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The sum of all was this; they had a plot against Daniel and his people, to throw him out of place and favour; to effect that, they fall upon him in the point of religion, which they would make to be treason. How so? They contrived an act of uniformity, by an unalterable law, to ask no petition of any god or man, but of the king, for one month, upon pain of death. They wheedled the king into it, and passed it into a law. The king sees the plot to be against Daniel, and would have saved him, but they held the king to it; they were zealous for executing laws of their own procuring; it was a net they had privily laid for this holy man, and had got him fast.
1. We see the horridness of this decree against God, for it was to ungod him for a time, that Darius might be deified.
2. It is marvellous that Darius should suffer himself to be persuaded to this idolatry, blasphemy, and sacrilege, but that we know it was common to the kings of the East to show themselves willing to be accounted gods. Some give three reasons why Darius was persuaded to it.
(1.) Because he was old, and had not much authority, and by this means he would gain it highly.
(2.) Because by this the superstitious Chaldeans, newly conquered, would be the better kept under.
(3.) Hereby he would seem not at all to be beholden to Cyrus for the share of his government.
3. The wickedness of this decree appeared also in this, that it brake all the bonds of nature’s laws, between superiors and inferiors, for one month.
4. The craft of this cursed cabal is seen in this, that they mind Darius that it was his honour, interest, and duty to see this law executed, seeing it was the custom and constitution of the Medes and Persians, and he himself was a Mede. The Babylonians had no such law and custom, but the others had of old, Est_1:15,19 8:8
5. The courage, zeal, and sincerity of Daniel in not baulking the course of his devotion for fear of the king’s edict; but as if he had not been concerned at all in it, being overawed by the fear of God, who was superior to all the gods and princes of the world, he made the command and institution of God alone the rule of his worship.