Daniel And The Lions Den

Daniel 6:1–17
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While the Babylonians were in a drunken stupor, Cyrus devised a plan for diverting the Euphrates river, that ran under the wall and through the city, from its old course to a new channel. Then the Mede and Persian Army, marched into the city by way of the almost dry riverbed and suddenly captured Babylon. Darius the Mede who was apparently the commanding general of Cyrus was appointed to be the governor of Babylon. Darius divided the kingdom into one hundred twenty provinces, over each of which he set a prince (v. 1). Then he placed three presidents over the princes. The first of these presidents chosen was Daniel (v. 2). He must have been around eighty years of age at this time.Envy and jealousy of the king’s favorable treatment of Daniel caused the other members of the king’s cabinet to hate him and to plot to kill him (vv. 3-4). Because they could find no fault in his leadership they decided to trap him with a law which was contrary to the law of God (v. 5). The law was that all prayer was to be addressed to the king and the penalty for not doing this was death by being thrown into a den of lions (vv. 6-8). The king without thinking the matter through,  signed their law (v. 9). He didn’t see through the plot to trap Daniel until it was too late. Only after the decree was signed did Daniel learn about it.  However, he simply followed his usual custom of praying thee times daily with his face toward the holy city (v. 10). When the king found out about it he was forced to cast Daniel into the lion’s den (vv. 11-17).

Application

Have I ever found myself becoming envious and jealous of someone who was given special treatment that I thought I should have received. If this happens I need to read Philippians 2:3 which says “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself."