Scripture Daily

Context No. 594 of 4322 · Daniel (Greek)

Context · Reflection

Daniel (Greek) 14:28-32: in context

28When the people of Babylon heard that, they took great indignation, and conspired against the king, saying, “The king has become a Jew. He has pulled down Bel, slain the dragon, and put the priests to the sword.” 29So they came to the king, and said, “Deliver Daniel to us, or else we will destroy you and your house.” 30Now when the king saw that they trapped him, being constrained, the king delivered Daniel to them. 31They cast him into the lion’s den, where he was six days. 32There were seven lions in the den, and they had been giving them two carcasses and two sheep every day, which then were not given to them, intending that they would devour Daniel.

This is from the story of Bel and the Dragon, in the Greek additions to Daniel. Daniel has exposed and destroyed the idols of Babylon, and the enraged crowd forces the king to hand him over, thrown into the lions' den. But look at the details the text gives, because they show a situation engineered as thoroughly as possible for Daniel's death. There were seven lions in the den. And the keepers, who normally fed them two carcasses and two sheep every day, were ordered to give them nothing, so that the starving beasts would be sure to devour him. And Daniel is left there not for an hour but for six days. Everything has been arranged to guarantee he does not come out alive: enough lions, deliberately starved, and days enough for hunger to do its work.

And yet, day after day, Daniel is unharmed. For six full days he sits among seven famished lions that had every reason and every appetite to tear him apart, and they do not touch him. The situation was stacked against him in every way human malice could contrive, the numbers, the starvation, the length of time, all of it calculated for his destruction, and God preserved him in the very middle of it. Not by removing him from the den, but by keeping him safe inside the thing meant to kill him. The lions were real and hungry; the protection was simply greater.

That speaks to the times when everything in my circumstances seems engineered for my undoing, and the ordeal drags on and on. There are seasons that feel exactly like that den, where the pressures are stacked, deliberate, and prolonged, calculated, it seems, to finish me, and every day that passes without relief feels like proof I will not survive it. Daniel among the starved lions says God can preserve me in the middle of the very thing designed to destroy me, however long it lasts. When my circumstances feel arranged for my ruin and the ordeal will not end, can I trust the God who kept Daniel safe among the lions for six days to preserve me inside it too?

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