Arise, Shine · The Lions’ Den

In context

Isaiah’s last chapters open the Lord’s house to foreigners and eunuchs who hold fast to his covenant: “my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:3–7), words Jesus quoted in the temple (Mark 11:17). “The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me,” says the speaker in chapter 61, sent “to preach good news to the humble” and “to proclaim liberty to the captives” (61:1); Jesus read these words in the synagogue and said, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

The Lord promises “new heavens and a new earth,” where “The wolf and the lamb will feed together,” and “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 65:17, 25; 66:13). There are hard lines too (63:3; 66:24).

In Daniel 6, officials who can find no fault in Daniel get King Darius to sign a law that cannot be changed. Daniel goes on praying three times a day at his windows open toward Jerusalem, as Solomon’s prayer pictured (1 Kings 8:48–49), and is thrown to the lions; in the morning he says, “My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths” (Daniel 6:4–22; Hebrews 11:33). It is a hard reading at the end: his accusers and their families are thrown to the lions (Daniel 6:24).