success begets jealousy. Daniels excellent spirit was a crime in the eyes of the other officials. Scripture says, Jealousy is the rage of a man. Substitute for jealousy an everlasting emulation. Seeing others good let us try to be better. Seeing others industrious, let us work more hours. Seeing others benevolent, let us resolve on giving a larger percentage of our means for charity.
3. Learn how to meet trouble. When trouble came, what did Daniel do? He went into his house and prayed. He placed the matter before the Most High. How differently men act when in trouble! The real man does what Daniel did. There is only one explanation of the mystery of sorrow possible, and that is, that life is an education. Then learn from each trial.
4. Sin always brings punishment. It is a terrible thing to have done evil. It comes up again from ten thousand points. Look at the brethren of Joseph after thirteen years. Life is uncertain, and the unexpected often happens. Do not lose everlasting happiness for any earthly consideration. Look at the end--keep your eyes on the unfading crown, and then sin will lose its attraction. (Ernest R. Gill.)
Daniel and the Den of Lions
Such an exalted station as Daniel occupied would put to the test the spirit and, character of this servant of God. There are great temptations in high places. Daniels integrity and uprightness gave him supremacy above all others. The favour shown to him, a foreigner and a Jew, soon excited an envious spirit in the breasts of the other courtiers. They began to plot against Daniel. They could find no occasion in his official conduct; so they sought to make occasion in connection with his religion. Darius was an easy monarch, ambitious and fond of flattery, and his courtiers thought that by proposing to him a plan that should flatter his pride, show his power over the people, and be a test of their allegiance to him, while they entirely concealed from him their designs against Daniel, they should be able to prevail. They gave him no time to deliberate--no opportunity of consulting with Daniel. They had it all prepared to present before him; they entreat him at once to sign the writing, and the decree: Without suspecting anything of the kind, he consented to sign what his envious courtiers intended to be the death-warrant of the favourite counsellor. How did the servant of God conduct himself under these peculiar circumstances? Daniel saw that there was but one course for him, he must simply and unostentatiously go forward; just do as he had done aforetime. A striking admonition against subterfuges in duty and devotion; against contrivances at once to quiet conscience, and preserve an immediate self-interest. Here we see what is the real spirit of a genuine religion; it is a firm, decided, steadfast, regard to God and His will, whatever may arise. There is such a thing as a religion which bends to circumstances, which turns with the wind and tide. That which is inward and vital abides under all the varied circumstances in which its possessor may be placed. Real principle stands the test, and becomes the stronger and the brighter the more it is tried. Again notice that the spirit of a true religion is a spirit of devotion. Here was the secret of his consistency and excellency of character; he had much communion with his God, and he drew down wisdom and grace from the fountain above that supplied him for every emergency, guided him through every difficulty, strengthened him for every duty, and supported him in every scene of danger. Learn also, when found in the path of duty, to leave everything with God. Daniel appears not to have been anxious about the event; he was only concerned about pleasing God--all the rest he can leave. The great thing for us all is to know the will of God, and do it. (Thomas Coleman.)
His Windows being Open in his Chamber towards Jerusalem.
The Open Windows
The open window assists our thoughts. As they take wing into the broad expanse, they gain freedom and enlargement; just as a bird imprisoned in a room flings itself with a thrill of song into the free air and sunshine. Sitting there, his mind could spurn the limitations of space and time. The favour or displeasure of the Persian king mattered but little to him. The chamber of life with some of us may seem poor and straitened enough, but God has given us windows in it with a distant outlook upon brighter and fairer scenes. And these windows we must keep open, and sit at them, or kneel at them, forgetting the loneliness and weariness of Babylons exile in the prospect of some fair Jerusalem of joy, and love, and faith.
1. First and foremost of those windowed outlooks with which God has so graciously endowed us, is that of FAITH. The prophet said he saw visions of God, and if he did, it must have been through this window of faith, because through it eternal realities become as though they were present. Other windows may become closed or dim; the more reason why we should keep steady and bright this blessed outlook of faith into things spiritual and eternal.
2. There is another window through which the soul may look out upon the ideal and the fair; and that is the window of HOPE. The natural attitude of the human soul is an expectant one. Hope is an important element in the Christian life. Life will go merrily on under the power of a sunbeam on a distant spot in the path. Through the window of hope we see the breaking of a golden dawn upon the distant prospect; the narrow chamber of earthy circumstances gives place to sweeter possibilities, which may become present realities under the transforming influence of Christian hope.
3. Then there is the window of MEMORY. It may be that Daniel was not unmindful of this outlook into past scenes and associations. To be often at the window of memory keeps the heart young amid the ageing and withering influences of the present. (G. Onslow.)
Daniels Undaunted Courage
Daniel had been exalted to very great worldly prosperity, but his soul had prospered too. Oftentimes outward advancement means inward decline. Tens of thousands have been intoxicated by success. Though they bade fair in starting in the race of life to win the prize, they were tempted to turn aside to gather the golden apples, and so they missed the crown. It was not so with Daniel--he was as perfect-before God in his high estate as in his lowlier days; and this is to be accounted for by the fact that he sustained the energy of his outward profession by constant secret communion with God. He was, we are told, a man of excellent spirit, and a man abundant in prayer; hence his head was not turned by his elevation, but the Lord fulfilled in him his promise to make his servants feet like hinds feet, that they may stand upon their high places. Yet, although Daniel preserved his integrity, he did not find a position of greatness to be one of rest. As the birds peck at the ripest fruit, so his envious enemies assailed him; and as the most conspicuous warriors must attract the arrows of the foe, so the honours of Daniel brought upon him the enmities of many. Better to pine with Lazarus than feast with Dives, for the love of God more than compensates for temporary disadvantages. Better an ounce of divine grace than a ton of worldly goods. Though the good things come not as the left-handed blessings of outward prosperity, be thou more than content if thou win the right-handed benediction of spiritual joy.
I. First, let me invite your attention to DANIELS HABITUAL DEVOTION: it is worthy of our study. We might never have known of it if he had not been so sorely tried, but fire reveals the hidden gold. Daniels habitual devotion. We are told that aforetime, before the trial, he had been in the constant habit of prayer. He prayed much. There are some forms of spiritual life which are not absolutely essential, but prayer is of the very essence of spirituality. He that hath no prayer lacks the very breath of the life of God in the soul. Daniel always had subjects for prayer and reasons for prayer. He prayed for himself that in his eminent position he might not be uplifted with pride, might not be taken in the snares of those who envied him, might not be permitted to fall into the usual oppressions and dishonesties of Eastern rulers. He prayed for his people. He saw many of the house of Judah who were not in such prosperous circumstances as himself. He remembered those who were in bonds, as being bound with them. He pleaded, for the return from the captivity, which he knew was ordained of his God. He prayed for the glory of his God, that the days might come when the idols should be utterly abolished, and when the whole earth should know that Jehovah ruleth in heaven, and among the sons of men. We read next, that with all his prayers he mingled thanksgiving. Do observe it, for so many forget this, He prayed and gave thanks to God. Surely, it is poor devotion which is always asking and never returning its gratitude! Am I to live upon the bounty of God, and never to thank him for what I receive? Good Daniel had learned to praise as well as to pray, and to offer to God that sweet incense which was made of divers spices, of earnest desires and longings mingled with thanksgivings and adorations. It is worthy of notice that the text says, Daniel prayed and gave thanks before his God. This enters into the very soul of prayer--this getting before God. I shall not care if you do not use a single word, if you feel the majesty of God to be so overwhelming that words are out of place; and silence becomes far more expressive when you bow with sobs and tears, and groanings that cannot be uttered. That little word his I must not let slip, however. He prayed and gave thanks before his God. He spake not to God merely as God who might belong to any man and every man, but unto his God, whom he had espoused by a solemn determination. His God. Why, it seems to me to bring up that word covenant--his covenant God, as though he had entered into covenant with God according to the language of the Most High, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Yes, here lies power in prayer, when a man can talk with God as his covenant God. Some other particulars in the text are not quite so important, nevertheless, observe that he prayed three times a day. That does not tell you how often he prayed, but how often he was in the posture of prayer. Doubtless he prayed three hundred times a day if necessary--his heart was always having commerce with the skies; but thrice a day he prayed formally. It has been well said that we usually take three meals in the day, and that it is well to give the soul as many meals as the body. We want the mornings guidance, we need the eventides forgiveness, do we not also require the noontides refreshment? If you find from morn till eve too long an interval between prayer, put in another golden link at mid-day. Notice, also, the posture. That, also, is of little consequence, since we read in Scripture of men who prayed on the bed, with their face to the wall. We read of David sitting before the Lord. How very common and acceptable a posture was that of standing before God in prayer! Yet there is a peculiar appropriateness, especially in private prayer, in the posture of kneeling. It seems to say, I cannot stand upright before Thy majesty; I am a beggar, and I put myself in the position of a beggar; I sue of Thee, great God, on bended knee, in the posture of one who owns that he deserves nothing, but humbles himself before Thy gracious majesty. One more observation. We are told that Daniel kneeled upon his knees with his windows open towards Jerusalem. This was not done with any view to publicity. It may be that nobody could see him, even when his window was open, except the servants in the court. I suppose the house to have been erected as most Eastern houses were, with an open square in the centre! and though he would be looking towards Jerusalem, the windows would be looking into the court, where he could only be observed by those who were residents in the house or visitors on business. Probably his fellow counsellors knew the hour which he usually set apart for devotion, and therefore called in so as to find him in the act. The window being open towards Jerusalem may have been suggested by the prayer of Solomon, when he asked that if the Lords people were banished at any time, when they sought the Lord with their faces towards that holy place, God would hear them. It may have helped him also to recollect that dear city towards which every Jews heart turns with affection, even as the needle trembles towards its pole. The thought of its ruin assisted his earnestness, the recollection of its sin humbled him, and the promises concerning it comforted him. He turned towards Jerusalem. And what does this say to us? It tells us that we ought to take care when we pray, to have our window open towards Calvary.
II. We must now turn to a second consideration, DANIELS ACTION UNDER TRIAL. There is nothing that kings and queens are much fonder of than meddling with religion. Though the Prussian king tried to make a number of watches all tick together, and could not do it, yet notwithstanding the experiment and its failure, there are always evil counsellors who would force mens consciences to keep stroke. Folly is in the throne when monarchs patronise or oppress religion. Caesar always muddles when he meddles with the things of God. When this act of uniformity was passed, several course, were open to Daniel. He might, for instance, have said, This does not answer my purpose. I have a high position in society. I am chief president over all these dominions, and though I am willing to suffer something for my religion, yet gold may be bought too dear, and therefore I shall cease to pray. He might have found many precedents and many companions. What crowds, when it has come to a question between life and truth, between honour and Christ, have made the evil choice and perished infamously? Daniel does not seem to have raised that question. Yet he might have said, Well, well, we must be prudent; God must be worshipped certainly, but there is no particular reason for my worshipping Him in my usual room, nor even in the city where I live; I can retire in the evening, or find some more secret spot in my own house, and especially there is no occasion to open the window. I can pray with the window shut, and I shall be just as acceptable before God. I think, therefore, I shall keep my conscience clear, but not obtrude my religion in these evil days. Daniel did not so reason; he was a lion-like man, and scorned to lower his standard in the presence of the foe. He would not seek the secrecy which prudence might have suggested. Still, it might have suggested to him that he could pray inwardly. Prayers without words are just as acceptable to God; could not he do this? He felt he could not, inasmuch as the decree was not inward, and the kings opposition to religion was not inward. He did not believe in opposing outward falsehood by an inward truth. Observe with care what Daniel did. He made up his mind to act as he had done aforetime. Note how quietly he acted. He did not say to any of his enemies, I mean to carry out my convictions. Not at all; he knew that talk was lost upon them, so he resorted to actions instead of words. Note again, how he acted unhesitatingly--immediately! He did not pause; he did not ask for time to consider what he should do. In matters of perilous duty, our first thoughts are best. When there is anything to be lost by religion, follow out the first thought of conscience, namely, Do the right. Who needs to question where duty points the way? Where God commands, there is no room for reason to raise cavils. It is never right to do a little wrong to obtain the greatest possible good. You will observe also, that Daniel did not act under excitement, but with a full knowledge of the result. The record expressly hath it--When Daniel knew that the writing was signed. Many people will do right in a hurry, and under strong excitement will go further than they would have done in cold blood; but Daniel, probably shut out from the council by some crafty device of the counsellors, no sooner heard that the statute stood good than, without parley, his resolution was formed, and his mind made up. I like that word, and most go back to it again as he had done aforetime. Here he makes no alteration; he takes not the slightest possible notice of the kings decree. If you have worshipped God under the smile of your Christian friends, worship him under the frown of the ungodly. If you have, as a tradesman, pursued a course of honest action in more prosperous times, do not for Gods sake, for Christs sake, tamper with that honest course because the times have changed.
III. Let us turn to the third point, with which we conclude, THE SECRET SUPPORT OF DANIEL. There was something in the man which gave him this backbone; there was a secret something which made him so magnanimous. What was it? It resulted from several things. It sprang from the fact that Daniels religion was not the offspring of passion, but of deep-seated principle. You will notice that, after this long drought which we have had the flowers in our gardens are drooping much, but the forest trees are as verdant as if showers had been failing every day in the week. Is not this because they strike their roots deeper in the soil, and suck nourishment from provision which is not exhausted by the heat of the sun? So there are some men whose religion is like the flower which lives upon the surface--they soon dry up when the sun of persecution burns; but there are others who, like the forest trees, send down their roots into the deep soil of principle, who know what they know, have learned thoroughly what they have learned, and hold fast what they have received, and these, in the time of trial, are sustained by springs of secret grace, and their leaf is not withered. Because the Holy Ghost has inwrought into Daniels spirit the principles of faith, he was sustained in the time of trial; but I doubt not that Daniel was also supported by what he had read of the works of God in the olden times. Besides, the prophets spirit was sustained by what he had himself seen. He had been brought in close contact with the three holy children who were brought before Nebuchadnezzar. His own experience helped to strengthen him. He had this conviction, that God could deliver him, and that if God did not deliver him, yet still such was his love to the God of Israel that he would be content to give himself to die. It is blessed to have such a confidence as this. You good people who are tried, and who may expect to be tried yet more, you will never stand unless you come to this: God can deliver me; but if he does not deliver me, still I am well content to be a sacrifice for Jesus sake. Daniel failed not, because his love to his God rested deep in his inmost heart: it had become part and parcel of himself, and, sustained by the two hands of love and faith, he was graciously upborne over the rough and thorny places. Remember that Daniel is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus had enemies who sought to destroy him; they could find nothing against him except, touching his God. They accused him of blasphemy, and then afterwards, as they did Daniel, they brought a charge of sedition. He was cast into the den, into the grave: his soul was among the lions. Now, if Daniel is a type of Christ, and the Lord Jesus is the great representative Man for all who are in him, you, believer, must expect, that there will be those who will attack you, who will assail you especially in your religion. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Windows towards Jerusalem
That was Daniels native land. Daniel kept his window open toward Jerusalem, because it was the capital of sacred influences. But Daniel at the window is not standing and looking out, he is kneeling and looking out. Daniel found that a man can see farther on his knees than on tiptoe. There is another Jerusalem toward which you and I will do well to keep our windows open. It makes one heavenly-minded to think much of heaven. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Daniel facing the lions den
I. Our first point will be that DANIELS PRAYERFULNESS WAS THE SECRET OF HIS POWER. Daniel was always a man of prayer. If you saw him great before the people, the reason was because he was great before his God. He knew how to lay hold of divine strength, and he became strong. He knew how to study divine wisdom, and he became wise. We are told that he went to his house to pray. This showed that he made a business of prayer, and finding it neither convenient to his circumstances nor congenial to his mind to pray in the midst of idolaters, he had chosen to set apart a chamber in his own house for prayer. It is well to have, if we can have, a little room, no matter how humble, where we can shut to the door, and pray to our Father who is in heaven, who will hear and answer. He was in the habit of praying thus three times a day. Perhaps he thought that this was prudent economy, for, if he had so much to do, he must pray the more; as Martin Luther said, I have got so much to do to-day that I cannot possibly get through it with less than three hours of prayer. So, perhaps, Daniel felt that the extraordinary pressure of his engagements demanded a proportionate measure of prayer to enable him to accomplish the weighty matter he had on hand. A singularity in his manner is noticeable here. He had been in the habit of praying with his windows open towards Jerusalem. Thus openly did he ignore the decree! With such a royal courage did he lift his heart above the fear of man, and raise the conscience above the suspicion of compromise. He loved Jerusalem, and his prayers were for it. Hence he looked that way in his prayer. And I think also he had an eye on the altar. We worship with our eye to Christ. Oh, for Daniels prayerful spirit!
II. We pass on to DANIELS DIFFICULTIES, OR THE PRIVILEGES OF PRAYER. Daniel had always been a man of prayer; but now there is a law passed that he must not pray for thirty days, for a whole calendar month. I think I see Daniel as he reads the writing. Not proud and haughty in his demeanour, for, as a man used to govern, it was not likely that he would needlessly rebel; but as he read it, he must have felt a blush upon his cheek for the foolish king who had become the blind dupe of the wily courtiers who had framed a decree so monstrous. Only one course was open to him. He knew what he meant to do; he should do what he always had done. Still let us face the difficulty with a touch of sympathy. He must not pray. Suppose we were under a like restriction. Why, some people will say, I will give it up. Ah, and there are some who would boastfully say, I will not give it up, whose bold resolve would soon falter, for a lions den is not a comfortable place. Many thought they could burn in Queen Marys days that did not dare to confront the fire. Now it is a great privilege that we enjoy civil and religious liberty in our favoured land; that we are not under such cruel laws, as in other times or in other countries laid restrictions upon conscience; and that we may pray, according to the conviction of our judgment and the desire of our heart.
III. Having thus dwelt upon Daniels difficulty, I now want to draw your attention to DANIELS DECISION. The king says he must not pray. Daniel did not deliberate for a single minute. When we know our duty, first thoughts are the best. I greatly admire one feature in Daniels decision. He did not alter his accustomed habit in any single particular. Without disguise and without parade he pursued the even tenor of his way. He does not appear to have taken council of his friends, or to have summoned his servants, and charged them not to let any intruder come in. Neither did he adopt any measure to escape his enemies. Not one jot of anxiety did he betray. His faith was steadfast, his composure unruffled, his conduct simple and artless. Doubtless Daniel felt that he was the greatest man in Persia, if he, a worshipper of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, failed in any degree, he would set a bad example to others, and greatly discourage any poor Jew who might have grace enough to stand out, provided his example led the way. Persons who occupy high positions should know that God expects more of them than of other people. It might be asked, perhaps, Should not Daniel obey the king? Certainly kings laws are to be respected; but any law of man that infringes the law of God is, ipso facto, null and void at once. It is the duty of every citizen to disregard every law of earth which is contrary to the law of heaven. So Daniel felt that the risk of being put into a den with lions was nothing to the risk of being put into hell, and he chose the smaller risk, and in the name of God he went straight on. Look at John Bunyan when they bring him up before the magistrates and tell him he must not preach! But I will preach, said he, I will preach to-morrow by the help of God. But you will be put in prison again. Never mind, I will preach as soon as I get out. But you will be hanged, or kept m prison all your life. If I lie in prison, said he, till the moss grows upon my eyelids, I can say nothing more than this, that with Gods help, I will preach whenever I get a chance. Do not tell me that these are non-essentials. To men who will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, even the opening or the shutting of a window, if need be, is essential. Be jealous over what are called trifles. They may be mere straws, but they show which way the wind blows.
IV. Our last point is DANIELS DELIVERANCE. With that we will conclude. The evil that threatened Daniel did come. He was to be put into a lions den, and into a lions den he was put. So, young man, you say, I will not do wrong. You hope to escape unscathed. Yet it may be that you will be discarded by your friends, and discountenanced by your associates. Expect it, go through it. If you are a tradesman, and by saying you will not submit to an evil custom of the trade you will become a loser, be willing to be a loser; expect that the lions den will be there, and that you will be put into it. Daniel came there, but there was not a scratch upon him when he came out of it. What a splendid night, he must have spent with those lions! I do not wonder that in after days he saw visions of lions and wild beasts; it seems most natural that it should; and he must have been fitted by that night passed among these grim monsters to see grand sights. Daniel had a smooth time of it afterwards. The counsellors never troubled him again; the lions had taken care of them. There would be no more plotting against him. Now, believe me, to be decided for the right is not only the right thing but the easiest thing. It is wise policy as well as true probity. If you will not yield an inch, then somebody else must move out of the way. If you cannot comply with their proposals, then other people will have to rescind their resolutions. So you will find that, if you suffer, and perhaps suffer severely at first, for decision of character, you will get speedy recompense for all you endure, and a grand immunity in the future. There will be an end to the indignities that are offered you. Give the world an inch, and it will take many an ell. Be resolved, therefore, that no inch you will give, that to the lions den you would sooner go than there should be equivocation, prevarication, or anything approaching to falsehood. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Opened Window, or Character Formed
The history of the world is mostly the history of individual lives, and the influence they exerted. It is not so much the story of the movements of masses, as of masses under leaders. This may be illustrated in
(1) the characteristics of nations;
(2) the acquisition of new territories;
(3) the influence of one nation on another;
(4) in science and philosophy, in morals and in Church history.
This view must, however, be set under due qualifications. It is also true that great men can but find expression for the spirit of their age, as is shown in the case of Luther. The Reformation was in Germany before Luther found it a voice. Daniel one of the best illustrations of this point--on what a man is must depend what he does, and what he is must depend on his relations with God. Daniel is heroic from both the secular and the sacred standpoints. The thing impressed by his story is the value, force, and assured triumph of sterling character. Is character a gift, or a growth? Is it something with which we are endowed, or something which we have to culture? It may be likened to a tree, and under that figure we now consider it.
I. THE ROOTINGS OF CHARACTER. Stability and vigour depend on rooting. The character of Daniel threw down two chief rootings of principle. It held fast by and fed itself on this:
1. A noble life must be ruled by something better than world-maxims; but to live by them is like trying to make a boat lie still on the heaving sea.
2. No shame, only strength and honour, can ever come by cleaving to God. It is sad and strange that ever young folk should think that shame can attach to a life of faith and prayer. Illustrate by contrasting the tree roots twining only about themselves, or clasping firmly the rich and fertile soil.
II. THE BRANCHINGS OF CHARACTER. The manifestations of it in the duties and responsibilities of life. Character well rooted, shows, above the soil, moral strictness, trustworthiness, judgment, truth. Illustrate Daniels power of decision, and also Josephs. Show the relation of decision, as an element of character, to the act of decision in religion.
III. THE FLOWERING OF CHARACTER, or the lighter manifestations of it in the intercourse and relationships of life. Hanging on the branches are such things as peace, joy, purity, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, all the graces of the spirit. Daniels character then was rightly founded. His decision for God involved a God-fearing, prayer-loving life. Look in at that opened window of Daniels house, and see how Godly character was nourished. There we find the secret of strength for the overcoming of all temptation. Daniel believed in God, and sought him. (Robert Tuck, B.A.)
The Open Window
What was the good of praying at this window that looked towards Jerusalem? Jerusalem was five hundred miles away across the wide Assyrian plain. You could not see it from Babylon. You brought it no nearer by gazing into the blue distance. Why be so careful about this open window? At best it was a piece of sentiment. And what use is there in idle sentiment? But all sentiment is not idle. There is a kind of sentiment which is foolish and worse than useless. But sentiment will sometimes prove to be of extraordinary power, and there is a sentiment which is not inconsistent with the finest manhood and the most impressive dignity of character. If it helped him, when he was praying, to remember that there, far away in the distance, was Jerusalem, why should he not accept the help? We may not think that it would have helped us very much. We may say that we could have prayed anywhere. But that is not the question. If it helped him, that was enough. There was a great deal in his circumstances and pursuits to shut out from him the vision of his early days. And if, among all the scenes of his daily life, in which was so much that was distracting, so much that was evil, it helped him, and kept him true to the past and true to God, to have that window open, who is going to smile at him? Who will condemn him? I think, on the contrary, that we might well imitate him. We who may be carried by the force of circumstances far away from our old home, and from things that were sacred to us in our childhood, may very fitly and reasonably see to it that we do not let those old and sacred things pass utterly away from our thoughts. It is good for us, too, to have an open window towards Jerusalem. There are those who, amid the stress and storm of life, have lost all remembrance of their Jerusalem. It is out of sight, out of mind. Heaven lay about them in their infancy. God seemed to be near to them when they were little children. Things spiritual and eternal were realities. The eye was clear. The ear was open to the divine voices. The heart was warm. The conscience was sensitive. Life was full of sacred meanings. But they were carried into a new world where other voices were heard and other influences were at work. Then the shades of the prison-house began to close upon them. The spiritual eye grew dim. Who can guess how many people there are to-day, middle-aged, prosperous people, who have been cut adrift from the Jerusalem of their early days and have almost forgotten how they once felt. They are much to be pitied. It is the experience of Daniel which suggests the association of these two things. For Jerusalem was to him first his old home, and next, in a special sense, the home of God on the earth. And there must be many whose experience would compare with his in this respect. They are to be congratulated. For there is nothing for which we have better reason to be thankful in after-life than for fathers and mothers who made us feel in our childhood that God was about us, and that our home was the gate of heaven. There are those who do not seem to believe in any such necessity. It was said by Napoleon that Jerusalem did not come within the sphere of his operations. It is what many say in effect. They do not trouble about religion. They can do well enough without it. They have plenty to interest them in this wonderful world without the religious interest. It may not be so with others. Very well. Let each follow where his own taste and fancy lead him. Let him who is religiously disposed occupy himself with religious matters. As for them, they prefer to concern themselves with things of a more practical kind. I think, however, that those who talk in that light fashion are making a very grave mistake. For, after all, life must be a dull and poor affair if we are wholly without religion. Alas for us, if we are without any kind of heavenly vision! Man cannot live by bread alone. If, then, it is our wisdom not to forget Jerusalem, what are some of the windows through which we may look towards that fair city? Prayer, let me say first, is such a window. Heaven lies about us now, and ever will, as the air and the sunlight are about the houses we dwell in. But if we keep the windows shut, the air will not come in; and if we keep the shutters up, the light will not come in. Therefore, men throw back these shutters, and fling open wide the windows, that the glory and the freshness of the sunlight world out of doors may come in. And that is what we do when we pray. Obedience is another window by which we may look into this divine glory. If you are living a selfish and worldly life, you cannot expect to have any deep sense or clear vision of eternal things. You are refusing to listen to the voice of the Highest. But repent and obey the call of duty, and as you follow where duty leads you will begin to get some glimpse into the deep things of God. The way of duty is the way of peace, and it is the way of light. Let any man follow Christ closely, and the moment will come when Christ will, as it were, turn and look upon that faithful follower and make him feel that he is indeed at the gate of heaven. There are many causes that may account for it. But the rule is that obedience to duty is a true window to the soul, a window that looks towards God, and through which God will shine upon us for our infinite comfort and help. Another window that looks towards Jerusalem is the Bible. What does the Bible mean to us, I wonder? It means different things to different persons. Another window looking towards Jerusalem is Sunday. The world for many is like Babylon. It is full of cares, full of distractions, full of appeals to elements other than the highest in human nature, and their pleasures and recreations, though, it may be, innocent enough, are often not such as to raise and dignify the soul; and it is well if when they come into church they find it to be as the delectable mountains from which the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem may be at least dimly descried. A church may serve many noble uses and not the least profitable is that which it serves when it enables men who are often in darkness, and who feel that they are remote from the best and highest things to look for a little time into the world of spiritual realities, and to feel, upon the jaded mind and dull heart, the vivifying breath of the Spirit of God. (A. H. Thomas, M.A.)
And prayed.
Good Prayer-habits
Every man ought to form, early in life, good religious habits, and especially habits in relation to private, personal and intercessory prayer. They should be carefully arranged in view of his actual daily circumstances, opportunities, and needs, they should be maintained with a stedfast regularity, even at heavy cost of self-denial, and there should be a constant and a holy anxiety lest they should degenerate into mere forms, and the spiritual life and feeling in them fade down, or fade out.
I. MAKE GOOD PRAYER-HABITS. It is of the first importance that these should be formed early in life; and you may well be reminded of the duty that lies on all parents, school teachers, and often nurses, in regard to the shaping of early prayer-habits. When life has become fixed, relations are settled, and habits are formed, it is hard indeed to get new shapings and fittings when the duty of daily prayer is brought home to us. Those parents do an unspeakable good for their children, who, from the dawn of intelligence, make prayer as essential as daily bread. Prayer habits should be formed carefully, with due estimate of our circumstances, and relations, and opportunities. And our prayer-habits should, include all the kinds of prayer which make up this Christian duty. There are proper habits of confession, of thanksgiving, of petition, and above all, of intercession; and they will never come to any man as an accident; they are the blessed fruitage of thought, and strife, and care.
II. WHEN YOU HAVE MADE GOOD PRAYER-HABITS, YOU MUST KEEP THEM. It is only necessary to state this very important addition, and to say: Beware of slight negligences and failures. There is nothing in our life which we need to maintain so resolutely. Let Daniel show you that quietly, simply, unostentatiously, you should persist in praying just when, and where, and how, you have arranged to pray. (Robert Tuck, B.A.)
The Propriety of Daniels Conduct
It may be said,
1. That Daniel was chargeable with rebellion, because knowingly, and avowedly he violated a law which had been passed by the highest legislative power in the country. We reply that God is the supreme lawgiver, that all the authority which man possesses over man, is derived from God, and limited by the divine law, and therefore the laws of man only bind when they are not inconsistent with the law of God. The moment they command what God has forbidden, or forbid what God has commanded, they cease to be obligatory upon conscience, and in such cases, so far from being sinful to disobey them, to do so is a solemn duty. The edict of Darius, being palpably opposed to the plainest commands of God, Daniel, in refusing to serve such a law, only acted the part which was incumbent on every loyal subject of the Most High.
2. It may be said, that Daniel might have prayed unto God in the heart, in despite of his enemies, and God would have heard him. Or, if he wished to pray unto him with the lips, he ought to have retired into some secret place; or at least, if he prayed in his own chamber, he should have allowed the windows to remain closed during these thirty days. Was it not, therefore, sinful in him to pray so ostentatiously as he did? Was not this unnecessarily to expose his life to danger? Was it not to forget that God is a spirit, and to place too much dependence upon that bodily service which profiteth little? We remark that, while the Scriptures assert that bodily service profiteth little, they nowhere assert that it profiteth nothing. There are occasions, when bodily exercise profiteth much, in which it is even a better test of a persons devotedness to God, than the inward frame of his mind. When God calls upon us to believe with the heart unto righteousness, no outward action, such as fasting, or praying with an audible voice, or the giving of our goods to feed the poor, or even the giving of our bodies to be burned, will be accepted by him as a substitute for faith. On the contrary, when God in his providence calls upon us to make confession of him before men, no inward frame of spirit, neither faith, nor love, nor self denial, nor heavenliness of mind, will be accepted by him as a substitute for our open and visible adherence to the cause of his truth, and of his glory. In a time of trial, a testing-time, it is not the reward feeling of loyalty to God, it is the outward manifestation of this; it is not the image of God in the heart, it is his name on the forehead, which proves an individual to belong to the called, and chosen, and faithful. Apply these remarks to the case in hand. Praying to God in the spirit was not prohibited, but only such prayer as came under the observation of men. Persons were not interdicted from believing in God, but only from rendering to him the outward acts of homage that were due unto his name. The point, therefore, on which the authority of God and man came into collision, was about the external acts of Divine worship. God had said In all thy ways acknowledge thou me, and I will direct thy steps. Darius and his nobles, on the other hand, said, thou shalt not ask a petition of God for thirty days. In the present instance, therefore, loyalty to God could not be evidenced by what was inward, but only by what was outward, not by believing with the heart, but by confessing with the lips. The attitude of Daniels body while praying, nay, the position of the windows of his chamber, was as important in the sight of God as the inward devotion of his soul. If he had shut his windows, if he had ceased to kneel, if he had ceased to speak to God with his lips, and rested content with the utterances of the heart, this would have been to homologate (approve, give assent to) the impious decree, and to deny God before men. That edict invaded the rights of Jehovah, not by prohibiting them from worshipping him in their hearts, but by forbidding them to worship him with their bodies. Bodily-service was therefore the only evidence of heart-loyalty to God, and worship that was purely spiritual would have been looked upon as the homage of a coward and a traitor--of a man who wished to serve two masters. Considering the weight of Daniels character, and the importance of his situation, it will appear that a peculiar responsibility attached to his conduct in this emergency. Any indecision, any appearance of compliance with the decree, would have been productive of most baneful consequences. We may learn, from the passage before us, that God sometimes places his people in such situations that they must either sin or suffer. Learn also, that when God, in his providence, couples our performance of any duty, with circumstances of trial, the discharge of the duty thus circumstanced, is the test of our fidelity. And we may learn, that even when the performance of duty exposes to danger our adherence unto God should be open and avowed. (William White.)
Daniels Prayers
Dean Stanley writes,--Daniel is, to all outward appearances, an Eastern sage rather than a Hebrew prophet. Well did the traditions of his country-men represent him as the architect of Ecbatana, or even of Sura, as buried in state--not, like the other saints of the captivity, in a solitary sepulchre, but in the stately tower which he himself had built, in the tombs of the Kings of Persia. Well did the mediaeval legends make him the arch-wizard interpreter of dreams. Rightly did the Carthusian artist at Dijon represent him amongst his exquisite figures of the prophets in the garb, posture, and physiognomy of an Oriental magnate. Well did Bishop Ken, when he wished to pourtray an ideal courtier before the Stuart Kings, take the man greatly beloved: Not of the sacerdotal but royal line; not only a courtier and a favourite, but a minister--one that kept his station in the greatest resolutions, reconciling policy and religion, business and devotion, magnanimity and humility, authority and affability, conversation and retirement, interest and integrity, heaven and the court, the favour of God and the favour of the King.
I. DANIEL AS A MAN OF PRAYER. It was his characteristic feature. How regular and stedfast he was in private prayer. He was willing to suffer, but he would not give up his prayer. What a strength for toil and duty he found it ever to be! Note his example of praying in the very midst of daily business.
II. DANIEL AS AN INTERCESSOR. So a type of Christ. He took up his nations burden on himself; made himself a representative, and pleaded with God on the nations behalf. In the same way good people now take upon their own hearts the troubles and sins of their times, and speak to God just what the people around them ought to be feeling and saying. Illustrate by the work of the High Priest, and of Jesus, our Great High Priest. Without being appointed to the office, each one of us may become an intercessor.
III. DANIEL AS A CONFESSOR. Or as one who gives an example of making confession. This is the sign of penitence and humility. Only when men have learned thus the lessons of Gods judgments can his restorations come. How full, sincere, and hearty are Daniels confessions! Observe that in our Lords prayers, or conversations, there is no sign of confession. Explain why, and why confession is such a necessary part of our prayer.
IV. DANIEL AS A PLEADER. Especially dwell upon his example of importunity, as illustrating our Lords parable of the unjust judge. The pleading is to be found in verses 18, 19 shows how graciously God hears and answers such prayers as Daniels. (Robert Tuck, B.A.)
The Way of Success in -Prayer
Ill success in prayer is so common that men scarcely know it is ill success; they pray and nothing comes of it, so they are not disappointed. They take fruitlessness as the rule, and do not travel back to ask why prayer should be fruitless. In the history of opinion, Daniel has an unique place. When we look to Daniel for teaching we look to a man placed by his own age, which is apt to find out a mans inconsistency, supreme in spiritual achievement. What was, then, the meaning of Daniels ritual in prayer?
1. He sought to place himself in the presence of God. To look away towards Jerusalem was to be delivered from servitude to the splendours of Babylon by the apprehension of a greater splendour. We need to remember the disadvantages with which we commonly start in our prayer; how disinclined our spirits are, and how ill the common circumstances of life prepare us for it. Our tempers have have been fretted, our interests scattered, our judgments debarred; we have been meeting men on a low level of mutual mistrust, or in the interchange of social frivolities. And all of this has to be got rid of before prayer can have its perfect work. The larger soul in us must be called out, that we may even see what the objects of prayer may be. There are prayers offered which, without intention, exhibit every possible fault. They are irrelevant to the situation, asking what is not needed, and omitting what is needed; they are fretful instead of jubilant; their tone is distrustful, as if God were trying to outwit us. And nothing can sweep such prayers away except the noble use of memory. How can you thank God if you have not sought to remember all His benefits? What could Daniel look to? One object filled the hearts of all the Jewish patriots, a lamentable object. Their glorious city, of ancient story, and solemn observance, was desolate. The city was a heap of ruins; desecrated by sin first, and now by heathen conquest, and the land kept Sabbath in an awful loneliness. And Daniel strained his eyes across the endless plains, that sight filled his mind, and drew from him the importunate cry:--How long, O Lord? If his daily life furnished no other matter for prayer, there was matter enough in this.
2. After exercise in the thought of the presence of God, there is no discipline so necessary as this of letting visions of need rise before the mind. There should be pity given to the man who says he does not know what to pray for, and ampler pity for his neighbour who asks for what he does not want. The world is full of need, and its cry rises continually before God, sounding in the ears of all who can hear. There is no need of seeking or of refining in petitions; one day of life brings us into contact with need of all sorts--the helplessness of little children, the sigh of men overtasked, the care which has furrowed the brow and bent the shoulders, the satisfaction with a selfish life, the servitude to evil passion; there is no crushing the images of need which flit past our eyes even in the street. And a little thought deepens the awe; in ourselves we know so dark a world of discontent and defeat, of reproach and fruitless effort, of fear and sin, and all the men and women about us repeat the same story. And outside is a whole world of gloom, of life without colour or joy, of men without God or hope. And rising a little, we see to the farther horizons embracing the great world which does not know the very name of Christ, and which is full of horrid cruelties. We may not shut our eyes to it in prayer; the world needs joy. And as we watch like Daniel, the thoughts of that overwhelming need thronging in upon us will wring from us prayers rising to passion. To have all that sorrow pressing on our heart would bring madness with it; our comfort is in being permitted to share the burden with Him whose heart is pierced as ours, and who by His strength has marked for it all a blessed end. (W.M. Macgregor, M.A.)
Prayer better than life
Gods people are not often found in the high places of the earth. They do not covet such distinctions. But when he is
pleased to call them to posts of worldly honour, he gives them strength according to their day. Daniels elevation was remarkable. What a testimony do worldly men sometimes give to the value of religious characters! Darius the Mede soon found out his value. But he had enemies. He had only one vulnerable point--one point in which his character was open to attack from an ungodly world. His enemies said, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. What a testimony did these men give unconsciously to the character of him they hated. But how could these men make Daniels religious character a handle against him? Explain their ingenius plot. How did Daniel meet it? He was a man of prayer--he lived by prayer--he was frequent, fervent, zealous in the exercise--his hours of prayer were his most precious hours--and as for parting with this privilege, as for laying it aside for thirty days together, he would sooner part with life itself. Let worldly people plead necessity as an excuse for interrupting their devotions; the godly man knows no necessity so great as that of seeking God from day to day. Might not Daniel have evaded such a law as this, by praying to God in secret? He evidently felt that this was an occasion to show that he was not ashamed of his religion, and not to be deterred from it. He would not even seem to be obedient to a wicked law which went to rob the God of heaven of the worship due to him. Note the description given of Daniels prayers. One thing to remark, upon, is their frequeney--three times a day. Another thing is, he prayed before his God--prayed as in God s presence, as one who was really speaking to his God. Daniels prayers were attended with thanksgiving. This is the Apostles rule. Php_4:6). Notice his posture. Kneeled. A posture surely best befitting creatures like ourselves when we go as beggars to our Great Creator. Daniel prayed with his face toward Jerusalem. That circumstance in his devotions we are not called to imitate. The rule for us to follow is to have an eye to Christ in all our prayers. The rest of Daniels history is a grand exhibition of what the Lord can do both in his saints and for them. Questions.
1. What do you think of Daniel?
2. What do you think of Daniels God? (A. Roberts, M.A.)
Fearlessnes and perseverance in prayer
Daniel made no secret of his prayers; he might have made excuses to his conscience, he might have said to himself that during those thirty days it would be better for him to pray without the possibility of being observed; to keep up his prayers secretly, and avoid openly breaking the Kings decree. But Daniel was too honest to make to himself any such false excuses; he was not ashamed to confess his God openly. He prayed and gave thanks before his God. Faithful as Daniel was to the King, and attentive as he was to his interests, there was a point at which his obedience stopped. In all worldly matters he was ready to give way, but once bid him dishonour his God, and he was instantly inflexible. No love of worldly prosperity, no fear of human punishment could shake him. Here you see the secret of Daniels character. He was a man of prayer. Daniel knew what it was to draw near to God--day by day to live in his presence--to look up to him--to seek his favour and protection--to make him and not man the standard to which he referred allhis thoughts and words and actions. This has ever been the mark of the saints of God in all the ages. And if there is any true life in our soul, we also shall live in the constant habit of prayer. Consider what prayer is. It is the link which connects us with the next world--with the unseen yet ever present God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Once give up prayer, and you cut yourself off from God, you create a silence between your soul and God, you become a stranger to God, and God Ceases to speak to you. But if we are really in earnest about our prayers, we may be quite sure that the devil will raise up obstacles in our path--that he will endeavour to hinder us in one way or another. Sometimes he tries to frighten us. But why should any of us be ashamed of our religion, or of saying our prayers? Sometimes it will seem to people that they have not time to pray; that their duties are so numerous, and so pressing, they have no leisure, no time to themselves. This is almost certainly a false excuse. It is entirely their own fault that they do not find or make time. Our time, really, very much depends on ourselves. If it is the ease, that we have very little time we can call our own, yet let us do our diligence gladly to give God of that little. There are those who complain that they are much hindered by wandering and idle thoughts in prayer, and perhaps they are tempted to think that it would be better to leave off praying than to go on in spite of the thoughts which trouble them in their devotions. But something may be done in this matter by a vigorous effort on our own part; a great deal lies in the power of the will. There are others who are tempted to give up prayer, because they do not, as they say, find such comfort and enjoyment in prayer as they expect. They cannot attain a sense of Gods presence; they seem dull, and cold, and lifeless in their prayers. This may be the effect of some sin or self-indulgence, and if so, the remedy lies in greater strictness of life, and watchfulness over self; but it may be also that it is a trial sent by God to test their faithfulness. Let them persevere. And let us not be discouraged if God does not at once answer our prayers--if we ask, and for a time receive not. It is certain that God hears every prayer addressed to him. He will be sure to answer, in his own wise way. You can scarcely go wrong, if you continue instant in prayer; if you give up prayer you enter on the road which leads to destruction. Let nothing then be allowed to hinder you from your prayers. (S. W. Skeffington, M.A.)
The Characteristics of Daniels Piety
Daniel was equally distinguished for probity in his secular calling, as for fidelity towards God. If you would act your part well on great emergencies, it is necessary that you should attend to everyday duties. To overlook them is at once a proof of something radically defective in the judgment and character.
I. THE REGULARITY OF HIS DEVOTION. In a man of leisure this praying three times a day would have been less remarkable. Daniel was not in private life. But, without being neglected, business was made to yield to piety. Prayer, so far from increasing his difficulties, was his consolation under them. It is the mental inquietude of a life of business which much more than bodily exertion tends to oppress the faculties.
II. THE PLACE OF HIS DEVOTION. It would have been less wonderful had Daniel been thus regular in religious observances at Jerusalem. There were all the incitements which place and example supply. But the unpropitious character of Daniels situation did not influence him in the discharge of his duty.
III. THE POSTURE OF HIS DEVOTION. No particular attitude is essential to the acceptance of the petition of a sincere suppliant. If the inward, spiritual qualities essential to devotion are wanting, it matters not what are the outward positions. But everything should be avoided that savours of irreverence, or which is incompatible with fixedness of mind in devotional exercises. Kneeling is well suited to the nature of the exercise--prostration of body will correspond with humility of mind!
IV. THE HEROISM OF HIS DEVOTION. It was the heroism of the confessor and martyr rather than of the soldier. Apparently reasonable excuses for yielding a little in this matter of prayer might have been found. Daniel allowed no weak accommodation to circumstances. We are not to do evil that good may come. Disobedience to what God enjoins, can never be required in order to the fulfilment of his purposes.
V. THE GRATITUDE OF HIS DEVOTION. He prayed and gave thanks. Prayer has been well defined as the offering up of our desires to God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies. The situation of Daniel might appear, at first sight, ill adapted to the exercise of thanksgiving, however proper on fitting occasions, that duty might be. But a devout heart will discover reasons for gratitude when others can perceive nothing but occasions of lamentation. No condition of life is really so disastrous as to be incapable of suggesting motives of thankfulness to a spiritual mind. For the stream of life has always its interminglings of alleviation and comparative good. He could think of past mercies; and that he had been kept by divine grace. And he could be thankful for an opportunity of bearing witness to the religion of the God of Israel. Improvement.
(1) Let Christians in general, and persons in active pursuits in particular, learn regularity in the exercises of devotion.
(2) Let us cultivate a regard for the authority of God, as a motive to devotion.
(3) Let us cultivate faith in prayer.
(4) Be grateful that you are exempted from the evils which Daniel experienced. (R. Brodie, A.M.)
Daniels Daily Prayers
Daniel is one of the brightest and loveliest characters of Scripture biography. He seems to have been the only prophet who enjoyed a large share of worldly prosperity.
I. THE DEVOTIONS OF DANIEL.
1. The character of his devotion. In token of his humility, and of his veneration for the divine majesty whom he approached, he kneeled on his knees. See also his confession of sin; recognition of the divine mercies; and pleading importunity. Daniels prayers were pious and patriotic. They were accompanied with thanksgiving. Praise is comely.
2. The scene of Daniels devotions. His chamber. He chose seclusion: yet his windows were open towards Jerusalem. Not that he courted attention, but that he conformed to the established mode of Jewish devotion.
3. The seasons of his devotion. Three times a day. Prayer is a preparation for our every-day duties in life. Daniel is an example to men of business.
II. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH DANIEL MAINTAINED HIS DEVOTIONS. He was faithful to his God and his religion. The Prime Minister was not compelled to profess the State idolatry. Daniel acted most advisedly. His spirit was one.
1. Of enlightened piety. Martyrdom he held preferable to the suspension of his hallowed communion with God.
2. Of courage. He feared God, and none but God. He braved all dangers, uninfluenced by the favours of his royal benefactor. Allowing no temporising considerations. His was the courage, of piety.
3. Of prudence. He did not invite persecution. Nothing insolent, nothing ostentatious, nothing disloyal, was in Daniel. He obeyed the monitions of conscience. He prayed, as before.
III. THE RESULTS.
1. To Daniel.
2. The spread of Jehovahs honour. The name of the living God is made known in all the empire.
3. The restoration of Judah followed the prayers of the faithful; e.g., of Daniel. (W. L. Thornton, M.A.)
Daniel at Prayer
1. DANIELS DEVOTIONS. He prayed. Prayer is said to be a calling, crying, knocking, seeking, asking, making supplication, pouring out of the heart, lifting up of the soul, lifting up holy hands, making intercession, etc. Daniel
1. Humbled himself when he prayed. The being whom we address, the circumstances in which we stand, the punishment we deserve all serve to inspire us with humility.
2. He confessed his sins, and the sins of his people, when he prayed; So did David and Jeremiah. This is the most effectual way to obtain pardon.
3. He deprecated punishment, and implored mercy, when he prayed. Sin deserves punishment,--God might justly pour out his indignation upon us. We have no appeal but to his mercy, through the blood of the covenant.
4. He pleaded with God when he prayed. We may plead with God also; plead his mercy, his promises, the sacrifice of his Son, and his glorious intercession in heaven.
5. And Daniel gave thanks. We can always find reasons and subjects for thanks to God. Daniel thanked him for what he was in himself--for what he did in the kingdom of providence, and for what he had done for him.
II. THE MANNER IN WHICH HE PERFORMED THEM.
1. He went into his house, and into his chamber. The Jews were accustomed to set apart rooms as oratories, or places of devotion. Each house had generally one of these rooms, a chamber, most removed from noise and disturbance. Retirement is necessary to prayer.
2. He prayed and gave thanks three times a day. He evidently had stated times for private devotions.
3. He kneeled upon his knees and praised. The position of the body is not of so much importance in devotion as the disposition of the mind. The Scriptures sanction different attitudes of prayer.
4. He looked towards Jerusalem when he prayed. The meaning of this will be understood by referring to the consecration of the temple. (Kings 8:44-48) Hence all those who were in Jerusalem turned towards the temple when they prayed, and all those who were in foreign lands opened their windows toward Jerusalem in performing their devotions.
5. Daniels prayers were regularly performed. As he did aforetime. Inconstancy is the fault of multitudes. There was a decision of character, and a uniformity of conduct, in Daniel, which all should be anxious to emulate.
III. THE PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH HE WAS PLACED.
1. Be was in a foreign land, far from his native country.
2. He was surrounded by the most; inveterate and designing men, who meditated his ruin. Men who envied his popularity sought to find occasion against him, and did their utmost to persecute him, even unto death. Yet he maintained his integrity, stuck close to his devotions, and served his God with a constancy that nothing could destroy.
3. He was in high life, surrounded with temptations to pride, infidelity, idolatry, and a whole train of evils that swarm amidst the splendours and dissipations of a court. But he was innocent from the great transgression of apostatizing from God.
4. He was involved in most important business. He had the affairs of a kingdom to transact. How often is the urgency and press of business made an excuse for the neglect of religion.
5. He was prohibited from praying by a cruel, senseless and atheistical decree. But nothing could shake the steadfast purpose of Daniels soul.
IV. THE INFERENCES TO BE DRAWN FROM THE WHOLE.
1. Whoever you are, and wherever you live, learn (if you serve God) to prepare your heart for temptation. Enemies you have. Temptations you must endure.
2. Whatever snares may be laid for your feet, never swerve from the line of duty.
3. The way of duty is the way of safety.
4. Persecutors often defeat their own object.
5. The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Daniel in Prayer
We have here recorded an action of great piety and religious courage. The account here given of the prophets piety, who kneeled upon his knees three times a day, is a description of his religious exercises, not only for thirty days, but during, his whole life. He prayed, and gave thanks, as he did aforetime. And upon this knowledge of his usual and daily course of devotion, the plot of his enemies was founded. We here see a person of great endowments of nature, and improvements of learning, eminent for skill in civil and sacred affairs, taking more delight in the humble exercise of prayer, than in all those high speculations of science for which his mind qualified him; or in the public honours, to which has station entitled him; or in the ease and repose, which his great age seemed to require, in the vacancies of business. For this exercise, he allotted a considerable part of every day; and seems to have made his high offices, and large employments, a reason for increasing, rather than an excuse for omitting his prayers. Another thing that offers itself to our consideration, is the firmness and deliberate courage of this good man. His usual exercises of devotion were now under the interdiction era law, and he was not one of those who pay no deference to the laws of men: the proper power of the magistrate he allowed, but not that of commanding what God forbade, or of forbidding what he commanded. The firmness and fortitude are shown in his continuing in all simplicity his fixed prayer habits. He retired. He kneeled. He did this three times a day. He both prayed, and gave thanks. (T.Townson, M. A )
Constacy in Religion
It is peculiarly pleasing and useful, to be able to contemplate an instance of genuine, decisive, impartial, persevering, unrebukable religion before God and the Father. Such an one we have in Daniel. He had doubtless his infirmities; for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not; but nothing is alleged against him. I do not remember that any other individual recorded in the Scriptures has entirely escaped censure.
I. THE EMPLOYMENT OF DANIEL. It was pious. He prayed and gave thanks before his God. He was not one of those who are satisfied with morality without godliness. He well knew, that our greatest connections are with God; and that with him we have principally to do. He was a good neighbour, a good citizen, a good master and a good magistrate; but this did not excuse him from the worship of God.
1. He prayed. Prayer is the breathing of the desire towards God. Words are not essential to the performance of it. The expediency, the necessity, of prayer, results from our indigent, and dependent state. We need mercy and grace. God has determined, and revealed, the method in which he will communicate the blessings he has promised. In this appointment, his wisdom appears as conspicuous as his sovereignty; and his goodness as clearly as his wisdom. Nothing can be so beneficial to us as prayer is, not only by the relief it obtains, but by the influence it exerts; not only by its answers, but by its energy. Beyond everything else that is instrumental in religion, it improves our characters, it strengthens our graces, it softens and refines our tempers, it contributes to our spirituality, and promotes our holiness.
2. He gave thanks. This should always attend prayer. Whenever we go to God for new favours, we should be careful to acknowledge old ones. While we implore deliverance, we should be grateful for alleviations and supports. I am sorry to say, that this is so commonly neglected. There is no state that does not require gratitude. There is always much more to be grateful for, than to complain of--however afflicting our circumstances may be.
3. Daniel did all this before his God. By which we are to understand, that he placed himself in his religious exercises under the eye of Jehovah, and realised his presence. When we engage in devotional exercise, whether public or private, we are considered as withdrawing from the world, and appearing more immediately before God. And to impress our minds with this truth is the way to secure our profit. It will banish hypocrisy, and formality and carelessness; and unite our hearts to fear Gods name.
II. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ACTION.
1. As regards the place. He went into his house. Every house not only may be, but should be, a house of prayer. In every family there ought to be an altar. And Daniel worshipped God alone, in privacy.
2. The posture. He kneeled. Though bodily exercise profiteth little, God is to be glorified in our bodies, as well as in our spirits. Kneeling seems to be the most proper and advantageous posture of devotion. It preserves us more from distraction, it is more expressive of reverence, humility and submission.
3. The direction in which he performed his devotion. His windows were open towards Jerusalem. Here we see the love a pious Jew bore to his native land, and the city of his solemnities. He hoped for the release and restoration of the Jews. Hence in his prayers he always remembered Zion, and would give God no rest till he established, and till he made Jerusalem a praise in the earth. A public spirit is a great excellency.
4. The Frequency of the exercise. He did it three times a day. This is little enough, considering the demand, Pray without ceasing. Habitual devotion is what we should seek to maintain; but, with many people at least, that which may always be done, is never done.
5. The constancy and invariableness of the practice. As aforetime. There was nothing new in it. It was not an extraordinary fervour, produced by the spur of the occasion. It was not occasional impulse; but the regular effects of principle and disposition. Daniel was a man of vast business but he could find time for prayer--three times a day.
III. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT ENHANCED THE VALUE OF THE PERFORMANCE. We all know that an action we admire, would not discover the same degree of principle in all circumstances. When a man is surrounded with honour and applause--then--to think of himself soberly--this evinces his humility. When a man is insulted and injured--then--to rule his own spirit, and render blessing for cursing--this marks his patience and meekness. When a man sees his danger, but says none of these things move me, this is the trial and the triumph of his conviction and resolution. Daniel knew that the writing was signed, yet he determined to stand his ground. Whence we learn, that no danger should hinder a man from doing his work. Some, no doubt, would press Daniel to yield. Some would plead loyalty. Some would plead usefulness. Some would have recommended a plan of accomodation. When Sir Thomas Abney was Mayor of London, he made no scruple at the Lord Mayors feast, to rise in the evening and inform the company that he was going to withdraw, to perform the worship of God in his family, after which he would return again. Daniel by his example, rendered himself peculiarly useful. He obtained by this example the most distinguished honour. Whatever the world may think, there is a reality in religion; and it more than indemnifies its followers. (William Jay.)
On the Devotions of Daniel
Daniel, as his enemies expected, honoured God rather than man, set at nought the imperious mandate, and punctually performed his accustomed devotions with a fearlessness of the results that did him honour.
1. THE COURAGE AND STEDFASTNESS OF DANIEL. Christians in any state, should, to a certain extent, submit, for the sake of quiet, even to overstrained demands, and to regulations which their judgment may disapprove. Yet there are bounds to this forbearance; and a faithful servant of God will be content to endure any extremities, though with due reverence to the powers that be, sooner than comply with orders that violate conscience, or that clash with the discharge of paramount and higher duties.
II. THE RETIREMENT OF DANIEL, AND HIS SPIRIT OF DEVOTION. What was his moral regimen? Retirement. Three times a day he withdrew into solitude, to compose his thoughts, to plume his ruffled spirits, to adjust his principles, and to commune with his God.
III. THE TOPICS OF HOLY DANIELS MEDITATION AND DEVOTION. There would be direct reflection towards his active services; for he would judge contemplation to be preparatory to usefulness, as the leaves precede the fruit. This eminent example is pregnant with various instruction. Note the courage and stedfastness, the importance of devout retirement, which is the nursery of genius, the school of meditation, the forge of profound thought, of lofty enterprise, and of solemn purpose. Note also the religious turn of Daniels meditations. Indicated by his looking towards Jerusalem as he prayed. (J Grant, M.A.)
Daniel in Babylon
The text states the result of the scheming of his enemies, so far as Daniels conduct was concerned. He altered not his course in the smallest degree. We observe in him no levity; no sarcastic defiance of the unrighteous law; no vain boasting of his superior religious knowledge; but a calm, serious, steady perseverance in the worship of God, which he knew that he could not neglect without exposing himself to a punishment infinitely more terrible than any that the courtiers of Babylon could devise, or the King of Babylon inflict.
I. THE NATURE OF DANIELS DEVOTIONS. He prayed, and gave thanks before his God.
1. He prayed of all religious duties there is not one that is more important than prayer. It is, in fact, essentially connected with the origin and progress of personal goodness, with all spiritual blessings and enjoyments; and with the right discharge of our several obligations. Prayer is the grand means of receiving acceptance with God, and a participation of his holiness. The promises of Scripture are addressed to our faith, and their fulfilment is granted to persevering and believing prayer, and to that only. Numerous are the duties enjoined on us by the law and gospel of God. We cannot render to him acceptable obedience but under his gracious aid; nor will that aid be vouchsafed but in answer to prayer. Various are the evil influences which are perpetually erected upon the minds of good men, to draw them aside from the path of obedience. By the power of God only can they be preserved. The seasonable interposition of that power is to be sought in earnest prayer. Many are the sorrows connected with our present state of probation. Only by prayer can these afflictions be sanctified. It is by prayer especially that the people of God express their sympathy with the general misery of the world. Man was created for intercourse and communion with God. Whatever may be the dictates of what is called natural religion, the revelation which God has made of himself in his word directly tends to impress the minds of men with the necessity of prayer, and to encourage them in this holy duty.
2. He gave thanks before his God. Thanksgiving to God is a very delightful part of religious duty, and one which always accompanies the excuse of true prayer. The men who pray aright receive many blessings from God; and these kindle their hearts feelings of lively gratitude to the Giver of all good. The spirit and habit of thanksgiving to God are peculiar to those who, being born from above, are made new creatures. Thanksgiving to God refers to the benefits which we have received from him. These benefits are numerous beyond calculation; they are inconceivably great; and they are all absolutely unmerited and free. Daniels thanksgivings were not interrupted by any of the calamities that he met with.
II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY WERE PERFORMED.
1. They were performed in his chamber. He courted not the public attention. There are sins, imperfections, wants, and temptations, of which we are individually conscious, and which it is our duty fully and freely to confess to God; yet many of them it would be highly improper distinctly to specify, either in the domestic assembly, or the public congregation.
2. His devotions were performed on his knees. No wise man will despise the outward decencies and proprieties of divine worship. With reverence end humility all our attitudes, the very tones of our voice, should strictly correspond.
3. Daniel performed his devotions with his face towards Jerusalem. Partly because of his affectionate regard for his native land. It seems, however, to have been a common Jewish custom.
4. His devotions were performed with frequency and regularity. This is a proof of sound wisdom, as well as of an eminently devout spirit.
5. His devotions were performed with unswerving fidelity and perseverance. The history of Daniel presents
(1) a proof of the power and sufficiency of divine grace.
(2) Observe the manner m which he obtained the grace.
(3) Be careful to show the benefits of prayer in the uprightness of your lives.
(4) Note how the Lord trieth the righteous. (T. Jackson.)
Christian Firmness
Daniel was a man greatly beloved of God. Though an unbending advocate for truth and righteousness, though a thorough opposer to idolatry, he was raised by a holy providence to the first station under the Persian Monarch. It is worthy of notice that the ungodly ordinarily assail the servants of the Most High, in those particulars respecting which God has claimed their services. Obedience to the moral law, or to any positive statute of Christs Kingdom, has often been an occasion of calling forth their severe censure, and awakening a determination to overthrow them. There was one characteristic of Daniel which had not escaped the knowledge of these presidents and princes. They knew that he was a man of prayer, They understood that he was so attached to his work, as not easily to be driven from it. They supposed that he could not live thirty days without prayer. You will readily see what opinion the Babylonian idolaters had of the piety of Daniel. Here was a time when the mind of Daniel must have been brought to look distinctly at the consequences of perseverance in calling upon God. He could look forward to the day when, from his high elevation in the government, he should be taken and cast alive into the den of lions. See how he might have reasoned with himself, and excused, yielding, and giving up his prayer habits for a time. He might have adopted the opinion that, under such circumstances, compliance with forms is not essential. But the prophet could not be turned aside from true worship of Jehovah. He never seems to have sought for a way in which he might evade, on the one hand, a full performance of his duty to God, and on the other, the vengeance of Babylon. It is as impossible to have a spirit of prayer, which does not put its possessor into the attitude and the work of prayer, as it is to have a principal of natural life which does not set the heart to beat, the blood to circulate, and the limbs to move. Prayer should ordinarily put into undivided and combined use the feelings, the thoughts, and the tongue. This last was the manner in which Daniel prayer. Will you now go to Daniels God, and take him to be your God? The care which he showed to Daniel, the protection which he gave to this servant in an hour when the ungodly rushed upon him to destroy him, ought to commend him to your affection and confidence. He is worthy to be believed, obeyed, and adored. To those who call on his name, he will surely reveal himself in hours of calamity and distress. But remember the example of the prophet and walk in his steps. In some respects the lives of the saints illustrate portions of duty, which could not be exemplified by our Lord Jesus Christ. Though Jesus was a perfect example of obedience to the law, and in this respect ought to be followed, yet he could not be a pattern of the exercise of the Christian graces, for he had no occasion to repent, believe, or humble himself for sin. But all these Christian graces are illustrated in the feelings and actions of the ancient saints; and hence they are set before us everywhere in the New Testament as examples. While you meditate on this wonderful man, and on his wonderful deliverance, walk in his steps. Be neither intimidated, nor flattered, nor deluded into an abandonment of such prayer as that of the prophet. Let the warmth of internal piety control, and bring them into the work of supplication; and as it flows forth, let it employ your members as instruments of righteousness, and let your tongues call upon God, and speak his praise. (J. Foot, D.D.)
The Efficacy of Prayer
To be prepared for the future, and to make some provision against the contingencies and misfortunes of life, is a duty, the propriety of which we all admit. The same principle operates on most of us with regard to religion. We have a consciousness, a conviction that existence does not terminate with death, and therefore to the prudent and thoughtful the future seems to demand the most anxious attention and most careful preparation. There is, therefore, in most minds, a desire to secure some ground of hope, some interest in the favour of that great and awful Being into whose hand we are again to commit the disembodied spirit, and who regulates all the affairs of the world, and the business of life. It must be the height of human felicity to have in addition to other grounds of confidence, the persuasion that we are under the mighty guardianship of God, and have, in the assurance of his power and love, a remedy for those evils which are beyond bureau control. Christ came to sweep away at once every obstacle and every doubt as to the character of God. We require you to associate God with all your affairs, to look to Him in all your distresses, to rely upon Him in all your difficulties. The Almighty is just what the psalmist describes when he calls Him a refuge, and a very present help in trouble. Man, from his circumstances and necessities, is constantly in need of such a refuge, of timely aid, of present help. It is of importance to know how this assistance may be reached, how this shelter may be secured. The answer is simple and obvious, by prayer. Prayer is the password which admits us into the presence of God; prayer is the spring which sets in motion the beneficent machinery of the invisible world, the summons which stirs the throng of ministering spirits, and causes them to rush down to our rescue. Prayer is the putting forth an appeal which, though weak in its argument, is irresistible with God, which moves Him at once to exercise His power on our behalf, and His mercy in our salvation. Daniel came to be placed in circumstances of great danger, and had a wonderful escape. The enemies of Daniel were just those which everybody finds who is in a better position than his neighbours. The charm which he employed, the miraculous help he called forth, was simply--He kneeled upon his knees, and prayed before his God, as he did aforetime. Such is an instance which the Scriptures supply, to show the power and success of prayer. It only remains for me to urge you to acquire and make trial of the prayerful gift. We are all more or less acquainted with the duty, but not many of us are aware of its comfort and value. When a mans heart is filled with the love of God, he delights in prayer he derives his happiness from it. Prayer is with him the breathing of the soul--the means by which he obtains his spiritual food--the channel by which he carries on converse with his dearest and best friend. What food is to the body, what sunshine is to the earth, what health is to the sick, and joy to the sorrowing, such is the privilege and happiness of prayer to the Christian believer. Hence Daniel would allow nothing to hinder him from his prayers. He could bring himself to do without comforts and luxuries, so as to live on pulse and water; he could afford the loss of rank and honours, and the favour of his sovereign; he could even risk the peril of the lions den, but he could not live without conversing with his God. This too is the custom, this the solace, of the true believer now. Whatever the form of temptation which assaults him, whatever the sorrow that befals him, he can find relief from all. If you approach him in prayer, all his power, and all his goodness will be exercised on your behalf. (A. O. Wickstead, M.A.)
Secret Prayer
It has commonly been taught that prayer consists of four parts--adoration, thanksgiving, confession, petition. There is a fifth part, total surrender to God. If you would know whether there is anything in prayer, try an experiment of prayer of the genuine sort. At a later stage of the progress of the soul towards the attitude of the complete consent of all its faculties to the supremacy of conscience, it usually happens that secret meditation and secret prayer have been measurably reduced to a habit.. The time then speedily comes when, not merely in glimpses of light, but with considerable steadiness, the man desires to see the truth, even in relation to his own most secret sins; a period arrives when he is no longer willing to feed himself upon sophistries; he wishes to face the facts of existence as they are. This wish is propounded when he is most completely alone, and most penetratingly conscious of the Divine Omnipresence. The point to be proved is the value of secret meditaton, and prayer. The single proposition by which the point is proved, is that secret meditation and prayer have a peculiar adaptedness to secure the commencement of continuation of Christian life in the soul. This proposition is itself supported by four considerations.
1. Their peculiar adaptedness to promote religious thoughtfulness.
2. Their peculiar tendency to secure the supremacy of conscience.
3. Their peculiar adaptedness to preserve in the soul a sense of the Divine Omnipresence.
4. Their influence is attested by all that is known of the inner life of the best examples of religious experience among men. It is no new theological doctrine that God changes the soul according to the laws of the soul. (Joseph Cook.)
Daniels Time of Trial
1. In the eagerness of rationalism to discredit the Book of Daniel, exception has been taken to the practice of praying at the three points of the day. Such a devotional plan is said to have filtered from India into the neighbouring countries of the West, and that not until Maccabean times. But the objector had forgotten Psa_55:17, or has to move it also to a later date. To ascribe this praying thrice to a Parsee origin is to forget that Parsee worship is a worship not merely at the turning-points of the day, but a worship of those portions of time.
2. This chapter contains a vivid picture of human nature, corrupt nature. The fact than Daniel was placed above the presidents and princes excited their envy. But what a witness we have in Daniels integrity, that his enemies could find nothing to lay hold of except concerning the law of his God. Then the shadow creeps again across the scene; and the intoxication of power, and the fascination of flattery and vain glory, is a sickening spectacle of human folly and deceit. See how Daniel behaved under the circumstances.
I. HIS CALMNESS.
1. There was enough to call up resentment. He was marked out as a victim by a secret cabal.
2. He did not angrily complain or demand any explanation. He retired to his chamber and prayed to God.
3. Calmness is the result of confidence in God.
4. Prayer was nothing new; it was the prophets habit. The affairs of state, and the vast concerns which demanded his attention, did not thrust aside the claims of God. He found time for prayer, and turned to the fountain of light for guidance in the discharge of his daily duties.
II. HIS DEVOTION.
1. Its regularity. All nations and all faiths of cultivated men have chosen the twilight hour, morning and evening, for their devotion. Though the midday prayer was not so general, yet pious souls at noontide refreshed themselves with an act of divine communion.
2. The posture. Kneeling. The higher spirituality which affects to disregard the posture of the body in acts of worship, finds no countenance in the Scriptures.
3. The direction. Toward Jerusalem. Perhaps in obedience to the law Deu_12:11), or to the Sotomonic injunction (1Ki_8:44). Thus reminded of Gods promises.
III. HIS COURAGE.
1. The open windows are evidence that Daniel did not wish to hide his actions.
2. His faithfulness to God is more meritorious when his history is taken into account. Lessons.
(1) The warning against the subtle sin of envy must not be over-looked.
(2) The calmness of the prophet, and his immediate turning to God at this dire crisis, have the link of connection which has cause to effect. Calmness in difficulties is the product of confidence in and communion with God.
(3) Daniels devotion is exemplary in its regularity, reverence and direction. The windows open towards Jerusalem should remind us of the heavenward gaze of the soul in time of prayer.
(4) Those who plead circumstances as an excuse for their moral and spiritual failure should contemplate the courage and faith- fulness of Daniel amid an environment full of difficulty and danger. (The Thinker.)
Religion in a Busy Life
It is always interesting to catch a glimpse of the private life of a distinguished man. A public career is seldom a revelation of character. History is constantly reversing the partial imperfect judgments of a passing generation: Heroes are destroyed or ennobled, as conduct is traced to its motives, and as motives discover character. A single passage of Holy Scripture conducts us to the private room of an Oriental statesman, and permits us to observe his daily life.
1. We see a statesman at prayer. Prayer is the best evidence of religion. Religion begins in the prayer of penitence, and it culminates in the prayer of fellowship with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore we have a right to conclude that Daniel was a religious man. He had ever been loyal to God, and had ever enjoyed the restraints and encouragements of religion. He held firmly to the religion of his ancestors. He was not ashamed to be known as a godly man! His career was certainly a remarkable one. The religion of the Bible, as we see it in Daniel, is adapted to a busy life. Indeed, the concerns or occupations of a busy life demand the restraints and encouragements which this religion imposes. Besides religion places the present life in true relations to another the future life. Religion consoles us when we are disappointed, and cheers us when we are sad, and makes us conscious of Gods help and blessing, and teaches us the great lesson that to be is better than to yet; to possess a noble character is the purpose of our existence. The offering of a noble character is the best tribute that a mortal can render to God, who creates, preserves, redeems, and sanctifies.
2. As we observe that the windows of Daniels chamber are open toward Jerusalem. There the glory of God rested upon the mercy seat, which could be reached only through the appointed mediation of the High Priest. The redemptive idea was thus emphasized. Jerusalem was the city of redemption, because it had the temple. The pious emotions of devout men turned instinctively to Jerusalem, where the sacrifices were constantly offered. And through Christ we have access to the Father. His redemption is a constant appeal. The redemptive element in the divine character is always attractive. Men do not get very near to God, nor do they ever keep very near to him, unless they feel the constraint of redemptive love.
3. As we learn that Daniel is accustomed to kneel in his chamber three times each day, we are impressed with the necessity of frequent and stated seasons of prayer. Note the frequency and the regularity of this busy mans prayers. Have your stated seasons of prayer, and then believe that, at any hour, and in any place, you may cry unto God, and that he will hear you.
4. As we watch the enemies of Daniel, who rejoice that they have succeeded in their designs against him, we realise that the calm fulfilment of duty will ever meet with opposition, which God is able to over-rule. When Daniel knew that the work of his enemies was accomplished, what did he do? Moved calmly forward with the momentum of his devoted life, entering his chamber each day as usual, and praying there as he had been accustomed to pray. The pressure of an emergency was not to be the occasion of his fall. He was in God s hands. And the duty of prayer was evident. The conclusion of the whole matter is, to bring God consciously into life; to live with reference to his approval; to exercise a wise discrimination; to advance calmly but steadily; to be religious in the market place, and in the parlour, as well as in the sanctuary--such are a few of the lessons which we may carry away with us as we turn from the Chamber of Daniel, and go again to meet the toil and the conflict of a busy world. (Henry M. Booth, D.D.)
For Young Men
From this event in Daniels life we learn,
I. PRINCIPLE IS THE CENTRAL POWER OF LIFE. The principle which distinguishes morally between men is a conviction of the difference between right and wrong, ascertained on good grounds, and carried out in the details of life. The orderly, irreproachable character of Daniels behaviour in ordinary matters is remarkable. We sometimes meet people with great principles who do not seem to have discovered the application of them to their usual habits. It is by doing small and common things with uncommon care that we form the habits by which the highest end is attained. Daniels conduct was guided by principle. This will become plain if we notice where he lived. His neighbours were pagans, and their scoffing jests, and unrestrained licentiousness were at variance both with the profession and the practice of a godly life. Mark also how Daniel was occupied. The common excuse for the neglect of religious duties, that men have no time for them; strikingly refuted by the instance before us. Then look at what Daniel was threatened with. Principle must have had a strong hold of his heart to enable him to resist his fears. There were so many loopholes by which a less resolute heart might have escaped the danger. Seldom is a situation outwardly so sublime as Daniels; but we greatly err if we forget that there are parallels to it on every side of us. If there are no lions dens, there are the snares of business, and the power of fashion, and the fear of the worlds laugh.
II. PRINCIPLE IS NOURISHED BY HABITS OF DEVOTION. Daniels case not only enforces the duty of prayer, but explains its nature, and in every aspect in which we look at him as he prays, we are instructed by the sight. See what we learn about the manner of prayer. The need of privacy and retirement. The attitude--kneeling. The frequency of the praying. Observe what we can gather concerning the matter of prayer. In so far as it consisted of supplication, we easily imagine what he would pray for. He addressed God as his God. How instructive it is to learn that Daniel gave thanks. Three thoughts in conclusion.
(1) True prayer cannot exist without faith.
(2) Faith cannot exist without prayer, prayer is the first, the best, the habitual exercise of faith.
(3) Young men have need of both faith and prayer.
Let them try the good old plan of principle as the central power, and prayer as the unfailing oil by which that principle is lighted. It was thus that our ancestors made such strong men in contending for their faith. They were men of one Book, and they were much given to prayer. Let young men take with them faith in Daniels God, with prayer to Him as their Father and Friend, and they will step forth to labour on the opening fields of life, hearing their Masters voice, My son, go work to-day in my vineyard. (A. MacEwen, D.D.)
The Man of Prayer
Are we taught to pray that those good things which by nature we cannot have, may yet by the goodness and peace of the Spirit be worked in us? Then there is offered to us the life of Daniel--the man especially of prayer, and by a consideration of the circumstances in which Daniel was placed, the fidelity with which he persisted in supplication to God, and the deliverances which were wrought for him, we learn how very much the prayer of the righteous availeth, and that God is indeed both a hearer and an answerer of prayer. This prayer was the characterising pecularity of Daniel.
1. No changes of life, or of abode, or of companions, could interrupt or shake the constancy of his adoration to God, and his hourly sense of dependence upon the Almighty.
2. Notice the example which Daniel has set us in his habit of prayer. How frequently he prayed. The posture he assumed in prayer. His indifference to the observations of wicked men. In conclusion, I would explain what are the blessings which you may look for, if you do imitate him (A. Gatty, M. A.)
The Force of Prayer exemplified in Daniel
Daniel appears from first to last to have kept innocent, and to have done what was right before God. The explanation is in the text. Daniel was a man of prayer. The Lord whom he sought upheld his goings. This was the secret of Daniels strength, his habit of daily earnest prayer.
1. When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his chamber and set open its windows toward Jerusalem. That opening of the window was a mark that Daniel kept true to the worship of his fathers, and was not to be induced by any threat or promise, to go after other gods and serve them. In this, he is a pattern to us.
2. The text says, he kneeled upon his knees. His custom was to worship God with his body, soul and spirit; to omit nothing in his act of worship, which might serve to express the earnestness of his supplication, and the depth of his humility.
3. Notice the frequency of his prayer. Three times a day. At nine, at noon, and at three in the afternoon. No doubt, Daniel lived a life of constant communing with God; but, with this, he had fixed hours for distinct acts of devotion. How is it then that we are found neglecting prayer? We might all of us find a few minutes in every day, for lifting up our heart to God.
4. Daniel had long been in the habit of praying. He did now only what he had been accustomed to do aforetime. Prayer was not a new thing to him--not something taken up in haste, and on an emergency, but the regulardaily practice of his life. This teaches us a lesson. If we are to know the privilege and blessing of communion with God--if we are to have God always at hand for our support and succour, we must accustom ourselves betimes to call upon him. (R. D. B. Rawnsley, M.A.)
Daniel continuing in Prayer
There is an instance of true courage rising out of right principles. It was not defiant, not obtrusive; but calm, cool, strong. Daniel was eighty-five years old. Though great, he bowed before God. Though busy, he found time to pray. Though wise, he did not escape envy.
I. LOOK AT HIS WORSHIP.
1. It was his established custom. Not commencing with the danger. Not ceasing before the danger.
2. It was in his chamber. Where he retired into his individuality. Where he returned to his nationality. Where he reverted to his inferiority.
3. It was on his knees. (18). So Stephen (Act_7:60); Peter (Act_9:40); Paul (Act_20:36); Christians at Tyre (Act_21:5); Solomon 1Ki_8:54); Jesus (Luk_22:41). The attitude of humility. The posture of reverence. The position of creaturehood.
4. It was towards Jerusalem. His Fathers God. His native temple. His hearts home.
5. It was three times a day. So David (Psa_55:17). Punctuality. Continuity. (21). Frequency.
II. LOOK AT HIS TEMPTATION. The king asks no homage. The cessation only for a season. The conditions very severe.
III. LOOK AT HIS SUPPORT. God may interpose. If not, death sets him free for heaven. Whether he lives or dies, God glorified.
IV. LOOK AT HIS DELIVERANCE. His own heart cheered. Israels spirits raised. The monarchs testimony given. Jehovahs name made known. The servant of God stands out in glorious contrast. Flatterers, plotters, are round him. He in his integrity, sincerity, simplicity, faith, has shamed them all. (John Richardson, M.A.)
Daniels Prayer-Chamber
People imagine that Daniel went into his house, and opened his windows that everybody might see him. This was not the fact. To have done so would not have been religious courage, but foolhardiness and ostentation. Such conduct would have been mere bravado, a trifling with death. Religious courage is a calmer, wiser, braver thing. In a warm climate, the windows would be, as a matter of course, open, as we throw wide our windows in the summer. In later times, perhaps at the time of the captivity, the houses of Jews were built with an upper chamber, a room not in common use, a room in which to receive guests, and to which the people of the house might retire for meditation and prayer. Dr. Robinsons description of the house of the American consular agent at Sidon may help us to conceive aright of Daniels house at Babylon. His house was a large one, built upon the eastern wall of the city; the rooms were spacious, and furnished with more appearance of wealth than any I saw in the country. An upper parlour, with many windows, on the roof of the proper house, resembled a summer palace, and commanded a delightful view of the country towards the east, full of trees and gardens and country houses, quite to the foot of the mountains. Into such a chamber Daniel was wont to retire. Perhaps this was known to be the habit of his life. The windows (similar to our venetian blinds) were usually open, so they must be open now, for to seem to forego a duty or a principle is to forego it! (H. T. Robjohns, B.A.)
The Necessity of Prayer
One of the first things we notice about Daniel is his persistence in prayer to his God. He was a man, not of intermittent but of constant prayer. In the Old Testament we find examples of prayer, but not express commands to pray. Daniel not only prayed regularly, but he persisted in doing so, in the face of the enmity of the great ones of the kingdom, in defiance of the very edict of the Viceroy, Darius himself, and with the knowledge that he would be exposed to great peril, perhaps to loss d life in consequence. Though he was not actually a martyr, he was one in spirit, if not in reality. It is not always easy to find sufficient moral courage to persist manfully in ones duty to God in the face of difficulties and dangers. The world in general attaches a higher value to physical than to moral courage; but in this, as in so many other cases, its judgment is quite wrong. There are sure to be many occasions in our daily life, in which we shall all need this moral courage. Some of us have it naturally in higher degree than others: but the weakest of us has a way to obtain strength from God, in which he can clothe himself as in unpenetrable armour--and that way is prayer. Another trait in Daniel is the unostentatious manner of his piety. We do not read that he ever paraded his love of God before the eyes of those who were around him, or that he made a show of it in public. His religion was of that quiet and unobtrusive kind which insensibly wins the hearts of those who behold it, and convinces them of its earnestness and reality. The same spirit of modest and retiring devotion he showed all through his life. It would be well indeed if Daniels modest and unobtrusive piety were imitated more generally than it is now-a-days. We live in an age of deception and sham. Men appear to have arrived at the conclusion that no success can be achieved in any way without constant advertisement--self-advertisement. It seems to have come to this--that no man is to be considered worthy of any regard who does not trumpet forth his own merits in the loudest key. Not only in public but in private there seems to be a lessening of that reverent respect which should enshroud all that relates to God and his holy religion. There is another lesson we may learn from the history of Daniel, and that is, that God will not forsake those who truly love and worship him. But if we would have Daniels reward, we must also have Daniels faith; and if some now-a-days think that they are forsaken by their Heavenly Father, they must search and try their hearts and see whether the fault be not their own, before they presume to doubt the power of the Almighty to help them, for he will not listen to those who pray to him to him with their lips and not their hearts, as he has commanded them to do. The Jewish prophet did not try to temporise, to obey Darius and the dictates of his own conscience at the same time--he saw clearly what his duty was, and persisted manfully and honestly in carrying it out. Let us too try to serve God with singleness of heart, and uprightness of purpose, let us be, as Daniel was, prayerful, resolute, full of genuine and unostentatious piety, so that we may have the continual countenance of God with us, as he had. (E. Martin Venn, B.A.)
Piety and Business Compatible
This incident yields us a glimpse of the ordinary tone and temper of Daniels mind. As he did aforetime. Piety gets reckoned sometimes as a supernumery grace, as though, without it, religion could reach as fine a point as is needful, practical, or practicable. The general scope of piety is not hard to appreciate. It is a subjective matter. It relates less to what a man is seen to do outwardly to relations than he is supposed to sustain inwardly. Daniels piety betrayed itself by his thrice daily devotions, and otherwise. It consisted not so much in his belief in God, as in his constant intimacy with Him. He was a man whose integrity was beyond question; but quite beside this, God stood near to him, and was very real and personal to him. Piety denotes the holy affection with which we draw nigh to God, and in response to which he draws nigh to us. The common disesteem of piety proceeds from its supposed inutility. Character is rated as an utility, piety only as a luxury. Nowadays the utilities and the humanities are sharply discriminated. Piety is treated as a kind of annex to character. Another ground of the disfavour is that piety is so easily shammed. Piety is a matter between man and God, and so can be assumed with considerable ease and safety. But the greatest hindrance to piety is the half-formed, suspicion, that piety, all things taken into account, is not exactly practicable. Very likely we have not any of us got this matter so exquisitely adjusted that we can both pray in such a way as not to lose interest in our business, and do business in such a way as not to lose interest in our prayers. There are two or three principles, in the recognition of which all successful efforts at adjustment of piety and business will have to proceed.
1. A Christian, to be such in anything like its New Testament sense, has left him no choice to stop short of anything less than spiritual-mindedness. Devoutness, prayerfulness, entrance into Gods intimacy, or call it by whatever name you will, is not a thing that Gospel Christianity can don and doff at its option. Christianity is not believing that there is a God; it is believing God; and so, fresh from the start, it is a matter surely personal between him and us. We begin to be Christians by drawing near to God. If we are trying to be Christians without being spiritually-minded Christians, we are attempting to compose the music of our religious life in a key nowhere set in the Holy Word. Such piety is no matter of unpractical extravagance. And our existence is not met by listening on occasion, to the devout supplications and spoken communings of any who may happen to be standing in fellowship with God. His spiritual-mindedness is valid for him, not for ethers. Devoutness is not transferable.
2. Whatever our secular occupation may be, provided always it is a proper one, that we are to thrust ourselves into with just the came intensity of energy and heartiness of resolve! We shall never make a success of life, and compose its contradictions, by entering into its business pursuits with halfheartedness. It is in us, whatever vocation we have chosen, to enlist in it all our powers. We run against ineradicable instincts when we do otherwise. Of course, there is an extreme to which this might be pushed that would work mischief. Much confusion has come from assuming that secular life and religious life, necessarily work at cross purposes, so that what is taken from one is added to the other. On the contrary, a mans chances for holiness are bettered by his laborious intercourse with things, as certainly a mans chances in business are enhanced by his intimacy with God. Piety regularly retrogrades when it draws away from the business and contracts of secular life. Hermit religion is spindling and stalky, like wheat grown in the shade. (Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D.)
Daniels Piety
If we consider the prophets situation, it will surely teach us much concerning both the frequency and the mode in which we ought to pray. Daniel was in a heathen country. He had much and laborious occupation. His situation was one of danger. The question now before us is not so much whether we ought to pray, as in what manner we should fulfil this essential duty. Remember that upon this occasion he was in much tribulation. Yet with all his prayers he offered also a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Let us abhor the sin of ingratitude. Perhaps you complain that the duties of your station in life, duties which you cannot lesson or omit, render it impossible for you to give that attention to those religious services which you feel to be due from the creature to his Creater. Take a lesson from busy Daniel, O that we may have his wisdom in discerning that no intensity of business can justify or palliate the neglect of prayer and praise. Learn also that this man who prayed three times a day, acted thus as he did aforetime; and our services should be systematic, frequent, and persevering. There was no unusual fervour in Daniels prayers and praises under these unusual and unexpected trials. If rule and system be necessary to the success of worldly transactions, surely, we might infer their important use in all the concerns of religion. As to the mode or manner of prayer, we notice that Daniel, when he prayed, attended to certain forms. He opened the windows of his chamber. He kneeled upon his knees. He looked towards Jerusalem. Enough has been said to prove that, however willing Daniel was to obey the laws of the land when not in opposition to the laws of God, he was determined, if the case required, to die rather than dishonour his God; being anxious only that God should be magnified in his body, whether it were by his life, or by his death. (Beaver H. Blacker, M.A.)
The Character of Daniel
In every age there have been witnesses for God men who have stood pre-eminent among their brethren for piety, rising above the ordinary level of spiritual attainment, and shedding around them, in the midst of darkness, the steady light of a holy conversation. The exigencies of times required that such faithful witnesses for the true God should be raised up by a special providence, should be qualified for the task assigned to them, and carried through all its difficulties with credit to themselves, and to the cause in which they were embarked. The histories of such eminent individuals are preserved, on the imperishable record of inspiration, for the instruction of future ages. Their examples are held forth as models of imitation; and in this manner, though dead, they still speak to the world and to the Church, in the language of reproof, of encouragement, and of faithful admonition. The words of the text stand connected with a very distinguished character.
1. The history of Daniel. One of the children of the captivity, who showed early signs of genius. A circumstance soon occurred which at once proved the strength of his faith, and the supernatural character of his gifts, while it brought him into notice, and paved the way for his future advancement. Interpreting the forgotten dream of the king. His exalted station only rendered his piety more conspicuous, and its practical exertions useful on a larger scald. When Darius became King, he honored Daniel with high trust. Then came the envious scheme to destroy him, which seemed to succeed. It was a scheme characterised at once by impiety and absurdity. Daniel remained calm and unmoved amid the dangers which now surrounded him. The paramount rights of conscience and God, he fails not to respect. God defends his faithful servant. The time of mans extremity is often the time when God signally interposes in behalf of his people, and at this particular time and place, a supernatural testimony to the true religion, in the person of its distinguished representative, was essentially necessary. The effect on the mind of Darius was deep and powerful.
2. Lessons of practical piety, which the conduct of Daniel, in the instance before us, is designed and fitted to furnish to our minds.
(1) An edifying example of well-principled and well-regulated devotion. Daniel, though a great man, was not ashamed to acknowledge a higher and greater than himself; to cherish towards him the sentiments and feelings of ardent piety, and to bow the knee in his presence, in the attitude of prayer. Prayer he recognised as a duty, and cherished as a source of consolation. Along with his petitions he gave thanks. This was his ordinary practice.
(2) A noble example of stedfastness in the faith. Daniel knew that the decree was signed, and even a man of sincerity in the main might have thought himself warranted, in a case so trying, to have used a little management to secure his life, and yet not violate his principles. Plans and schemes, plausible as they might appear, would not do for Daniel. They all proceeded on the principle of concealment, or omission of duty, or a change in the usual manner of doing it, and all from the fear of man, which bringeth a snare. Daniel was a public man, and the representation of the more religious part of his countrymen, and the most prominent witness to the honours of the true God, in the midst of surrounding idols. The eyes of many were, therefore, on him; and had he failed, or appeared to fail now, when his principles were brought so decidedly to the test, it would have been as when a standard bearer fainteth. Individuals of less decided character, and moving in a lower and more obscure sphere, might act with caution and reserve, but Daniel, who was a veteran in the army of the saints, and who had so many eyes upon him, must act with more courage, and for this very reason too, that he knew the law to be made expressly for him. He resolves not even to come short of his ordinary and accustomed duty. Our temptations to hide our religion from others are trifling in the extreme when compared with Daniel, and the good men of other days. So that our guilt is exceedingly magnified if it be so that we conceal our religious views for fear of displeasing those whom we wish to serve. Even now the disciples of the Redeemer may be called to suffer persecution. The sneer of ridicule may be pointed at their superior sanctity. In the ordinary commerce of life, there will be trials of faith, and Christians may be called to hold fast their integrity, at some considerable expense. The world loves consistency, and Daniel, through a long life of tried integrity, commanded the respect of his most determined enemies.
(3) We have in Daniel a practical illustration of the grand principles whence all true devotion, and all genuine piety must flow. Daniel prayed with his window open towards Jerusalem. Here is in this the pious recognition of Jehovah, as, in the most affecting and important sense, the God of Israel. The mercy seat is recognised as the symbol of divine mercy to mankind, and as typical of that throne of grace, sprinkled with the blood of the Redeemer, to which we have access with boldness, through the faith of him. (Robert Burns, D.D.)
Daniel in Babylon
Never, surely did the spirit and power of devotion shine forth with greater lustre, than at this time, in the person of Daniel, upon his knees, in such circumstances. Nothing ever ought to make us omit our daily devotions. It had been no wonder to have seen Daniel devout in Jerusalem. For there was the temple, the true church and worship. But he was now in a strange, heathen land. Perhaps, we think we have too much business upon our hands, to spare time for our devotions. Time is very precious with most people, when they are to perform their devotions; and if they have not enough for everybody, they generally make free, in the first place, with their Creator. Let these men of business consider the case of Daniel. It would puzzle one to conceive a man in a situation that would afford him less leisure. Yet all this business did Daniel discharge faithfully and punctually, and found time to pray, and give thanks before his God, thrice every day constantly. And this he continued to do, even when the law was passed, which made it certain death. We may learn from this great example, as to the place, posture, time, and matter of our daily devotions. Prayer and thanksgiving were the two parts of Daniels daily service. Constancy in prayer can open the way to all blessings. (Bishop Horne.)
Character aided by prayer
Evidently trials of moral integrity and earnest religiousness have been as keen in days of old as in our own time; and the power whose tone and force they embalm is a power which is available for us.
I. THE CHARACTER REQUIRED OF RELIGION IN THE WORLD IS A COMBINATION OF FIDELITY TO GOD AND FIDELITY TO MAN--OR GODLINESS WITH UPRIGHTNESS. There maybe fidelity to man where there is not fidelity to God; but we cannot reverse this statement, and yet accord the truth. For a man to be faithful to his Lord, and unfaithful or deceiving towards his fellow-men, is simply impossible. The impenetrable gulf is, however, attempted. The man who fulfils what is due to his fellow-men, and also that which is due to God--who wears the worthiness belonging to morality, and the dignity belonging to spirituality--he alone represents the true character of religion in the world. Like a stately, tree, he strikes his roots downwards to draw all that is adapted to his life from the soft; and spreads his boughs, and opens his leaves, to catch the rain and the light of heaven. Such an one was Daniel. His enemies regarded him as a servant of God so firmly attached to him, that he would endure any loss in preference to being unfaithful. Surely such should be the views taken of every religious man.
II. HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER IS OFTEN DISLIKED. Daniel was no favourite with the other officers of the Median despot. I do not doubt that the dislike was rather to his uprightness than to his godliness. The secret homage which is paid to righteous proceedings prevented those high officials from directly attacking Daniels administration. They scheme to overturn it by means of his fear of God. Uprightness is certainly worth something in our market, though it is not found at every stall. It may be as well to add that there is often a qualification of this dislike, in that worldly men are not always unwilling to use the consciousness and ability of a godly man. In trying circumstances they are known to pass by their most intimate friends and confide their cases to him who, by his fidelity to God and man, has been a butt for their frivolity, yet compelled their respect.
III. THERE IS A WAY OF SECURING THIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. Supposing a man to be the possessor of the right character, how is he to maintain it notwithstanding all oppositions? Undoubtedly by his help who has impressed the character upon him. One of the methods he has chosen is prayer. Daniel was not wrongly judged by his enemies, and his course sets prayer in its human aspect before us. How prayer keeps step with the unswerving march of Gods established laws, neither Scripture nor speculation determines. God enjoins, teaches, and hears prayer, and our concern is more with the right employment of this mighty instrument than with the way in which it operates on the government of God, if it is to be a support to godliness and uprightness.
1. Prayer demands a decisive step. Daniel went to pray at once. He went to pray undisguisedly.
2. Prayer must express various convictions. Daniel made it the medium of showing dependence upon, and the gratitude towards God. He affords an instance of the morally sublime. The conviction that God can help forms our addresses to him into requests; the conviction that he has helped, and will help, constitutes the framework of thanks.
3. Prayer should have suitable aids. Daniel kneeled, with his face toward Zion.
4. Prayer should be frequent. Daniel set apart three times a day for this exercise. And he did so, not under the pressure of threatening calamity, but from a settled desire of his soul. (D. G. Watt, M.A.)
The Prayer of Daniel
When we contemplate the character of Daniel, one thing to be remembered is, that by the grace of God he was what he was. He was not only a moral and virtuous man, in the highest degree in which morality and virtue have ever been displayed by men, but he was a man of spiritual godliness. With Gods special grace, Daniel could not have been what Daniel was, any more than Paul would have been what he became by grace. There was spiritual life in his soul. Without the regenerating, and sanctifying, saving grace of God, you may be amiable in your disposition and conduct, respected and honoured as useful members of society, but you cannot, because you are such, conclude that the life of God is in your souls. The chief points in the religious character and conduct of Daniel are his courage and consistency. See in him the wide difference between godly fear, and natural cowardice and terror. Godly fear was the very thing which made Daniel brave and fearless? The true fear of God, is another name for the love of God. This fear, this love, dismissed all other fear from Daniels soul. If there is one situation more than another in which it is difficult to hold peaceful communion with God, it is where we know and feel ourselves to be watched by the eyes and ears of scoffers, who hate personal religion, and ridicule prayer, and what they think overmuch righteousness. But Daniels soul was able, resolutely and devoutly, to meet such circumstances, and to rise above them; so courageous, so consistent, so calm was he in the service of God, through the grace which was given to him. See also, in Daniel, how the grace of God is able to preserve a man, as it did him, in the midst of earthly prosperity and power, from the manifold snares which surround them. (Henry S. Richmond, M.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v10 SECT. XIX.—DANIEL A MAN OF PRAYER (Chap. Dan_6:10-11)
HOMILETICS
SECT. XIX.—DANIEL A MAN OF PRAYER (Chap. Dan_6:10-11)
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Daniel’s enemies had so far gained their object. The royal decree that was to remove him out of the way was already signed. It only remained to be put into execution. How was Daniel employed in the meantime? Just as usual. Fidelity to God forbade him to yield obedience to the decree; faith in God led him as usual to his closet. With his window open towards Jerusalem, reminding him of the promises of God to His praying people (1Ki_8:40-49), he kneeled down and prayed with thanksgiving three times a day, “as he did aforetime.” A fine exhibition of the man of God here presented. “When Daniel knew that the writing was signed.” “He knew too that it was aimed at him, and that it was a compound of malignity and absurdity; but he uttered no reproach, and made no remonstrance either with his persecutors for their injustice, or against them in appeal to the misguided sovereign. ‘He went into his house.’ And for what purpose? Not to devise a counterplot; not to indulge in bitter lamentations over his hard lot, or secret repinings at the conduct of Providence; but to pray. This was his habit ‘three times a day,’ and he continues the practice as before. The Holy City with its Temple was now desolate, but he prayed with his window ‘open in his chamber toward Jerusalem;’ the Temple being regarded by the pious Jews as a type of Christ, while the circumstances of its dedication filled their minds with sentiments of the profoundest awe and solemnity. ‘He gave thanks before his God;’ a devout heart finding reasons for gratitude when others can perceive nothing but occasions of lamentation.”—Cox.
Daniel as a man of prayer was—
1. Constant. He prayed as he was wont. Prayer had been his habit, and that habit was not likely to be suspended now when it was most needed, though its exercise might cost him his life. A truly godly man prays at all seasons, in the gloom of adversity as well as in the sunshine of prosperity. Daniel had prayed in the midst of public business under Nebuchadnezzar, as one of his councillors of state; he had prayed in the quiet retirement of private life under Belshazzar, when his godliness removed him from the court; he had prayed again under Darius, as ruler over a third part of the empire and First Lord of the Treasury. He prays now in the prospect of a horrible death which he knows his prayers will cost him. “Will he always call upon God?” is asked by Job as the test that distinguishes a true servant of God from a hypocrite. Daniel known in Babylon and at court as the man that served God “continually” (Dan_6:16; Dan_6:20).
2. Regular. Daniel, like the Psalmist, had his regular seasons for prayer, three times a day. “Evening, morning, and at noon will I pray and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Psa_55:17). The rule not suspended even now when his enemies were watching to find him in the act. Prayer with Daniel, as with every truly godly man, more than his necessary food. Morning saw him on his knees giving thanks for the mercies of the night, and craving guidance, help, protection, and blessing during the day. Noon saw him returning to the exercise, seeking refreshment in communion with his God, and a mind kept above earthly things. Evening found him again in his closet, giving thanks for the mercies of the day, and seeking pardon for shortcomings, a blessing on his labours, and the divine presence and protection during the night. Daniel prayed without ceasing, carrying ever with him a prayerful spirit, and, like Nebemiah, lifting up his heart to God repeatedly during the day as occasion suggested. But he felt the need of meeting with God more freely and fully at stated times. “Unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer it easily slips from our memory; and therefore, although Daniel was constant in pouring forth prayers, yet he enjoined upon himself the customary rite of prostrating himself before God three times a day.”—Calvin. How much may be lost by omitting the prayer “at noon!”
3. Believing. “His windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem.” Expressive of his belief in the promise made by God at the dedication of the Temple, in regard to those who should in any place pray towards that house (1 Kings 8.) So David lifted up his hands towards God’s “holy oracle” and worshipped “toward His holy Temple” (Psa_5:7; Psa_28:2). Thus Daniel prayed, believing the promise. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Believing prayer that which is made in God’s own way and in dependence on His promise. The eye to be now directed in prayer, not to Jerusalem, but to Jesus at God’s right hand, the true Temple with its ark and mercy-seat. The promise is now, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you” (Joh_15:16; Joh_16:23). “Seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we many obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb_4:14-16). Our Propitiation or mercy-seat, for whose sake God can be propitious, pardon our sins, and hear our prayers, is “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1Jn_2:2-3). “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering” (Mar_11:24; Jas_1:6).
4. Fearless. Daniel went to his chamber—the upper chamber, chosen for quietness and freedom from interruption, like the disciples at Pentecost (Act_1:13-14; Act_2:1-2). The window of lattice-work open, as usual on such occasions, toward Jerusalem. This now done by Daniel at the peril of his life. Carnal prudence might have suggested a different course for the present. This, however, would have appeared only cowardice and deceit. Daniel acted in the spirit of Nehemiah, who, when tempted by his enemies to shut himself up in the Temple to save his life, said, “Should such a man as I flee?” (Neh_6:11). So Jesus, when some of the Pharisees tempted Him to flee for His life,—“Get thee out and depart hence, for Herod will kill thee,”—said, “Go ye and tell that fox, Behold I cast out devils, I do cures to-day and to-morrow.” The fear of God raises us above the fear of man. True faith makes men heroes. “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The lions’ den could be but a shorter way to paradise. The fearlessness of faith not to be confounded with foolhardiness. One thing to put oneself in the way of danger, and another not to go out of the way of duty. Prayer to God as usual was Daniel’s duty, though the passage to his chamber was the passage to the lions’ den. “It was necessary to testify before men his perseverance in the worship of God; to have altered his habit at all would have been a partial abjuration, and proof of perfidious defection. God not only requires faith in the heart and the inward affections, but also the witness and confession of our piety.”—Calvin.
5. Cheerful. Daniel not only prayed but “gave thanks” to God. Thanksgiving naturally a cheerful thing. “I will praise the name of the Lord with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving” (Psa_69:30). Daniel went to his chamber not only to pray but to give thanks. Went, therefore, with a cheerful, not a downcast countenance. Realised how much he had to give God thanks for. That he had been made to know Him, and to know Him as his God and Father, and the Hearer of prayer; that He had been his help and deliverer hitherto; and that even now he was honoured to confess Him before men, and perhaps to suffer for His sake. All these sufficient causes for thankfulness, and therefore for cheerfulness. Daniel solemn in the prospect of death, but not sad. Stephen’s face, in similar circumstances, like the face of an angel. Thanksgiving accompanying prayer makes prayer cheerful and joyous. Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” Remembrance of God’s mercies gives brightness, not only to the past, but to the present and the future. “Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.” With the Lord for his God and Saviour, why should Daniel not give thanks and rejoice? “Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, &c., yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation.” Prayer, resting on the promise, cannot but be cheerful; prayer, accompanied with thanksgiving, must be still more so. Hence thanksgiving always to accompany prayer. “Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.” “By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God” (1Th_5:17-18; Php_4:6). Grace enabled Daniel to give thanks and rejoice in the prospect of a painful death. Faith sings a joyous pæan where Nature offers only a doleful dirge. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” So Paul and Silas not only prayed but sang praises to God in the prison. Daniel gave thanks “to his God.” That God was “his God” in itself a sufficient ground for thankfulness, whether in life or in death. The expression indicative of the holy joy with which this aged saint poured out his heart before God, even now in the prospect of a lion’s den.
6. Earnest. Daniel not only prayed, but “made supplication” (Dan_6:11). Supplication is prayer intensified, a beseeching or pleading for special and needed mercies; entreaty. Prayer always to take this form, or to have supplication connected with it. Hence the two generally conjoined. “With prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.” “Praying always, with all prayer and supplication.” “So Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears” (Heb_5:7). The Holy Spirit a “Spirit of grace and supplication;” and makes intercession for us “with groanings that cannot be uttered.” The more there is of the spirit of prayer and of felt need, the more there will be of supplication in our prayers. The fervent prayer the effectual one. “Elias prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not,” &c. So Daniel employed entreaty in his prayer. That entreaty not necessarily merely for himself. The cause of God, of his brethren, and of his fellow-men, probably more on Daniel’s heart at that hour than his own. His prayer that of a burdened spirit, but burdened more for others than himself (chap. 9.) Daniel’s prayer always with supplication, but probably now more than usual. “Shall not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and night unto Him continually?” For himself he now needed special strength to endure the fiery trial that was to try him; grace to be faithful unto death, and to glorify God in the fire by patience and serenity; the comfort of the Divine presence, if called to suffer the threatened penalty, according to the promise, “When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee;” “Fear not, for I am with thee” (Isa_43:2; Isa_43:5).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v16 Dan 6:16 - Dan 6:28.
Daniel
FAITH STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS
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Dan 6:16 - Dan 6:28.
Daniel was verging on ninety when this great test of his faithfulness was presented to him. He had been honoured and trusted through all the changes in the kingdom, and, when the Medo-Persian conquest came, the new monarch naturally found in him, as a foreigner, a more reliable minister than in native officials. ‘Envy doth merit as its shade pursue,’ and the crafty trick by which his subordinates tried to procure his fall, was their answer to Darius’s scheme of making him prime minister. Our passage begins in the middle of the story, but the earlier part will come into consideration in the course of our remarks.
I. We note, first, the steadfast, silent confessor and the weak king.
Darius is a great deal more conspicuous in the narrative than Daniel. The victim of injustice is silent. He does not seem to have been called on to deny or defend the indictment. His deed was patent, and the breach of the law flagrant. He, too, was ‘like a sheep before the shearers,’ dumb. His silence meant, among other things, a quiet, patient, fixed resolve to bear all, and not to deny his God. Weak men bluster. Heroic endurance has generally little to say. Without resistance, or a word, the old man, an hour ago the foremost in the realm, is hauled off and flung into the pit or den. It is useless and needless to ask its form. The entrance was sealed with two seals, one the king’s, one the conspirators’, that neither party might steal a march on the other. Fellows in iniquity do not trust each other. So, down in the dark there, with the glittering eyeballs of the brutes round him, and their growls in his ears, the old man sits all night long, with peace in his heart, and looking up trustfully, through the hole in the roof, to his Protector’s stars, shining their silent message of cheer.
The passage dwells on the pitiable weakness and consequent unrest of the king. He had not yielded Daniel to his fate without a struggle, which the previous narrative describes in strong language. ‘Sore displeased,’ he ‘set his heart’ on delivering him, and ‘laboured’ to do so. The curious obstacle, limiting even his power, is a rare specimen of conservatism in its purest form. So wise were our ancestors, that nothing of theirs shall ever be touched. Infallible legislators can make immutable laws; the rest of us must be content to learn by blundering, and to grow by changing. The man who says, ‘I never alter my opinions,’ condemns himself as either too foolish or too proud to learn.
But probably, if the question had been about a law that was inconvenient to Darius himself, or to these advocates of the constitution as it has always been, some way of getting round it would have been found out. If the king had been bold enough to assert himself, he could have walked through the cobweb. But this is one of the miseries of yielding to evil counsels, that one step taken calls for another. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ Therefore let us all take heed of small compliances, and be sure that we can never say about any doubtful course, ‘Thus far will I go, and no farther.’ Darius was his servants’ servant when once he had put his name to the arrogant decree. He did not know the incidence of his act, and we do not know that of ours; therefore let us take heed of the quality of actions and motives, since we are wholly incapable of estimating the sweep of their consequences.
Darius’s conduct to Daniel was like Herod’s to John the Baptist and Pilate’s to Jesus. In all the cases the judges were convinced of the victim’s innocence, and would have saved him; but fear of others biassed justice, and from selfish motives, they let fierce hatred have its way. Such judges are murderers. From all come the old lessons, never too threadbare to be dinned into the ears, especially of the young, that to be weak is, in a world so full of temptation, the same as to be wicked, and that he who has a sidelong eye to his supposed interest, will never see the path of duty plainly.
What a feeble excuse to his own conscience was Darius’s parting word to Daniel! ‘Thy God, whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee!’ And was flinging him to the lions the right way to treat a man who served God continually? Or, what right had Darius to expect that any god would interfere to stop the consequences of his act, which he thus himself condemned? We are often tempted to think, as he did, that a divine intervention will come in between our evil deeds and their natural results. We should be wiser if we did not do the things that, by our own confession, need God to avert their issues.
But that weak parting word witnessed to the impression made by the lifelong consistency of Daniel. He must be a good man who gets such a testimony from those who are harming him. The busy minister of state had done his political work so as to extort that tribute from one who had no sympathy with his religion. Do we do ours in that fashion? How many of our statesmen ‘serve God continually’ and obviously in their public life?
What a contrast between the night passed in the lions’ den and the palace! ‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage,’ and soft beds and luxurious delights of sense bring no ease to troubled consciences. Daniel is more at rest, though his ‘soul is among lions,’ than Darius in his palace. Peter sleeps soundly, though the coming morning is to be his last. Better to be the victim than the doer of injustice!
The verdict of nightly thoughts on daily acts is usually true, and if our deeds do not bear thinking of ‘on our beds,’ the sooner we cancel them by penitence and reversed conduct, the better. But weak men are often prone to swift and shallow regrets, which do not influence their future any more than a stone thrown into the sea makes a permanent gap. Why should Darius have waited for morning, if his penitence had moved him to a firm resolution to undo the evil done? He had better have sprung from his bed, and gone with his guards to open the den in the dark. Feeble lamentations are out of place when it is still time to act.
The hurried rush to the den in the morning twilight, and the ‘lamentable voice,’ so unlike royal impassiveness, indicate the agitation of an impulsive nature, accustomed to let the feeling of the moment sway it unchecked. Absolute power tends to make that type of man. The question thrown into the den seems to imply that its interior was not seen. If so, the half-belief in Daniel’s survival is remarkable. It indicates, as before, the impression of steadfast devoutness made by the old man’s life, and also a belief that his God was possibly a true and potent divinity.
Such a belief was quite natural, but it does not mean that Darius was prepared to accept Daniel’s God as his god. His religion was probably elastic and hospitable enough to admit that other nations might have other gods. But his thoughts about this ‘living God’ are a strange medley. He is not sure whether He is stronger than the royal lions, and he does not seem to feel that if a god delivers, his own act in surrendering a favoured servant of such a god looks very black. A half-belief blinds men to the opposition between their ways and God’s, and to the certain issue of their going in one direction and God in another. If Daniel be delivered, what will become of Darius? But, like most men, he is illogical, and that question does not seem to have occurred to him. Surely this man may sit for a portrait of a weak, passionate nature, in the feebleness of his resistance to evil, the half hopes that wrong would be kept from turning out so badly as it promised, the childish moanings over wickedness that might still have been mended, and the incapacity to take in the grave, personal consequences of his crime.
II. We next note the great deliverance.
The king does not see Daniel, and waits in sickening doubt whether any sound but the brutes’ snarl at the disturber of their feast will be heard. There must have been a sigh of relief when the calm accents were audible from the unseen depth. And what dignity, respect, faith, and innocence are in them! Even in such circumstances the usual form of reverential salutation to the king is remembered. That night’s work might have made a sullen rebel of Daniel, and small blame to him if he had had no very amiable feelings to Darius; but he had learned faithfulness in a good school, and no trace of returning evil for evil was in his words or tones.
The formal greeting was much more than a form, when it came up from among the lions. It heaped coals of fire on the king’s head, let us hope, and taught him, if he needed the lesson, that Daniel’s disobedience had not been disloyalty. The more religion compels us to disregard the authority and practices of others, the more scrupulously attentive should we be to demonstrate that we cherish all due regard to them, and wish them well. How simply, and as if he saw nothing in it to wonder at, he tells the fact of his deliverance! ‘My God has sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths.’ He had not been able to say, as the king did before the den was opened, ‘Thy God will deliver thee’; but he had gone down into it, knowing that He was able, and leaving himself in God’s care. So it was no surprise to him that he was safe. Thankfulness, but not astonishment, filled his heart. So faith takes God’s gifts, however great and beyond natural possibility they may be; for the greatest of them are less than the Love which faith knows to move all things, and whatsoever faith receives is just like Him.
Daniel did not say, as Darius did, that he served God continually, but he did declare his own innocency in God’s sight and unimpeachable fidelity to the king. His reference is probably mainly to his official conduct; but the characteristic tone of the Old Testament saint is audible, which ventured on professions of uprightness, accordant with an earlier stage of revelation and religious consciousness, but scarcely congruous with the deeper and more inward sense of sin produced by the full revelation in Christ. But if the tone of the latter part of Dan 6:22 is somewhat strange to us, the historian’s summary in Dan 6:23 gives the eternal truth of the matter: ‘No manner of hurt was found upon him, because he had trusted in his God.’ That is the basis of the reference in Heb 11:33: ‘Through faith . . . stopped the mouths of lions.’
Simple trust in God brings His angel to our help, and the deliverance, which is ultimately to be ascribed to His hand muzzling the gaping beasts of prey, may also be ascribed to the faith which sets His hand in motion. The true cause is God, but the indispensable condition without which God will not act, and with which He cannot but act, is our trust. Therefore all the great things which it is said to do are due, not to anything in it, but wholly to that of which it lays hold. A foot or two of lead pipe is worth little, but if it is the channel through which water flows into a city, it is priceless.
Faith may or may not bring external deliverances, such as it brought to Daniel; but the good cheer which this story brings us does not depend on these. When Paul lay in Rome, shortly before his martyrdom, the experience of Daniel was in his mind, as he thankfully wrote to Timothy, ‘I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.’ He adds a hope which contrasts strangely, at first sight, with the clear expectation of a speedy and violent death, expressed a moment or two before {‘I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come’} when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver me from every evil work’; but he had learned that it was possible to pass through the evil and yet to be delivered from it, and that a man might be thrown to the lions and devoured by them, and yet be truly shielded from all harm from them. So he adds, ‘And will save me unto His heavenly kingdom,’ thereby teaching us that the true deliverance is that which carries us into, or something nearer towards, the eternal home. Thus understood, the miracle of Daniel’s deliverance is continually repeated to all who partake of Daniel’s faith, ‘Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation . . . thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.’
The savage vengeance on the conspirators and the proclamation of Darius must be left untouched. The one is a ghastly example of retributive judgment, in which, as sometimes is the case even now, men fall into the pit they have digged for others, and it shows the barbarous cruelty of that gorgeous civilisation. The other is an example of how far a man may go in perceiving and acknowledging the truth without its influencing his heart. The decree enforces recognition of Daniel’s God, in language which even prophets do not surpass; but it is all lip-reverence, as evanescent as superficial. It takes more than a fright caused by a miracle to make a man a true servant of the living God.
The final verse of the passage implies Daniel’s restoration to rank, and gives a beautiful, simple picture of the old man’s closing days, which had begun so long before, in such a different world as Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, and closed in Cyrus’s, enriched with all that should accompany old age-honour, obedience, troops of friends. ‘When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v22 (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
angel
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v18 Daniel’s Remarkable Deliverance
Daniel’s Remarkable Deliverance
v. 18. Then the king went to his palace and passed the night fasting, unable to sleep or eat for worry about the fate of Daniel; neither were instruments of music brought before him, rather, "neither were concubines brought to him"; and his sleep went from him, he was in genuine distress, decidedly ill at ease on account of the course into which he had been drawn.
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v. 19. Then the king arose very early in the morning, with the dawn, as soon as it became light, and went in haste unto the den of lions, the royal zoological gardens being located conveniently near.
v. 20. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice, which testified to the sorrow possessing his heart, unto Daniel; and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, whom he was ready to acknowledge as such in accordance with Daniel’s confession, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, with constant, unflagging devotion, able to deliver thee from the lions?
v. 21. Then said Daniel unto the king, calmly answering the king from his position down in the pit, O king, live forever!
v. 22. My God hath sent His angel, who may even have been visible to the eye of Daniel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths that they have not hurt me, forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me, God had declared him not guilty by preserving him so wonderfully; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt, that is, by transgressing the edict of the king he had not become guilty of rebellion against the person of the king, as the king’s personal interest in his case also demonstrated.
v. 23. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, on account of the miraculous deliverance which Daniel had experienced, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den, through an opening which made it convenient for him to be removed. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, not so much as a scratch from the paw of one of the ravening beasts, because he believed in his God, and this firm confidence was rewarded by the Lord in this manner.
v. 24. And the king, who now realized that the enemies of Daniel had used him as their instrument in trying to vent their jealous spite, commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives, according to the custom of the country, and since they were guilty of the same wickedness as the men; and the lions had the mastery of them, fell upon them and overwhelmed them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den, they were reduced to a pulp before their bodies reached the bottom of the pit.
v. 25. Then King Darius, still under the influence of the miraculous deliverance which he had witnessed, wrote unto all people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, in issuing a solemn proclamation, Peace be multiplied unto you.
v. 26. I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom, as far as his kingly power extended, men tremble and fear, in reverent awe, before the God of Daniel; for He is the living God and steadfast forever, eternal and unchanging, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end, outlasting all earthly kingdoms.
v. 27. He delivereth and rescueth, literally, "He is a Deliverer and Rescuer," and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, such as are outside the laws of nature, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions, who would ordinarily have torn him to pieces in the twinkling of an eye.
v. 28. So this Daniel, the same one of whom the princes had spoken so contemptuously, prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus, the Persian, for the Persian monarchy followed shortly after the Median. The miracles which the Lord performs in the interest of His children are intended to serve, among other things, for the unbelievers, so that they also may realize that the God of Israel, the God of the Christians, is the true, living God, the only Savior and Redeemer.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23 When Daniel learned that the document had been signed…
When Daniel learned that the document had been signed into law
It is important to the story to state clearly that Daniel knew about the new law before he prayed to God.
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now his windows were open in his upper room toward Jerusalem
This is background information that explains how Daniel's enemies knew he was praying to God. (See: Background Information)
gave thanks before his God
"gave thanks to his God"
plot
a plan with evil intent
translationWords
law, laws
Jerusalem
pray
God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv10, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 6:10-11 as usual: Daniel’s regular prayer time established him…
6:10-11 as usual: Daniel’s regular prayer time established him in the daily worship of God. • Jerusalem was God’s chosen city (1 Kgs 11:36). Though the Temple was gone, it was unthinkable to forget Jerusalem (Ps 137:5-6). Someday, the Temple would be rebuilt (Isa 2:2-4; 44:28).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.