The Persian Empire ~ Part 1

In the last history article, I wrote about the fall of Babylon. Today's article is the last history article of the year, and I will regretfully inform my readers that there will be a three-month break until I write Part 2 of the Persian Empire. Ironically, the geography article for this month is also the first part in a series (about Lebanon). Sorry, guys. I did not even plan to do this at all.

Although we were talking about Daniel and Darius at the end of the last article, we first need to discuss Cyrus the Great to clear up a historical controversy. Cyrus the Great was the king of only Persia (modern day Iran) until he conquered the Medes and fused both kingdoms together. He also conquered all of the other surrounding kingdoms and added them to his alliance. He was also responsible for the attack against Babylon that is mentioned in the book of Daniel.

But at the end of that chapter, a guy names Darius is mentioned, not Cyrus. Historians have had many interesting theories about who Darius was. First of all, Darius is definitely not Cyrus because the Bible makes a distinction between these two rulers. Darius is a Mede (called Darius the Mede by historians) and Cyrus is a Persian. Another interesting thing is that the word Darius means "lord" which may indicate that it was only a title although this still does not mean that Cyrus and Darius were the same person.

Daniel 6:28 says, "So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian." This caused historians to hypothesize that Darius was a viceroy of Babylon appointed by Cyrus who may have well been his nephew. Historians were unable to find any emperor between Belshazzar of the Babylonians and Cyrus the Persian. This is the only plausible theory as the history of Darius still remains unknown outside of what the Bible says.

Since we have all of that cleared up, we can continue on with the book of Daniel. Darius appointed 120 "princes" to rule over Babylon. I put princes in quotation marks because these "princes" were more like governors and not the sons of kings. Darius also appointed three presidents to oversee these princes which if you've already done the math divides 60 princes to each president.

Of course, one of the presidents was Daniel. Apparently, word got around about Daniel, and not only was he immediately promoted, he was Darius' favorite president. This made all the other princes and presidents angry, so they tried to find anything to throw dirt on Daniel's record. They couldn't find a single thing to accuse him about. Talk about if that happened today. That person would drive the news companies all crazy.

Eventually, they got evilicious (evil + smart) and said to each other that the only thing they could accuse him about was his faithfulness to God. By the way, I did not make up the word evilicious; it is aword Alton Brown uses in Cutthroat Kitchen. When people say that about someone, that means their reputation is nearly spotless. Nobody is perfect, so that's why I wrote "nearly spotless." It's a great reputation to have, but it's definitely something that you'll need God's strength to do.

Most kids' shows only have the two presidents go to talk to the Darius. Veggietales has three for some strange reason. But the Bible says that all of the princes and presidents went to Darius and said to him, "King Darius, live forever." After their very appealing intro, they told Darius about their plan. They wanted to make a rule that said that anyone who prayed to anyone or anything besides Darius for thirty days should be thrown into the lion's den. It seemed that the furnace must have been out of order after Nebuchadnezzar heated it seven times hotter.

Darius thought this was an excellent idea since he had the same problem as every king in history had: pride. The princes and presidents also spent a lot of time making the king feel important too. Darius signed the decree. What I find interesting is that the princes and presidents gladly informed Darius, "Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. (emphasis added)." Apparently, Darius didn't catch the fact that they just spilled the specifics of their trap.

Two Persian kings were caught in this trap in the Bible. When they make a rule, they cannot get rid of it forever. I wonder who made this idea up in the first place. When Daniel found out that this was signed, he went to his room, opened his window, and prayed to God facing Jerusalem three times a day, regardless of the rule. He didn't care about what the consequence was; he was going to obey God instead of fearing what man could do.

The princes and presidents saw Daniel do this and told Darius along with the fact that he could not change the rule. Darius was very sad and waited until the end of the day to punish Daniel since he could not do anything about this rule. He threw Daniel into the lion's den, told him that he hoped Daniel's God would deliver him, rolled the stone ( the lid?) over the den, and sealed it with his signet ring. Darius was so sad that this had to happen that he fasted the whole night without sleep or music.

Early in the morning, Darius went to the lion's den to see what had become of Daniel. He called out to Daniel, and Daniel answered. God had sent a lion to close the mouths of the lions. Darius ended up throwing all of the conspirators with their families and things into the lion's den. Those lions ate well that night.

Darius made a new decree saying that everyone must fear the one true God since His kingdom is everlasting. And Daniel prospered under the Persian rule for the rest of his life. He never returned to Jerusalem as far as we know, but he provides a great example of how a Christian in a pagan culture should act like.

We should all follow Daniel's (and his friends) examples in our daily living. We should obey and respect our authorities in the government and workplace, but we must remember that we are ultimately serving God. This doesn't give any Christian the excuse to be rude toward their unsaved authorities.If the authorities tell us to do something that God does not want us to do, we must respectfully decline to do that action.