Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!”
Daniel 6:16
God answered the prayer of this confused and easily flattered pagan king. Darius obviously had huge respect for Daniel. He had been unwisely misled to make a foolish decree only to have it backfire when Daniel kept worshiping God during an enforced 30 day moratorium on worship. The king wanted to deliver Daniel from the consequences of death by lion pit (Daniel 6:14). When he could not do so, bound by the law, he too made a kind of prayer (technically putting himself under the same penalty... but nobody threw Darius to the lions)!
God delivered Daniel partly to continue to grab Darius’ heart. The king is relieved that Daniel was delivered from death by lion mauling. He immediately sentences the conspirators against Daniel to the same fate and they are destroyed.
And then Darius takes worship of God further: he issues a decree that God “is the living God” and in turn the Lord prospers both Daniel and this pagan king (Daniel 6:28). God wants the worship of the nations. He places His people in the nations so that God might be shown in His mighty power and known as the living God Who rules forever!
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