Daniel 6:4

Accordingly, after this happened, the governors and satraps were stirred with jealousy and sought to find a pretext against Daniel, so that they might take some occasion against him and accuse him and kill him. In which manner the word was fulfilled, which we spoke a little before, that a pious man or one who fears God and has grace and wisdom from God is hated by the rest of men because they also were not honored with the same gift. In this way also the satraps and governors through envy hated Daniel since he was wiser and more faithful than all of them were. For Scripture testified to this, saying, "And not any pretext and transgression and fault was found against him because he was faithful." [Daniel 6:4] For he not only kept the commandments of God according to the law, but also the prescriptions of the king with much diligence and his conduct was exacting, wishing to stain his favor and pure conscience in no sordid matter of little gain.

Verses 3, 4. "Moreover the king was planning to set Daniel over the whole realm. Consequently the princes and satraps sought an opportunity to find out something against Daniel as touching the king..." Instead of "princes" - the rendering used by Symmachus - Theodotion translated it as taktikoi, and Aquila as synektikoi. And when I inquired as to who these tacticians or liaison princes might be, I read it more clearly specified in the Septuagint, which renders: "...and the two men whom the king had appointed with Daniel, and also the one hundred twenty satraps." And so it was the fact that the king was planning to appoint Daniel as chief ruler even over the two princes who had been associated with him in a triumvirate that gave rise to the envy and intrigue. They sought an opportunity to find out something against Daniel as touching the king. And in this passage the Jews have ventured some such deduction as this: the side of the king is tantamount to the queen or his concubines and other wives who slept at his side. And so they were seeking for a pretext in things of this sort, to see whether they could accuse Daniel of wrong in his speech or touch or movements of his head or any of his sensory organs. But, say the Jews, they could find no cause for suspicion whatsoever. Since he was a eunuch, they could not even accuse him on the score of lewdness. This interpretation was made by those, who make a practice of fabricating long tales on the pretext of a single word. I myself would simply interpret this as meaning that they were unable to discover any pretext of accusation against him in any matter in which he had injured the king, for the simple reason that he was a faithful man and no suspicion of blame was discoverable in him. Instead of "suspicion" Theodotion and Aquila have rendered "offense" (amblakema), which is essaitha in the Chaldee. And when I asked a Jew for the meaning of this word, he replied that the basic significance of it was "snare," and we may render it as a "lure" or sphalma, that is, a "mistake." Furthermore Euripides in his "Medea" equates the word amplakiai (spelling it with a p instead of a b) to hamartiai, that is to say, "sins."