The Lions' Den

The stone-lined pit beneath the royal compound where Persian kings kept lions for hunt and for execution. Daniel is thrown in for praying three times a day toward Jerusalem in defiance of Darius's thirty-day edict, and a stone is rolled over the mouth and sealed with the signets of the king and his nobles. At dawn the king runs to the pit and finds Daniel alive: "My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths" (Daniel 6:22).