John Calvin Commentary Daniel 2:24

"Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon; he went and said thus unto him: Destroy not the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will show unto the king the interpretation." — Daniel 2:24 (ASV)

Before Daniel sent his message to the king, as we saw yesterday, he rightly fulfilled his duty of piety, for he testified his gratitude to God for revealing the secret. But he now says that he came to Arioch, who had been sent by the king to slay the Magi, and asked him not to kill them, because he had a revelation; which we will discuss later.

Here we must notice that some of the Magi were slain, as I have said. For after Arioch had received the king’s order, he would never have dared to delay it even for a few days; but a delay occurred after Daniel had requested a short period of time.

Then Arioch relaxed the severity of the king’s order against the Magi; and now Daniel asks him to spare the remainder. He seems, indeed, to have done this with little judgment, because we should desire the complete abolition of magical arts, for we saw before that they were diabolical sorceries.

One answer might be that although Daniel saw many faults and corruptions in the Magi and their art, or science, or false claims to knowledge, yet, since the principles were true, he was unwilling to allow what had come from God to be blotted out. But, it seems to me that Daniel’s objective was somewhat different. For although the Magi might have been utterly destroyed without the slightest difficulty, he looks rather to the cause, and therefore wished the persons to be spared.

It will often happen that wicked men are called in question as well as those who have deserved a tenfold death; but if they are not punished for any just reason, we ought to spare their persons, not because of their worthiness, but because of our own habitual sense of fairness and righteousness.

It is therefore probable that Daniel, when he saw the king’s command concerning the slaughter of the Magi to be so tyrannical, went out to meet him, lest they should all be slain with savage and cruel violence, without the slightest reason. I therefore think that Daniel spared the Magi, but not out of any personal regard; he wished them to be safe, but for another purpose, namely, to await their punishment from God. Their iniquity was not yet ripe for destruction through the king's indignation. It is not surprising, then, that Daniel wished, as far as possible, to hinder this cruelty.