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."