Daniel 6 Footnotes

6:1 Critical scholars judge Darius the Mede (5:31) to be literary fiction, pointing out that no such name has been discovered in ancient texts. They claim the Jewish author conflated details about Cyrus (559–530 BC) and Darius I (522–486 BC) into his imaginary monarch. Such arguments from silence are notoriously precarious. Skeptics once confidently declared Belshazzar to be a fictional character as well. Scholars who accept the historicity of Daniel’s account usually identify Darius the Mede as a governor of Babylon (Gubaru = Gobryas) or as Cyrus himself. Lesser rulers were often spoken of as kings in ancient times, and dual names for kings were common. Either explanation is historically feasible.

Ancient records vary in the exact number of Persian satrapies. “Satrap” means “protector of the kingdom”; Xenophon and other Greek historians applied the term to lower officials. Daniel apparently used it in similar fashion.

6:8 Critics have challenged Daniel’s statement that “a law of the Medes and Persians” was “irrevocable” and could not “be changed” (Est 1:19; 8:8), but Diodorus Siculus (17.30) reported that Darius III (336–330 BC) executed an innocent man because he could not change what had been decreed by royal authority. The phrase “a law of the Medes and Persians” (vv. 8,12,15; Est 8:8; see note on Est 1:19), shows that Daniel knew the Medo-Persian Empire existed jointly, and not as a separate Median Empire followed by a Persian Empire as some critics allege (see note on Dn 2:31-43).