Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. The Septuagint reading is very different, "And they watched Daniel, and found him praying three times a day every day."
It is difficult to decide which is the preferable reading, and almost as difficult to deduce the one reading from the other. Thcodotion has a reading akin to that of the Septuagint, "Then those men watched, and found Daniel praying, and.
making entreaty to his God." This is akin to the Septuagint at the beginning, but is close to the Massoretic at the end. The Peshitta is in close agreement with Theodotion. It seems more in accordance with the plan of these presidents that they should not, as the Massoretic text asserts, rush tumultuously into the house of Daniel, but rather, as the three versions represent them doing, setting a watch, and then, when information reached them of Daniel's habits, acting accordingly.
Nothing in the narrative makes it probable that there was a general assembling of the governors against Daniel; it was the action of his colleagues in the presidency.