The Old Testament names more than one Darius, and the 1915 ISBE keeps them apart. "Darius the Mede," who "received the kingdom" when Babylon fell and into whose reign the lions' den falls (Daniel 5:31; 6), is identified by the ISBE, in its frankly conservative idiom, with Gubaru (Gobryas), the governor Cyrus set over Babylon; but Darius the Mede is otherwise unnamed in the records, and the ISBE offers this as the identification it finds most defensible, not as a settled fact. The "Darius" of Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah, under whom the temple was finished, is the well-attested Darius I (Hystaspes, reigned 522–486 BC; older works give 521, his first full regnal year), known to general history for Marathon and for reorganizing the empire into satrapies. A third, "Darius the Persian" (Nehemiah 12:22), is later still. (Source: ISBE 1915, "Darius.")
Empires and rulers of the Old Testament world
Darius: which Darius?
RulerPersia
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- Daniel 5:31bsb
and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
- Daniel 6:1bsb
Now it pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom,
- Ezra 6:1bsb
Thus King Darius ordered a search of the archives stored in the treasury of Babylon.
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