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Daniel Prayed With His Windows Open and the Lions Did Not Touch Him

Darius fed the lions until they were full, then threw Daniel's accusers in. He had to know whether the lions had spared Daniel or had merely been fed.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. They Could Not Find a Single Thing Against Him
  2. The One Man Who Did Not Stop
  3. The King Sealed the Stone Himself
  4. No Answer From the Pit
  5. The King Fed the Lions First
Daniel Prayed With His Windows Open and the Lions Did Not Touch Him Click for full size

They Could Not Find a Single Thing Against Him

They went through the accounts first, because that is where a man usually gives himself away. Daniel was one of three presidents set over the three hundred and sixty provinces of Darius the Mede, and everything in the empire passed under his hand, and he had never taken any of it. He would not accept a payment even when the payment was owed to him. He thought taking was a low thing to do.

So the other officials looked for something shameful in his private life and found that too clean to use. What they finally noticed was that he prayed to his God three times a day, and did not hide it.

They came to the king with a proposal dressed as an honor. Give the people a holiday from petitions. For thirty days let no one in the empire ask anything of any god or any man except the king, and let anyone who breaks it go into the den of the lions. Darius, who had no idea the sentence had a name written on it already, said he was pleased with the decree and published it across the provinces.

The One Man Who Did Not Stop

Everyone else went quiet. For thirty days the empire kept its mouth shut and its head down.

Daniel went up to the upper room of his house, opened the windows that faced Jerusalem, and prayed where anyone in the street could see him, three times, exactly as he always had. The palace had changed the law. It had not moved the city he was facing.

His accusers had been standing outside watching the windows. They ran to the king and reported that one man in the whole kingdom had ignored the decree, and they knew Darius liked him, and they were counting on it. What they wanted was not the crime. They wanted the pardon to be impossible.

Darius spent the day looking for a way out and did not find one. The law of the Medes and the Persians did not bend backward. At sunset he gave the order.

The King Sealed the Stone Himself

He walked down with him. He told Daniel to take it cheerfully, that his God would get him out, and the words were half hope and half instruction to himself. Then Daniel went into the pit and the stone went over the mouth of it, and Darius pressed his own signet into the seal so that no hand could open it in the night without him knowing.

He went back to the palace and ate nothing. He called for no music. He did not sleep.

Far away in Judea, Habakkuk had cooked a pot of stew and was carrying it out to the men working his field when an angel stopped him and told him to take it to Daniel in Babylon instead. Habakkuk asked how a man was supposed to carry a pot of stew that far. The angel took him by the hair and set him down in the pit an instant later. The two of them ate together on the floor of the den, among the lions, and then the angel picked Habakkuk up and put him back in his own field.

No Answer From the Pit

At first light Darius ran to the den. The seal was exactly as he had left it. He broke it himself, and leaned over the hole, and called down into the dark.

Nothing came back.

He called again. Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God been able to save you from the lions? Still nothing, because Daniel had spent the whole night giving praise and was at that moment in the middle of the Shema, and would not break it off for a king.

Then the voice came up. O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and closed the lions' mouths. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in front of him, and I have done you no harm either.

Darius had him hauled out. There was not a scratch anywhere on him.

The King Fed the Lions First

The accusers had an explanation ready. The lions had been fed too well. A full lion ignores a man. It proved nothing about anyone's God.

Darius did not argue with them. He ordered a great quantity of meat thrown down into the pit, and he waited while the lions ate it, and he waited until they were visibly full. Then he had the accusers brought and thrown in, a hundred and twenty-two of them, with their wives and their children, two hundred and forty-four people going down onto the same floor where Daniel had slept.

Fourteen hundred and sixty-four lions came off that floor with their bellies full and tore every one of them apart as though they had gone hungry for a week.

Darius wrote to every province in the empire that the God of Daniel was the only true God and had all power in his hand, and he made Daniel first among his friends. Daniel built a tower at Ecbatana in Media, and centuries later it was still standing and still looked new, as though the stone had been laid that morning. The kings of Media and Persia were buried in it, and the man who held the keys was always a Jewish priest.

DanielMiraclesFaithProphecyExile
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Antiquities X.11Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Daniel survived the fall of Babylon. When Darius the Mede took the kingdom, he elevated Daniel to the highest office in the empire, one of only three governors ruling over 360 provincial chiefs. Daniel was so capable and so favored that the other officials burned with jealousy. They needed a way to destroy him.

They found it in his faith. Josephus records that the jealous governors convinced Darius to issue a decree: for thirty days, no one could pray to any god or man except the king, on penalty of being thrown to the lions. Darius signed it. Daniel heard about the law and changed nothing. Three times a day he opened his windows toward Jerusalem and prayed to God, exactly as he had always done.

His enemies were watching. They caught him in the act and ran to the king. Darius, who genuinely loved Daniel, was trapped by his own decree, under Persian law, a royal edict could not be revoked. He spent the entire day trying to find a legal loophole. There was none. At sunset, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions.

Darius could not sleep that night. At dawn he ran to the den and called out to Daniel, barely hoping for an answer. Daniel's voice came back calm and clear: "God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths." He emerged without a scratch. The men who had conspired against him were thrown into the den instead. And the lions crushed their bones before they hit the ground.

Josephus adds something remarkable about Daniel's legacy. He says Daniel built a great tower at the fortress of Ecbatana in Media, so beautifully constructed that it still appeared newly built centuries later. The Jewish community maintained it, and the high priests of the Babylonian diaspora were buried there. But Daniel's real monument was his prophecies. Josephus insists that Daniel prophesied not just vaguely but with specific timing, and that "by the forementioned predictions of Daniel, those men seem to me very much to err from the truth who determine that God exercises no providence over human affairs."

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Legends of the Jews 11:17Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

It comes from Legends of the Jews by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, drawing on ancient lore, and it involves prophets, angels, lions, and a very, very hungry group of them.

While all sorts of drama were unfolding in Babylon – An angel, a divine messenger, appeared to the prophet Habakkuk.

The angel gives Habakkuk a rather unusual command: take the food he’s preparing for his field laborers and deliver it to Daniel in Babylon! Now, Habakkuk, understandably bewildered, asks the angel how he’s supposed to accomplish such a feat, given the vast distance. How could he possibly transport it so far?

Here's where it gets truly fantastical. The angel, without a word, seizes Habakkuk by his hair – yes, by his hair! – and in an instant, whisks him away to Babylon, setting him down right in front of Daniel. They share a meal, a bizarre picnic in the heart of this incredible situation, and then the angel promptly returns Habakkuk to his place in Palestine. One minute you're in Judea, the next you're dining with Daniel in Babylon, and then, poof, you're back home.

The next morning, King Darius, anxious to know Daniel's fate, rushes to the lion's den. He calls out Daniel's name, desperate for a response. But silence. Why? Because, as the story goes, Daniel, having spent the night praising God, was reciting the Shema. The Shema, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, is the central prayer in Judaism, declaring God's oneness. Even in the face of mortal danger, Daniel's faith remained steadfast.

Hearing nothing, the king feared the worst, until he looked closer and saw that Daniel was indeed alive! Overjoyed, but also suspicious, the king summons Daniel's enemies, those who had plotted his downfall, to the pit. They suggest that perhaps the lions simply weren't hungry.

Big mistake.

King Darius, not buying it for a second, orders them to "test" the lions with their own bodies. The result? A gruesome spectacle. According to the tale, the hundred and twenty-two enemies of Daniel, along with their wives and children – a total of two hundred and forty-four people – were torn to shreds by fourteen hundred and sixty-four lions! Yes, you read that right.

Now, let's just pause for a moment and consider that image. It’s a stark, almost unbelievable contrast to the image of Daniel, peacefully reciting the Shema, protected by his faith.

What does this story, drawn from ancient Jewish lore, really tell us? Is it a literal account of historical events? Perhaps. More likely, it's a powerful parable about faith, divine intervention, and the consequences of malice.

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