Catholic Commentary
Daniel's Separate Examination Exposes the Elders' Lies (Part 2)
59Then Daniel said to him, “You have also certainly lied against your own head; for the angel of God waits with the sword to cut you in two, that he may destroy you.”
Daniel 13:59 records Daniel's condemnation of the second false elder, pronouncing that an angel of God waits with a sword to cut him in two and destroy him, mirroring his identical verdict against the first elder. This pronouncement fulfills the law of Deuteronomy 19:19, where a false witness receives the punishment he sought to inflict on the innocent, and exemplifies Daniel's role as God's judge executing divine justice against those who conspired to murder an innocent woman.
A single truthful question dismantles a sophisticated lie—and the liar's own words become the instrument of his destruction.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Typologically, Daniel prefigures Christ the Judge, who alone sees into hearts (John 2:25) and pronounces true verdicts where human courts fail. As St. Hippolytus of Rome noted in his Commentary on Daniel, the whole Susanna narrative is an allegory of the Church (Susanna) falsely accused by corrupt leaders, vindicated by Christ (Daniel). The sword-bearing angel who destroys the liar points forward to the eschatological judgment, where every hidden falsehood will be exposed and every injustice remedied.
From a Catholic perspective, Daniel 13:59 carries profound doctrinal weight on several fronts.
The Certainty of Divine Justice. The Catechism teaches that God is "the sovereign master of his plan" (CCC 306) and that his justice will ultimately prevail over every injustice. This verse dramatizes that teaching: human courts had already condemned Susanna, yet God's justice operated through an unexpected instrument — a young man filled with wisdom — to reverse the unjust verdict. The Church has always taught that God's justice is not merely retributive but restorative; here it both punishes the guilty and vindicates the innocent in a single act.
Angelic Mediation of Judgment. Catholic tradition holds that angels are active agents in the governance of the world and the execution of divine providence (CCC 331–336). The "angel of God with the sword" is not a literary ornament but a doctrinal assertion: God employs heavenly ministers in the administration of his justice. St. Thomas Aquinas, following Pseudo-Dionysius, taught that lower realities are governed through higher ones, and that angels execute divine decrees in the created order (Summa Theologiae I, q. 110–114).
The Prophetic Office and Charismatic Wisdom. The Church Fathers, including Origen and Jerome — whose Commentary on Daniel preserved the Theodotionic Greek text of chapter 13 — saw Daniel's inspired cross-examination as a prototype of the charismatic gift of discernment (discretio spirituum). The Holy Spirit grants to certain believers an insight that penetrates deception; this gift is acknowledged in the New Testament (1 Cor. 12:10) and in Catholic spiritual theology as essential to the life of the Church.
The Deuterocanonical Canon. Significantly, Daniel 13 is found only in the Greek (Septuagint/Theodotion) text, not the Hebrew/Aramaic Masoretic text. The Council of Trent (1546) definitively affirmed the full deuterocanonical text of Daniel as inspired Scripture. Jerome himself, though noting the absence of this chapter in the Hebrew, translated it faithfully in the Vulgate at the Church's insistence. This verse thus also stands as a witness to the Catholic Church's authority over the biblical canon.
This verse speaks with piercing directness to a culture saturated with strategic deception — in courtrooms, in social media, in political discourse, even within church communities. The elder's lie was sophisticated and coordinated; yet one truthful question shattered it entirely.
For the contemporary Catholic, Daniel 13:59 offers three concrete applications. First, it is an invitation to trust that injustice will not have the final word, even when human institutions fail. When a Catholic faces false accusation — at work, in a parish conflict, in a family dispute — this passage provides not naive optimism but theological conviction: God sees, God judges, God acts.
Second, it challenges Catholics to the Daniel-like courage of naming a lie clearly and publicly when circumstances require it. Epistemic cowardice — vague, non-committal speech that avoids naming falsehood — is itself a moral failure. Daniel did not hedge; he said, "You have certainly lied."
Third, this verse is a sobering mirror for one's own conscience. The phrase "lied against your own head" reminds every believer that sin is ultimately self-destructive. The Examination of Conscience is not a legal exercise but a mercy — an invitation to expose one's own hidden falsehoods before they calcify into the kind of entrenched corruption these elders embodied.
Commentary
Daniel 13:59 — "You have also certainly lied against your own head"
Daniel's opening declaration—"you have also lied"—is a precise legal and moral verdict. The phrase "against your own head" is a Semitic idiom signifying self-incurred guilt: the falsehood returns upon the speaker as its primary victim. This reflects the lex talionis principle enshrined in Deuteronomy 19:19, where a false witness is to suffer the very punishment he sought to inflict on the innocent. The elder intended to bring death upon Susanna by his false testimony; now that same death sentence rebounds upon him.
The power of Daniel's method lies in its simplicity. He separated the two elders and asked each a single, verifiable question: under which tree did the alleged act take place? The first elder named a mastic tree (schinos, v. 54); the second elder named an oak (prinos, v. 58). The two answers are irreconcilable. The variation is not a minor detail — it is the hinge upon which the entire account turns, exposing the conspiracy with devastating economy. Daniel's cross-examination is a model of judicial wisdom: patient, methodical, precise, and anchored in observable fact.
"For the angel of God waits with the sword to cut you in two"
This sentence almost exactly mirrors Daniel's condemnation of the first elder (v. 55), but is not merely formulaic. Its repetition is deliberate and structural: two witnesses condemned by two matching pronouncements of doom. Jewish law required two or three witnesses to establish a capital charge (Deut. 17:6); here, fittingly, two false witnesses are condemned by a double sentence. The symmetry is itself a form of divine irony and justice.
The "angel of God with the sword" is a vivid and theologically loaded image. Throughout Scripture, the drawn or flaming sword of an angel signals imminent divine judgment: the cherubim at Eden's gate (Gen. 3:24), the angel confronting Balaam (Num. 22:23), the destroying angel over Jerusalem (1 Chr. 21:16). Here, the angel does not merely stand guard — he "waits," already poised to act. The present tense communicates an immediacy that underscores the certainty and nearness of punishment. The phrase "to cut you in two" (dichotoméō in the LXX tradition) is both a literal statement of execution and a striking metaphor: falsehood, which sought to divide the innocent from life, is itself severed.
"That he may destroy you"
The finality of the phrase is absolute. This is not a conditional warning but a declaration. The elder's fate is sealed not by Daniel's word alone, but by God's prior judgment, which Daniel merely announces as a prophetic mouthpiece. Daniel acts here as a vessel of divine wisdom — the Hebrew name "Daniel" means "God is my judge," and this scene enacts that meaning dramatically. The young man judges because God judges through him.