Darius the Mede

Biblical Account

Darius is a king who appears only in the Book of Daniel. Daniel 5:31 records that after the death of Belshazzar, "Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." Daniel 9:1 introduces him as "Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes," and in Daniel 11:1 the angel who is speaking refers to "the first year of Darius the Mede."

His story is told mainly in Daniel 6.

• Darius appointed 120 princes (provincial officials) to govern the kingdom and set three presidents over them. Daniel was one of the three, and Darius intended to set him over the whole realm.
• Officials who envied Daniel devised a decree that anyone who petitioned any god or man other than the king for thirty days would be cast into the den of lions, and Darius signed it.
• Daniel continued to pray three times a day toward Jerusalem, as he had done before, and was accused (Daniel 6:10). Darius labored to deliver him, but because the law of the Medes and Persians could not be altered, he ordered Daniel to be put into the den.
• The king spent the night fasting and could not sleep. The next day, finding Daniel unharmed, he had Daniel's accusers cast into the den and issued a decree that all should fear the God of Daniel (Daniel 6:25–27).

The chapter closes with the statement: "So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian" (Daniel 6:28).

Significance Within Scripture

Darius belongs to a recurring pattern in the Book of Daniel in which a Gentile king comes to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, in the same vein as the confession of Nebuchadnezzar. The New Testament does not mention Darius by name. However, the phrase "stopped the mouths of lions" in Hebrews 11:33–38 is widely read as a reference to the episode of the lions' den.

Interpretation and Debate

• Historical identity: No king called "Darius the Mede" reigning between the Babylonian kings and Cyrus is attested in sources outside the Bible, and opinions therefore differ. Conservative scholars regard him as a historical figure and have proposed identifications such as Gubaru (Gobryas), the governor of Babylon appointed by Cyrus, or Cyaxares II, king of the Medes. Another view reads Daniel 6:28 as "the reign of Darius, that is, the reign of Cyrus" and identifies him with Cyrus himself. Critical scholars regard him either as a figure arising from a conflation of memories of later Persian kings such as Darius I or as a literary construct. Josephus is reported to have described him as the son of Astyages.
• The four kingdoms: In the interpretation that takes the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 and 7 as Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece, Darius is seen as the representative of the Median kingdom. The traditional interpretation, which identifies them as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, treats Media and Persia as a single kingdom.
• Distinction from other kings named Darius: He is generally distinguished from the Persian king Darius of the temple-rebuilding period who appears in Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah.
• Accounts outside the canonical text: Bel and the Dragon, one of the Greek additions to Daniel in the Septuagint, also contains a lions' den story. There, however, the king is Cyrus, and Protestants do not include this addition in the canon.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, Darius is treated mainly as a background figure in the episode of the lions' den. "Daniel in the Lions' Den" is a staple lesson in Sunday school and vacation Bible school. Sermons tend to emphasize Daniel's life of prayer, since he kept praying three times a day even though he knew of the decree, while Darius is often portrayed as a king who was deceived by the schemes of his officials and bound by his own law.