Bible Commentaries

Daniel 6:3-4

Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human soul, and the sum-mum bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman.

—Berkeley.

Daniel 6:4

That we have little faith is not sad, but that we have but little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned. When, in the progress of a life, a man swerves, though only by an angle infinitely small, from his proper and allotted path (and this is never done quite unconsciously even at first; in fact that was his broad and scarlet sin—oh, he knew of it more than he can tell), then the drama of his life turns to tragedy, and makes haste to its fifth act.

—Thoreau's Letters.

"We have more sneakers after Ministerial favour," wrote Sir Walter Scott in1826 , "than men who love their country and who upon a liberal scale would serve their party."

Daniel

Daniel 6:5

The two points only in this history are the character of Daniel 6:10

I. The Value and Importance of Prayer.—It is natural to all men to pray. But here steps in philosophy, falsely so called, and tells us not to pray. This philosophic teacher brings all the learned and profound arguments to show that this natural instinct is mere folly and delusion, and it will end by persuading us that we may adore in praise if we will, but that to ask aught of God is absurd and even profane. Now this is a criminal, unnatural philosophy, which would condemn us to live in a fatherless world, with none to pity, none to comfort, none to help. If any one is led by his sins and worldliness to neglect prayer, let him not think that he is showing superior sagacity and penetration by so doing. Let him rather be ashamed of this, that he neglects prayer, not because he is wise, but because he has corrupted his heart, and has done violence to his own moral and even intellectual nature. How opposed to all this self-conceited, self-corrupted, prayerless character is the example of that aged and wise saint who is portrayed for us by the Holy Spirit in Today's lesson!

II. We are to Follow this Aged Saint's Example, and be bold, honest, outspoken in our allegiance to God. It is true that none of us is likely ever to be called upon to hazard our lives as Daniel did, but yet how often have we in everyday life to take our stand openly and boldly, either on the side of Christ or of His enemies! Christ requires this of all of us. He requires it in every workshop. He requires it in every office He requires it in every place of business. He requires of us that we should on all fit occasions declare what we think of Him; that we never from fear of Daniel 6:10

It is interesting to compare the character of Daniel 6:10

Daniel was of noble birth, perhaps a member of the royal family of Judah. Born at Jerusalem; carried into captivity in his youth; became a member of the royal court; received a thorough education; acquired a high position through his power of interpreting dreams and mysteries; and, when Babylon was conquered by the united powers of Media and Persia, became premier. Distinguished above all for his piety. He was now eighty years of age. His position exposed him to the envy of his colleagues, who sought to depose him. In this chapter we have an account of their plot and its result. Several characteristics of a good man are mentioned.

I. Moral Integrity which None Could Dispute.

They "sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom," etc, vv4 , 5.

Few can stand the close scrutiny of an enemy, or even of a friend.

II. Unflinching Fidelity, which Persecution could not Destroy.

The true value of friendship is not discovered until the hour of trial.

III. A Firm Avowal of Religious Principles.

"He went into his house; and his windows being opened," etc.

No ostentation, but no concealment.

IV. Habitual Devotion Unhindered by Business. "As he did aforetime." "Three times a day." Prayer is one of the chief sources of support and comfort in difficulty and trouble.

V. A Recognition of Mercies in the Midst of Trial.

"And gave thanks before his God." "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

VI. Childlike Trust in God Amid the Vicissitudes of Life.

It is hard to stand alone; but God never deserts His people. "I will never leave thee," etc.

—F. J. Austin, Seeds and Saplings, p59.

The Open Window

Daniel 6:10

It is not easy to know where to begin the story of this man whose windows were open toward Jerusalem. Those open windows are so eloquent. They have such a tale to tell. It is a beautiful, brave, pathetic story, worthy its place in this book that records the purest heroisms, and the most lustrous fidelities, and the holiest patiences of history.

I. Those are not vain hours that a man spends at the open lattice of his heavenly hope. See what the open window did for Daniel. In the city of a thousand spurious divinities, it reminded him of a temple erected for the worship of the One God. In the city full of fascinating lures and shameless enticements, it brought home to his heart every day the sweet, stern morality of the Hebrew ethical ideal.

The breath from that open window kept his life clean. But for it he might have been drawn into the dark current of Babylonian sensuality and sinfulness. He might have become unwilling, unworthy, unable to utter in the ears of Babylon the words of his God. But the open window taught him that Babylon was a terrible place. He saw a sinister shadow in its smiles, he heard the whisper of danger in its plaudits; and three times a day he knelt with his face toward the holy city, and his heart going out unto his God: never too busy or tired for that.

II. We who live in Babylon cannot afford to spend all our time in its streets amid the traffic and the merchandise, the gains and the greetings, the weariness and the sin. If life's western window is never opened; if the breath from the hills of God plays in vain around its closed and dust-laden lattice; if morning, noon, and night the vision is the vision of Babylon and the voice is the voice of Babylon, than is the seal of the city set ever more broadly upon a man's forehead and its delusions and its passions make their home in his heart.

God is near us in the babel of buying and selling, in the toil for bread, in the rush of life. But they who find Him thus in the thick of the world are they who have first found Him waiting for them, as He waited for one of old, at the window that looks toward Jerusalem, to send them forth into the day's life with the temple reverence and the temple ideal impressed afresh upon their spirit. And when the day is over, and Babylon has done its worst, they find Him there again waiting to sweep the last jangling echoes of the city right out of their hearts—that as they lie down to rest their last thought shall be laden with the peace of that other city—Jerusalem beyond the hills.

III. The men who conquer the world are the men who see beyond the world. Babylon published an interdict, and it meant for Daniel no communion at his western lattice for thirty days: thirty prayerless days! That was what the interdict said; and after it had been signed and sealed by Darius, it was unalterable. The Medes and Persians prided themselves on never going back on anything they had decreed. Babylon had challenged Jerusalem. It had pitted its powers against the powers of the God of Daniel. "And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime." Babylon had a law that altered not. So had Daniel. He was not a Babylonian. He lived under the law of another city, and he obeyed that law, and it cast him into a den of lions, and it brought him out again and made him a splendid witness for God. History tells us that, whenever the heavenly unalterable and the earthly unalterable have met, one has always had to alter, and it has not been the heavenly one.

—P. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church, p107.

The Opened Windows

Daniel 6:10

It was in an hour of very sore distress that Daniel acted in the manner of which our text speaks. The crisis had come which he had long expected, and the crisis drove him to the feet of God. There was widespread irritation, rising at times into very bitter envy, among the aristocratic patrons of Babylon at the powerful eminence of foreigners like Daniel. And it was then, when Daniel fully recognized his peril, that he went into his house to pray, his windows being open to Jerusalem.

I. The Moral Significance of Indifferent Actions.—There was nothing remarkable in opening a window, yet every time that Daniel opened that lattice it spoke of a heart that was travelling to Jerusalem. It revealed a heroism which no impending doom could shake. There are actions which are quite indifferent in themselves, yet if they reveal the trend of character and the direction that our thoughts are setting in no man dare say they are immaterial.

II. The True Relationship of the Unseen and the Seen.—When Daniel opened his window an instinct moved him to open the window towards Jerusalem. He could brook no barrier betwixt him and the unseen. Now that is like a little parable of something that happens to the truly religious man. Let him open the window of his heart on the unseen, and the life at his door grows doubly real to him. There is no such instance in history of this as the life of Jesus Christ Himself. His heart was in heaven as truly as the heart of Daniel was in Jerusalem. Yet though all the windows of His soul were opened heavenward the life round Him was infinitely precious. The meanest villager ceased to be insignificant to a heart whose lattice was thrown wide on God.

III. The Right Attitude Towards the Unattainable.—Daniel was a prisoner in Babylon. Yet though all hope of seeing Jerusalem was banished, he opened his windows toward Jerusalem. Every man who is striving to live nobly is struggling after things he cannot reach. Have the casement open toward the unattainable, and by the open casement be in prayer.

—G. H. Morrison, Sun-Rise, p207.

References.—VI:10.—Canon Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, 1891. R. J. Campbell, Sermons Addressed to Individuals, p37. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p175. G. W. Brameld, Practical Sermons, p386. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (2Series), p90. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No1154. Ibid. vol14 , No815. J. J. S. Perowne, Sermons, p17. VI:13.—F. W. Farrar, Everyday Christian Life, p93. H. P. Hughes, Essential Christianity, p57. VI:14.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons, vol. i. p393. VI:16-28.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Daniel 6:23

It is not enough for a man to be taken out of his den. When he has been raised from his calamity the question remains, Has it hurt him? It seems a small thing to record of Daniel that after his life had been preserved from the lions "no manner of hurt was found upon him". But in truth the great fear in such cases is just their after-effects.

I. Calamity has not always a good influence upon a man. It changes many a soul for the worse. There are hundreds who after their liberation from the den of lions live as if they were still in the den. There are men who have risen to opulence after a hard fight with poverty and who never forget their early scars. They resent the years that the locusts have eaten.

They preserve a demeanour of frigidness, of sourness, of cynicism towards all the events of life; they damp the enthusiasm of those who are entering in.

II. It is a great thing if a man can emerge from the den not only sound in body but unharmed in mind. What enabled Daniel to come forth mentally whole? The passage states the reason explicitly—"He believed in his God". The mental effects of calamity can only be conquered by a mental attitude. It is a great mistake to suppose that we require trust in God merely for the future; we need it as much for the past. We think of Daniel as trusting in God before he was thrown in; he required an equal faith after he had come out.

III. We doubt, not only in the hour of danger, but in the hour of retrospect. Faith may waver over the question, What if this befall me? But it can also waver over the question, Why has this befallen? If I am to be free from mental gloom, I must see a bow in the cloud of yesterday as well as in the cloud of tomorrow. God must justify to my soul the shadows of last night. Nothing else will obliterate my inward scars; nothing else will enable me to come forth from the den unhurt.

—G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p284.

References.—VI:23.—A. Ainger, Sermons Preached in the Temple Church, p1. VI:27.—D. Swing, American Pulpit of Today, vol. i. p90. VI:28.—F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Reading, pp43 , 55. VI.—J. G. Murphy, The Book of Daniel , p119. VII.—Ibid. p124.