Daniel 6:7

7. They told the king that all the “presidents” (though this was not true of Daniel, Daniel 6:2), “the deputies and the satraps, the counselors and the governors” (R.V.) favored a royal decree and “strong interdict” which should provide death by the lions (see note Daniel 6:16) for any person who “offereth prayer or presents petition [namely, in prayer] to any god for the space of thirty days, save only to Darius the king” (Greek). The statute asked for was so absurd that it has seemed incredible to many that these officials would have dared to demand it or that any governor in his senses would have yielded to their clamor. Such a decree, if it represents literal history, stands conspicuously alone, most of the supposed parallel instances cited by Delatre and Knabenbauer needing corroboration. Darius here is as crazy as Nebuchadnezzar! Yet it can be said that a “religious riot” has always been especially feared by wise kings; that in the multitude of antagonistic faiths gathered in Babylon such a riot was not at all impossible; that the worship of the king, who was supposed to be the incarnation of deity, may have been considered a public pledge of allegiance to the government (see note Daniel 3:6) and that it might have been supposed, therefore, by Darius that this edict would restrain the people from processions and ceremonials which might prove offensive or dangerous and unite the mongrel population in a public act of loyalty to the new dynasty.