Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
1It was fair before Darius to appoint upon the kingdom the governors one hundred and twenty that they might be in the all of the kingdom, 2and above them three administrators which Daniel [was] one from them as that the governors might be ones giving to them the account and the king not to him one suffering damage. 3Then this Daniel was distinguishing himself upon the administrators and the governors because the spirit of the excellence [was] in him and the king [was] one intending to appoint him upon the all of the kingdom. 4Then the administrators and the governors were ones seeking a pretext to find to Daniel concerning the kingdom and not ones being able to find all of a pretext and corruption because he [was] trustworthy and all of a negligence and corruption [was] not found upon him. 5Then these men [were] ones saying, “Not we will find all of a pretext to this Daniel unless we find [it] upon him in the law of his God.”
It is worth noting again the world that our Daniel lives in. At the age of 85-90, he has lived his life in a world literally convulsed with change. When he was born, Egypt and Assyria were the dominant world powers. As a young boy, Daniel got to live under godly king Josiah, but then saw that king killed, caught in the cross-fire of Egypt and Assyria battling against the rising Babylon. Then, no doubt to his godly parents’ grief, Josiah’s evil son Jehoiakim took the throne and a short time later, Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army appeared to besiege Jerusalem.
The next thing Daniel knew, Nebuchadnezzar was inside Jerusalem and Daniel and his friends were ripped away from their homes and families and drug 1,500 miles away to serve in the palace of Babylon. Daniel then saw several changes of government in Babylon until finally Belshazzar’s arrogant, inept, wicked rule brought an end to the head of gold. Belshazzar was slain and now Darius the Mede steps into the position of king over Babylon. The prophesied chest and arms of silver, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, is now in power, just as Daniel had interpreted in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream some seventy years earlier.
In Aramaic, this chapter 6 actually begins with the last verse of our English Bible’s chapter 5, where our verse 31 says, “And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.” Once again, Daniel would be getting up in the morning with no idea what the day might bring. Belshazzar the king was slain. Suddenly there is a new man on the throne. Usually, conquering kings tended to kill everyone in the vanquished court to replace them with their own people. Daniel could have easily been just another victim in this swirling change of power. Yet he lives, as he has through every change he's seen since he was a young boy.
Now, rather than being slain, Daniel is actually elevated to be one of the three administrators over the entire kingdom, and Darius then plans to set him over it all. Enter his accusers, determined to see him killed. The intrigues of a high court just go on.
I want to suggest there is much for us to learn from all of this. We too live a world of swirling change. The chest and arms of silver ended. The belly and thighs of brass (Greece) came and went. The legs of iron (Rome) rose and fell. Now we are living in the age of the ten toes of the revived Roman Empire, the European Union, and our world seems to be rapidly moving to see the rise of “the little horn,” the AntiChrist. We now have people actually talking openly and seriously about their “one world order.”
Those of us with whiskers and gray hair were born and grew up in an America that was independent, proud, and powerful. We have sadly had to watch as the crooks and criminals gradually took over our government and have now all but totally destroyed everything this country was founded on. It is only a matter of time and, one way or another, it will all collapse. What we so proudly knew as freedom will finally end, and we will join the rest of the world as the hapless slaves of a few very rich, powerful people, awaiting only the actual rise of that “little horn.” In all likelihood, it is only a matter of time and they’ll be killing people by the millions—anyone who doesn’t buy their version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The Bible calls it “a strong delusion of a lie,” and they will hate us in particular precisely because we see their propaganda for exactly what it is—lies.
So, here we are, just like Daniel, living in a world of swirling convulsions, of constant change, and the reality that those changes we will find in many, many ways very threatening first to our faith and then even to our lives. “How then shall we live?” Surely these five verses (and the rest of this book of Daniel) would teach us the answer to that question. What Daniel was is what we should be, God help us.
Open to the observation of even his worst enemies, Daniel was a man of sterling integrity. In the next post, I want to gather up a summary of the evidences of his character and ponder them together, but suffice it to say here that he was a man who did his job. He got up every morning and went to work. And the work he did was exemplary. But more than that, we can see clearly the engine that drove his excellence and that was his faith. Genuine faith, like Daniel’s, is a very real and constant relationship with the eternal God. As Peter said, “Do not fear what they fear, but, in your hearts, always set aside Christ as Lord.” It was precisely that relationship, that hidden work of the heart, that gave Daniel an unmoving moral compass.
Can I suggest that today, that is precisely what is needed amongst us believers? We too need again a faith that is not just our own unique set of rules but rather an intense and very personal relationship with the living God. But further, that is not something we exercise in a cloister somewhere; it is something we take with us as we live every moment of every day—living out the fruit of the Spirit in love and faithfulness, dependability, and excellence, and that particularly in our workplaces.
Though the changes of our world should swirl around us, though our companies should be bought and sold, the economy rise and fall, one boss replaced by another, and even our government devolve into one form or another of tyrannical oppression, yet, may we believers be just one more generation of Daniels to show the world there’s something worth living (and dying) for. Daniel is still encouraging our hearts 2,600 years later. May you and I be that same encouragement to our generation.
God help us.
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