Daniel 6:3 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Daniel 6:3
Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.
wind · noun, common both genders singular absolute
king
וּמַלְכָּ֣אu.mal.Ka'
H4430
a king · conjunction + noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
thought
עֲשִׁ֔ית'a.Shit
H6246
to purpose · verb, active participle, masculine singular absolute
set
לַהֲקָמוּתֵ֖הּla.ha.ka.mu.Teh
H6966
to rise (in various applications · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
over
עַל'al-
H5922
above · preposition
whole
כֹּלkôl
H3606
properly
realm
מַלְכוּתָֽאmal.khu.Ta'
H4437
dominion (abstractly or concretely) · noun, common feminine singular determined + particle of affirmation
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Daniel 5:14 I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee.
Genesis 41:38-41 And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?
Proverbs 22:29 Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.
Daniel 5:12 Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of…
Esther 10:3 For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the weal…
Daniel 9:23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore unders…
Proverbs 3:3-4 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
Proverbs 17:27 He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Daniel 6:1-5
We are told concerning Daniel,
I. What a great man he was. When Darius, upon his accession to the crown of Babylon by conquest, new-modelled the government, he made Daniel prime-minister of state, set him at the helm, and made him first commissioner both of the treasury and of the great seal. Darius's dominion was very large; all he got by his conquests and acquests was that he had so many more countries to take care of; no more can be expected from himself than what one man can do, and therefore others must be employed under him. He set over the kingdom 120 princes (Dan 6:1), and appointed them their districts, in which they were to administer justice, preserve the public peace, and levy th…
Daniel was preferred--probably because of his having so wonderfully foretold the fall of Babylon. Hence the very expression used by the queen mother on that occasion (Dan 5:12) is here used, "because an excellent spirit was in him."
king thought to set him over the whole realm--Agreeing with Darius character, weak and averse to business, which he preferred to delegate to favorites. God overruled this to the good both of Daniel, and, through him, of His people.
Adam Clarke on Daniel 6:3
The king thought to set him over the whole realm - Intended to make him grand vizier or emir ul amrim. This partiality of the king made Daniel the object of the other presidents, and the grandees of the kingdom.
John Gill on Daniel 6:3
Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes,.... Not only above the princes, but the presidents, being the first of them, as before: or, "he was victorious above them" (y); he got more credit and applause than they did, being more exact, diligent, and laborious, faithful, and conscientious:
because an excellent spirit was in him; meaning not a spirit of grace, piety, and religion, which the Heathen king was no judge of, nor valued him for it, though it was in him; but a spirit of knowledge of civil affairs, and of prudence in managing them, and of integrity throughout the whole of his conduct:
and the king thought to set him over the whole realm; or, "wherefore the king…
The Church Fathers
[Daniel] had received from God a greater and more abundant grace. Now, from this we learn that to those also who are entrusted with conduct of earthly affairs, even if unsympathetic to religion, a grace of wisdom is given from God for their management of those they rule. Blessed Daniel implied as much in saying, "Because there was an extraordinary spirit in him," that is, he had received the grace in keeping with his religious sentiments.
Verses 3, 4. "Moreover the king was planning to set Daniel over the whole realm. Consequently the princes and satraps sought an opportunity to find out something against Daniel as touching the king..." Instead of "princes" - the rendering used by Symmachus - Theodotion translated it as taktikoi, and Aquila as synektikoi. And when I inquired as to who these tacticians or liaison princes might be, I read it more clearly specified in the Septuagint, which renders: "...and the two men whom the king had appointed with Daniel, and also the one hundred twenty satraps." And so it was the fact that the king was planning to appoint Daniel as chief ruler even over the two princes who had been associated with him in a triumvirate that gave rise to the envy and intrigue. They sought an opportunity to find out something against Daniel as touching the king. And in this passage the Jews have ventured some such deduction as this: the side of the king is tantamount to the queen or his concubines and other wives who slept at his side. And so they were seeking for a pretext in things of this sort, to see whether they could accuse Daniel of wrong in his speech or touch or movements of his head or any of his sensory organs. But, say the Jews, they could find no cause for suspicion whatsoever. Since he was a eunuch, they could not even accuse him on the score of lewdness. This interpretation was made by those, who make a practice of fabricating long tales on the pretext of a single word. I myself would simply interpret this as meaning that they were unable to discover any pretext of accusation against him in any matter in which he had injured the king, for the simple reason that he was a faithful man and no suspicion of blame was discoverable in him. Instead of "suspicion" Theodotion and Aquila have rendered "offense" (amblakema), which is essaitha in the Chaldee. And when I asked a Jew for the meaning of this word, he replied that the basic significance of it was "snare," and we may render it as a "lure" or sphalma, that is, a "mistake." Furthermore Euripides in his "Medea" equates the word amplakiai (spelling it with a p instead of a b) to hamartiai, that is to say, "sins."
Dictionary and topics
Darius — The holder or supporter, the name of several Persian kings. (1.) Darius the Mede (Dan. 11:1), “the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes” (9:1). On the death of Belshazzar the Chaldean he…
Medes, Media — (middle land). Media lay northwest of Persia proper, south and southwest of the Caspian Sea, east of Armenia and Assyria, west and northwest of the great salt desert of Iran. Its greatest length was…
Media — Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.…
Presidents — Three presidents are mentioned, of whom Daniel was the first (Dan. 6:2-7). The name in the original is sarkhin, probably a Persian word meaning perfects or ministers.
Prince — The title generally applied to the chief men of the state. The “princes of the provinces” (1 Kings 20:14) were the governors or lord-lieutenants of the provinces. So also the “princes” mentioned in…
Temptation — (1.) Trial; a being put to the test. Thus God “tempted [Gen. 22: 1; R.V., ‘did prove’] Abraham;” and afflictions are said to tempt, i.e., to try, men (James 1:2, 12; comp. Deut. 8:2), putting their…
Envy · Exemplified: Princes of Babylon — Exemplified: Princes of Babylon
Indictments · .Daniel, on the charge of — .Daniel, on the charge of
Magistrates · Good — Exemplified: Daniel — Good — Exemplified: Daniel
Minister, Civil · Daniel — Daniel
Persia · The princes were advi — The princes were advi
Daniel 6:3-5
3. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.
3. Tunc Daniel ipse fuit superior, [279] supra satrapas et praesides provinciarum: propterea quod spiritus amplior, vel, proestantior, in ipso erat: et rex cogitabat eum erigere super totum regnum.
4. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
4. Tunc satrap?, et praesides provinciarum quaesierunt occasionem invenire contra Danielem a parte…
Transference of the kingdom to Darius the Mede; appointment of the regency; envy of the satraps against Daniel, and their attempt to destroy him.
The narrative of this chapter is connected by the copula ו with the occurrence recorded in the preceding; yet Dan 6:1 does not, as in the old versions and with many interpreters, belong to the fifth chapter, but to the sixth, and forms not merely the bond of connection between the events narrated in the fifth and sixth chapters, but furnishes at the same time the historical basis for the following narrative, vv. 2-29 (vv. 1-28). The statement of the verse, that Darius the Mede received the kingdom when he was about sixty-two years old, connects its…
Daniel’s integrity was unassailable and his abilities unmatched, so the envious administrators found fault with Daniel’s strongest point, his faithful worship of God. Daniel was about 80~85 years old at this time. He had led an exemplary life in Babylon.
6:3 the king made plans to place him over the entire empire: Cp. 2:48-49; 3:30; Gen 41:40-43.
Rashi on Daniel 6:3
And over them [as translated,] and over them.
that these satraps should give them counsel that these satraps should give counsel to the three viziers.
and the king should not suffer any injury And the king should not suffer any loss in any royal matter that is incumbent upon them to perform.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
