In fact, it troubled Daniel so much that he took a few men and mourned for three weeks, fasted nice foods and did not annoint himself with lotion. Sometime near the end of Daniel’s fast, a man appears to him which leaves Daniel quivering and helpless. The man is described as:

The bible does not indicate who this person is, and while the first reading of the description makes me think that this could in fact be the Son of God, it is my conclusion that this is another angel sent to Daniel for reasons I’ll come on to later. However, I could be wrong on that one…

Daniel goes a bit giddy at this point and falls onto the ground into a deep sleep. The man strengthens Daniel and asks him to stand for he is about to say something to him. The man reminds Daniel once again that he is highly esteemed and that the reason he has come is because Daniel “set his mind to gain understanding and humble youself before God”.

Then the man says something quite interesting – he indicates that he was “resisted by the prince of the Persian kingdom” and detained there for 21 days (3 weeks). My study notes tell me that this probably refers to a demon exercising influence over the Persian kingdom in the interests of Satan – although other commentaries suggest that he may be directly referring to Cambyses (or an agent of Satan working through Cambyses), the son of Cyrus. Whilst the man was detained for a time, he was eventually helped by the archangel Michael so that he could come and talk to Daniel.

If any of you have read any of Frank Peretti’s books (such as This Present Darkness) then this will sound quite familiar to you as Peretti writes fictional stories but with the slant of seeing them with the actions of angels and demons in mind. The bible tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and it leads me to my conclusion that this man was an angel of heaven – as I find it hard to believe that the Son of God could be held by a prince of Satan and needed help to be released from his power.

Another interesting thing that strikes me is that the man was held by the prince of Persia for 21 days. The man indicates in v12 that he is coming in response to Daniels anguish but could not come instantly because of the resistence from the prince of Persia. So often when I pray and don’t see their fruits instantly I all too often fall into the trap of thinking that my prayers have fallen on Gods ‘bad ear’ and get discouraged. However, in this case the man was coming to answer Daniel – but the heavenly struggle prevented it happening straight away. This comes as an encouragement to me to keep praying for the things which I am not seeing immediate results – for the prayers I may be praying could be affecting the unseen actions of the heavenly armies even though I see no eartly result. As was the case here, the prayers I am praying now may have already been answered (or are being answered) and I may just not be seeing it right now.

The man then proceeds to give Daniel strength as he seems to be slightly lacking in that department before starting to unfold to him the reason why he came to speak to him. That signals the end of this chapter so we will leave it there for now and let the comments begin…

So we continue our look at Daniel by checking out chapter 6. Ah chapter 6 – the story of Daniel in the lions den – a story which I am sure all of us have probably heard at some point in our lives. I think for me that it doesn’t matter how often you have heard a story like this, as it still has punch and a kick on every read…

So chapter 5 saw the slaying of yet another King of Babylon and so chapter 6 finds Darius the Mede at the throne. Interestingly there are many arguments about the legitimacy of this story because there appears to be no historical backing for anyone by that name. However, it is thought that either Darius the Mede was another name for a chap called Gubaru who was mentioned in ancient Babylonian inscriptions or it was King Cyrus’ “throne name” in Babylon. Either way, Babylon has a new King and the first task undertaken is the appointment of 120 satraps to rule the Kingdom. Three administrators oversaw their work, one of which was our good friend Daniel.

The story tells us how the other administrators and satraps were jealous of Daniel – he was exceptional at his job and the King planned for the whole Kingdom to be run by him eventually – and the others didn’t like the prospect of Daniel being incharge of them. They tried to find fault with him, but when they came up with nothing they hatched a genius plan:

The plan was to get Darius to decree that for the next thirty days no Gods would be worshipped – they all must worship the King. Darius likes the sound of this and gives the order and puts it in writing which meant that ‘it could not be altered – in accordance with the laws of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed’. The penalty for anyone who does not do this is for them to be thrown to the lions. Daniel still prays to God and the satraps haul him in front of the King, who reluctantly admits that there is no way to get around the fact that Daniel must now be thrown into the lions den. Dairus is pretty upset about this and ‘made every effort’ to save Daniel but could not. Daniel is thrown into the lions den but is not killed by them – when the King goes down to the den the next morning he finds Daniel alive. Daniel tells the King that an angel shut the mouths of lions and King Darius can do nothing but praise God for saving Him.

The first thing that strikes me about this passage is the way Daniel lived his life. Verse 3 states that he “…distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities…”. This is mirrored in the new testament in Titus 2 where we are commanded to live so that anyone who opposes us will have nothing bad to say about us. This for me is a life of worship, where every second we are alive we are living for God and for His glory. This is how I believe we were created to live.

Living like this is also a great way for us to show God to people who don’t know Him. No where in this passage does it say how Daniel preached to the King or the other satraps – but they still saw God through him because of the way he lived. I personally believe that this is perhaps the only way some people are going to know about Gods love – as the world these days seems to switch off the moment anyone tries any ‘classic’ evangelism.

The final thing I want to pick up on is the final words of this chapter. The bible says that because of this ‘Daniel prospered’ during the Kings reign. I take that to mean that Daniel excelled at his work, had enough food to eat, had many friends etc. I think this is great – God rewarded Daniel for his commitment and his faith and his reward was in the physical. So often in church life we can actually be made to feel guilty if we have more money than our neighbour when actually it is God who gives us everything we have in the first place. The love of money is a bad thing yes, but I believe God gives us everything with an eye for us using it for His kingdom. So rather than feeling guilty because we earn more money than our neighbour let us rejoice for it and thank God that we can use that money to help our neighbour as well as living our own lives. Let us follow the example of Jabez and pray each day for prosperity on our lives so that we can bless others.