I. DARIUS. There are several Princes of this name mentioned in history: but we shall confine ourselves to those only, who are taken notice of in Scripture. Darius Dan. v. 31. ix. 1. xi. 1, &c. Dan. vi. 31.the Mede, spoken of in Daniel, was the son of Astyages King of the Medes, and brother to Mandane, the mother of Cyrus, and Amyit the mother of Evilmerodach, and grandmother to Belshazzar. Thus Darius the Mede was uncle by the mother’s side. to Evilmerodach and Cyrus. The Hebrew text generally calls him Dariavesch or Darius. The Septuagint give him the name of Artaxerxes in Dan. vii. and the Greek of ch. xiii. 65. of the same Daniel, calls him Astyages. Lastly, Xenophon throughout speaks of him by the name of Cyaxares. This Prince succeeded Belshazzar King of Babylon, his nephew’s son, his sister’s grandson, who died in the year of the World 3442, before Jesus Christ 558, before the Vulgar Æra 554. Daniel does not tell us that there had been Isai. xiii. xiv. xlv. xlvi. xlvii. Jer. l. li.war between them; but the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah do very clearly, whether they mean the wars between Darius the Mede and the Babylonians, or that which Cyrus declared against them.
Darius having got upon the throne of Babylon, thought fit to appoint an hundred and twenty of the principal Lords in his kingdom to govern the different Provinces Dan. vi. 1, 2.of his Dominions. Over all the rest he set three, whereof Daniel was one, to whom the several Governours were to be accountable. As Daniel had more authority than all of them; and the king shewed an inclination to make him Superintendant of the whole kingdom, the other princes conspired to destroy him. To this end they engaged the king to make an Edict forbidding every man to put up any petition either to God or man, excepting to himself. This Edict was published, and obey’d by all the people. But Daniel continuing his prayers regularly three times a day, his enemies obliged the king to give orders, that he should be thrown into the den of lions; because what the king had once ordained with the advice and consent of his great Lords, it was not in his power to reverse. Darius was very much afflicted at Daniel’s condemnation, and the next morning early going to the den of lions, and there finding him secure and unhurt, he commanded him to be taken out of the den, and his accusers with their wives and In the year of the World 3450. before J. C. 550. before the Vulgar Æra 554.children to be cast into it.
It was in the reign of this Darius the Mede, that Daniel had the famous Vision of the seventy Weeks, after the expiration whereof Christ was to suffer death; and that of the Persecutions which the Jews were to undergo under Antiochus Epiphanes. These visions are related in the ix. x. xi. xii. chapters of this Prophet. Darius the Mede died at Babylon about the year of the World 3456, before Jesus Christ 544, and before the Vulgar Æra 548. He was succeeded by Cyrus in the Monarchy of the Persians, Medes, and Chaldæans, who were once more united under his Empire.