Darius and the Lions

From Daniel 6

King Darius tugged his beard as he walked, pulling at the fine strands of dark hair and muttering to himself. The long linen cloth he wore around his neck swished back and forth as he rounded each cavern corner with irritation, causing the soldiers behind him to skitter out of the way.

The tunnel to the den of lions was long and narrow, lit by torches. It wound below the palace and was once a means of getting water to the king but was now sealed from the outside.

Daniel, the King’s most trusted official, calmly walked five paces behind the King. He was flanked by soldiers who elbowed him every few steps, reminding him he was their prisoner.

“I tried everything, Daniel.” The King spoke to the darkness in front of him, the echo bouncing along the stone walls. “I tried everything to find you absolution. I spoke to the magistrates and the courts. I consulted the mediums and astrologers, I sacrificed a choice bull in the temple of Marduk. Nothing. There was nothing I could do.” King Darius walked faster, sharpening his turns as he spoke. “The law stands and I cannot repeal it. I don’t have the power.”

His last word resounded among the group, his power disappeared around the bend with any last hope of saving Daniel. The King slowed to a crawl, as if picking up a heavy load. The closer they got to Daniel’s death sentence, the deeper King Darius retreated into his thoughts.

Just a day before, the King had been at the breakfast table, poring over plans for expanding the Babylonian empire. As he wiped a drop of grease from the parchment, he startled to see a group of men standing before him. “Yes?” He choked on his meat. “Is this urgent?” He was not to be disturbed during dining.

“May the King live forever,” the first man said as he stepped forward. “This is about Daniel. He’s broken the law, good King.”

King Darius blinked to focus, slowly identifying the group of men as his governors and administrators, the highest-ranking officials throughout the empire. They had found time in their busy schedules to come together. This was the second time in merely a few days and it was unusual, didn’t they have other work to do?

“Well, that can’t be.” Darius replied throwing his napkin on the table. Daniel was the most trustworthy man he knew. “Now leave me to my meal.” He had no patience for interruptions. He would discipline them all, he decided, after breakfast.

“May the King live forever.” Another satrap stepped forward as Darius rolled his eyes, the formality simply delayed information. He gestured to hurry him along. The man spoke faster. “Daniel was caught worshipping his god and you wrote in the law yourself, worthy King, that everyone must worship you and you only.”

The mistake settled over his body like a shadow cast by the sun. They were right. He had issued the law. “He was worshipping his god?” Darius asked.

“Clearly.” The same satrap spoke, saliva spewing. “He was on his knees and facing Israel, or where it used to be,” He chortled, “He was praying to that god of his, the one he says made everything. He only prays to that god alone—” He trailed off and the group jostled as a whole organism, leaving the pause dangling in the air.

“Continue.” Darius demanded, for now he could sense that something was afoot.

“Three times a day.”

The words revealed the truth. These men knew Daniel worshipped his god many times a day. They had persuaded Darius to issue the decree to condemn Daniel. He could see it now as it stood before him. He had been a pawn. Merely a player in a Babylonian game of chess.

“We’re terribly sorry,” The first one spoke again, his voice much smaller than before.

King Darius stood, swallowing, surveying their painted-on apologies.

“Get out.”

A third one stepped forward, his shoulders set higher than the others dared set theirs. “He will go to the den, won’t he?’

“Get out, I said.” Darius picked up his plate and threw it against the wall, the yolk splattered across the clay tile, bright yellow streaks decorating the dull brown. The men scurried out and Darius sat alone, piecing together what had happened.

A week earlier, the administrators and satraps had come to him in the same fashion. All but one man, though he had not recognized it at the time. Daniel was not among them.

“Good King Darius,” The leader of the group had said, his head bowed in reverence. “We have a suggestion for your worthy highness.” This man was not one that Darius trusted but the fact that they all came, and called him worthy, made him listen.

“Go on.” He said, eyeing the purple footwear that was so distinct of their nation. Nothing like it in Media, where he came from. He didn’t know if he thought it beautiful or hideous.

“We suggest you issue a decree that will establish your kingdom now that you are the great king.” The men all nodded in agreement with one another. They were right in that, he was a new king. He had stolen the throne when the empire was in uncertain times. He needed to establish his authority quickly.

“How?” He leaned in, practically offering his open mouth as a bass extends its jaw before chomping a hook.

“It’s a royal decree, your highness, one that cannot be repealed as we know your Persian law is ironclad.” Their words dripped with flattery and Darius hated himself as he remembered lapping it up like a thirsty canine. “Only you, King, are to be worshipped.” They said. “Anyone caught praying to another god will be thrown in the lions’ den.”

It was a bold move. One that Darius would never have considered had he not been a new king. If only he had seen through their ploys to the truth of who they were looking to condemn.

They had him fooled. In the face of this decree, he was but a creature, controlled by his most basic instincts. He had sealed the new law that very day then stood on the highest balcony in the palace to survey his kingdom, watching heads bow one after another as they saw him standing there.

He was their king. He was their god.

He knew nothing of Daniel’s love for his god at the time. He just knew there was something about Daniel that was strange. When Darius became king, he noticed it immediately. Daniel looked plain, almost unkempt next to the other wise men in the land. The men wore many rings on their hands and oil in their hair. Daniel’s dress was simple, no make-up on his face. He stood out among the rest. The others regarded him with cold indifference, though he didn’t seem to mind, keeping to himself most of the time.

“He’s the oldest one here.” King Darius’ cupbearer said when Darius asked about him. “He has served many kings on the throne, Belthazzar before you and his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar before him.” Darius wasn’t sure that was a good thing. He was ready to dismiss Daniel, simply to ease the strangeness, when Daniel came to him one day, bringing a tax record.

“These figures didn’t align so I did some investigating.” Daniel’s foreign accent was almost undetectable but the gentle lilt on the last word gave him away.

“Where are you from?” Darius didn’t look up from the scroll he was studying.

“Israel, from the region of Judah.” He heard a tone of longing in his voice when he spoke of his home. Darius realized he felt the same longing for his own. He wondered how long it took to go away.

He met Daniel’s eyes. “How long have you been in Babylon?”

“Seventy years.” A long time, Darius thought, strange he had not adopted the culture in all this time.

Daniel stepped forward a bit, a small smile played around his lips. “Did you keep horses back home?” He gestured to the statue of the horse on the table. It startled Darius, stirring memories he had not touched since arriving in Babylon. He thought of the purebred mare, his childhood horse. Sometimes when riding her at dusk over the plains, the sunset caught the red tones in her mane, causing them to look as if they were alight. He had felt, for a few fleeting seconds, as if he were riding atop flames of fire.

“Yes,” Darius picked up the statue. “She was was a gift from my father when I was young. Armine.” The marble replica had been commissioned by his mother for him when he was a teenager and had no need for nostalgic things. Now, he looked at it every single day.

“I had one too.” Daniel’s eyes brightened to reflect the warmth Darius was feeling as he spoke. “Zohar was his name. He was splendid, with a coat of white like a beam of light.” Darius locked eyes with the man, a connection forming between them. The feeling was so foreign he didn’t know what to say from there. He cleared his throat. “What of the figures you brought, Daniel?”

Daniel showed Darius the scroll. “It seems that half of the tax from the eastern region has been augmented. These figures here are telling the tale of some kind of embezzlement. I have already questioned Thaddeus, the governor over the East, and he seems to think that it has something to do with a clerical error but I think it deserves some extra attention.”

Darius took the scroll and examined the figures. They were not the cuneiform he was used to.

Daniel handed him a second scroll. “I have taken the liberty of translating these for you to Median figures. Now you may understand them.”

“How do you know Median figures?”

Daniel smiled, something secret and warm crossed his face. Maybe Daniel was in love, Darius thought to himself. He seemed to not be of this world and love would do that to a man.

“I came across them many years ago in my studies. I suppose I needed to learn them for this time. Little did I know then.”

The figures didn’t add up and Darius could see it right away once it was in the figures he could understand. He realized all this time he had been looking at Babylonian numbers thinking he could surely understand them but when an inquiry came, he could not.

“I’ll need you to translate all the accounts, Daniel.”

That was just a few weeks ago. Thaddeus was confirmed as a thief and thrown to the lions. The group of men approached him about the decree a week after that. If only Darius had put the pieces together then, before it was too late.

The mouth of the den was drawing near, the dank smell of the cats brought Darius back to the present moment. He stopped and leaned against the wall. “I should leave now, Daniel.” His breathing was labored and raspy, his words came out as whispers. “Daniel?” He called over his shoulder without looking behind him. He felt very old and strangely weak. He pushed away the soldiers as they tried to support him.

Soon the man’s accent was in his ear. “I’m here.” Daniel’s shoulder supported the king.

“I’m sorry.” Darius closed his eyes. “I have so many faults. I am no god, that much is clear now. I pray to yours, the one who you serve continually, the one that you love. He’s the only one that can save you.”

“If it’s his will.” Daniel said the words with the calm of a newborn baby at its mother’s breast.

Darius signaled to the soldiers. It was no use waiting any longer. Daniel jumped down into the darkness of the den and the soldiers rolled the stone over the mouth. Darius’ shaking hand opened the tin of sealing wax and soon his emblem finalized Daniel’s fate.

It was done.

“Save him.” Darius silently prayed to the god that Daniel worshipped.

He walked the long echoing hallway back to the palace very slowly, overcome with his thoughts.

The contrast between the dusty and dark hallway and the glittery adornments of the palace were too much for Darius. He went straight to bed and lay awake all night thinking of what he had become. How the throne had once been so appealing but now it mocked him.

At the first light of dawn, Darius scurried out of bed. Forgetting his coat, he ran to the den in his sleepwear, ignoring the damp air and the soldiers clambering behind him to keep up. He placed his ear to the stone, speaking loudly into the crack between it and the wall.

“Daniel! Has your god saved you?”

“May the King Live Forever.” Daniel’s voice rose up out of the den like the pleasing aroma of incense, turning the sour phrase sweet. “My God sent his angel to shut the mouths of the lions.” Darius had never heard anything so beautiful.

“Your God, Daniel,” Darius felt a warmth the deep parts of his soul, “he is surely living.” Darius knew the truth at once, like he knew his right hand. He motioned to the soldiers. “Get him out quickly, quickly, I shall issue a new decree praising the God of Daniel. He is the only one who should be worshipped for he is the living God.”

Darius tugged his beard, bouncing on the balls of his feet, “quickly, quickly.” He said again, as giddy as a child receiving a large gift.

The soldiers reached in and soon Daniel stood next to the king.

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King Darius goes on to issue a decree to all the earth and to all the people in all the languages that the God of Daniel is the LIVING GOD who endures forever. He is the one who should be worshipped.

God brings beauty from ashes time and again. The men of Babylon intended evil against Daniel. God, took it and used it for good instead, blessing Daniel and King Darius along the way. The satraps and administrators who plotted against Daniel were the ones thrown to the den instead. The story says the lions caught their bodies with their teeth before they could even reach the floor.