Daniel 3:29

Nebuchadnezzar, having erected an image, whose height (including probably a very high pedestal) was sixty cubits, and the breadth six, ordered a numerous assembly, which he had convened, to fall down and worship it; threatening, at the same time, that whosoever refused should be cast into a fiery furnace, Dan 3:1-7 ; a punishment not uncommon in that country, (see Jer 29:22 .) Daniel's three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who were present, being observed to refrain from this idolatrous worship, were accused before the king; who, in great wrath, commanded them to comply with his orders on pain of death, Dan 3:8-15 . But these holy men, with the greatest composure and serenity, expressed their firm resolution not to worship his gods or his images, whatever might be the consequence, Dan 3:16-18 . Upon which the king, unaccustomed to have his will opposed, in the height of his wrath, ordered the furnace to be made seven times hotter than usual, and these men to be cast into it, bound by the most mighty of his army, who were killed by the flame in the execution of this service, Dan 3:19-23 . On this occasion God literally performed his promise by Isaiah, ( Isa 43:2 ): "When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee;" for an angel of God, appearing in the furnace, protected these young men, and counteracted the natural violence of the fire; which, only consuming the cords with which they were bound, left them to walk at liberty, and in perfect safety, in the midst of the furnace. The king, astonished at this prodigy, called to them to come out of the furnace, and blessed God for sending an angel to deliver his servants; and commanded all his subjects, upon pain of death, not to speak irreverently of the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who were promoted to great power and honor, Dan 3:24-30 . A striking example of the interposition of Providence in favor of true and inflexible piety. Verse 1 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold - It is supposed that the history given here did not occur till the close, or near the end, of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. For it was after his insanity, as we see Dan 4:33-36 , and this happened near the close of his reign. The authorized version, which is followed in the margin, fixes the date of this event seventeen years earlier, and ten years before the king's insanity. A few observations on this image may be necessary: - 1. It is not likely that this image was in human form - the dimensions show the improbability of this; for what proportion is there between sixty cubits (ninety feet) in length, and six cubits (nine feet) in breadth? 2. It is not likely that this image was all of gold; for this would have required more of this precious metal than the whole province of Babylon could produce; for as I suppose the sixty cubits apply to the perpendicular altitude, so I take it for granted that the six cubits intend the diameter. Now a column of gold of this height in diameter, upon the supposition that the pillar was circular, contains five thousand seven hundred and twenty-five and a half cubic feet; and as there are nineteen thousand avoirdupois ounces in a cubic foot, the weight of the whole pillar would be eight million two hundred and sixty-two thousand eight hundred and six pounds, ten ounces of gold. 3. It might have been a pillar on which an image of the god Bel was erected. The image itself might be of gold, or more probably gilt, that is, covered with thin plates of gold, and on this account it might be called the golden image; and most probably the height of the image may be confounded with the height of the pillar. Or perhaps it was no more than a pillar, on the sides of which their gods and sacred emblems were engraven, surmounted with Bel on the top. The plain of Dura - The situation of this place is not exactly known; there was a town or city called Dura, or Doura, in Mesopotamia, near the Tigris. Verse 2 Sent to gather together the princes - It is not easy to show what these different offices were, as it is difficult to ascertain the meaning of the Chaldee words. Parkhurst analyzes them thus: - The Princes - אחשדרפניא achashdarpenaiya, from אחש Achash, great or eminent, and דר dar, "to go about freely," and פנים panim, "the presence." Satraps or privy counsellors who had free access to the presence of the king. The Governors - סגניא signaiya, lieutenants or viceroys, for סגן sagan, among the Hebrews, was the name of the high priest's deputy. The Captains - פחותא pachavatha, from פח pach, to extend, because set over those provinces that had been annexed to the kingdom by conquest. Pashas - This word and office are still in use in Asiatic countries. By corruption we pronounce bashaw. The Judges - אדרגזריא adargazeraiya, from אדר adar, noble or magnificent, and גזר gazar, to decree. The nobles, the assistants to the king in making laws, statutes, etc. The same probably in Babylon, as the House of Lords in England. The Treasurers - גדבריא gedaberaiya, from גנז ganaz, (the ז zain being changed into ד daleth, according to the custom of the Chaldee), to treasure up, and בר bar, pure. Those who kept the current coin, or were over the mint; the treasurers of the exchequer in Babylon. The Counsellors - דתבריא dethaberaiya, from דת dath, a statute, and בר bar, "to declare the meaning of the law;" for in all ages and countries there has been what is termed the glorious uncertainty of the law; and therefore there must be a class of men whose business it is to explain it. What a pity that law cannot be tendered to the people as other sciences are, in plain, unsophisticated, and intelligible terms, and by persons whose business it is to show what is just and right, and not pervert truth, righteousness, and judgment. The Sheriffs - תפתיא tiphtaye, from תפת taphath, in Hebrew, שפת shaphath, "to set in order." Probably civil magistrates. And all the rulers of the provinces - All other state or civil officers, not only to grace the solemnity, but to maintain order. My old Bible renders them: Satrapis, or wise men. Magistratis. Jugis. Duykis, Tyrauntis, or stronge men. Prefectis, and alle the Princes of Cuntreese. Verse 4 Then a herald cried aloud - כרוזא קרא בחיל caroza kara bechayil, "a crier called with might." A bedel cried mightili. - Old MS. Bible. Verse 5 The sound of the Cornet - There is not less difficulty in ascertaining the precise meaning of these musical instruments than there is in the offices in Dan 3:2 . קרנא karna, here translated cornet, is the common blowing horn, which makes a deep and hollow sound, as well as one shrill and piercing. Flute - משרוקיתא mashrokitha, from שרק sharak, to whistle, shriek. A wind instrument which made a strong and shrill noise, such as the hautbois or clarionet. Harp - קיתרס kithros, cytharus; κιθαρα. Some kind of stringed instrument. It seems to be formed from the Greek word. Sackbut - סבכא sabbecha. The Greek has it σαμβυκη, from which our word sackbut, from סבך sabach, to interweave; probably on account of the number of chords, for it seems to have been a species of harp. Psaltery - פסנתרין pesanterin; Greek, ψαλτηριον. A stringed instrument, struck with a plectrum; that called santeer in Egypt is probably the same. Dr. Russel says: "It is a large triangle, and has two bottoms two inches from each other, with about twenty catguts of different sizes." It was the ancient psalterium, and most probably the same as David's harp. Dulcimer - סומפניה sumponeyah; Greek, συμφωνεια. Probably a kind of tamboor, tambourine, or tomtom drum. It does not mean the same as the Greek symphonia, which signifies a concert or harmony of many instruments, for here one kind of instrument only is intended. All kinds of music - כל זני זמרא col zeney zemara, the whole stock, or band, of music; the preceding being the chief, the most common, and the most sonorous. My old MS. Bible has, Trumpe, and Pipe, and Harpe: Sambuke, Santrie, and Synfonye, and al kynde of musykes. Verse 6 Shall the same hour - This is the first place in the Old Testament where we find the division of time into hours. The Greeks say that Anaximander was the inventor. He had it probably from the Chaldeans, among whom this division was in use long before Anaximander was born. Be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace - This was an ancient mode of punishment among the Chaldeans, if we may credit the tradition that Abram was cast into such a fire by this idolatrous people because he would not worship their idols. Verse 8 Accused the Jews - That is, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. The other Jews were left unnoticed; and probably at this time Daniel was too high to be touched; but we may rest assured that he was not found among these idolaters, see Dan 3:12 . Verse 16 We are not careful - We have no need to put thee to any farther trouble; we have made up our minds on this subject, and have our answer ready: Be it known unto thee, We Will Not Serve Thy Gods. This was as honest as it was decisive. Verse 17 If it be so - Thou mayest cast us into the furnace; the terror of it has no effect on our minds to induce us to alter the resolution we have taken, nor shall the fire change our purpose. We serve a God who is able to deliver us. Should he not, we are equally determined; but we are satisfied that in some way or other he will deliver us out of thy hand. Thy power cannot affect us in the kingdom of our God to which we shall ascend from thy furnace, should he permit the fire to kindle upon us. "Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's," is a maxim of Jesus Christ; but when Caesar arrogates to himself the things that are the Lord's, then, and in such cases, his authority is to be resisted. God does not desire Caesar's things; Caesar's must not have the things of God. Verse 19 Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury - How strange is this, after having had so many proofs of the supremacy of Jehovah! He had seen how God poured contempt upon his authority in the case of the three Hebrews, and yet he will try his strength once more! How infatuated is man! Seven times more - As hot as it could be made. Seven expresses the great intensity of the heat. Verse 20 The most mighty men - The generals, or chief officers of his army; not strong men, there was no need of such. Verse 21 Their hats - This word, hat, is found only in this place in the Old Testament. The word סרבל sarbal properly means an outer garment. Herodotus, who lived about one hundred years after Daniel, says, "the dress of the Babylonians consisted of a tunic of linen reaching down to the feet; over this a tunic of woollen; and over all a white short cloak or mantle, χλανιδιον; and on their heads they wore turbans, μιτρησι." Following this, Mr. Parkhurst translates the verse thus: "Then these three men were bound [בסרבליהון besarbaleyhon] in their Cloaks, [פמישיהון patesheyhon] their Turbans, [וכרבלתהון vecharbelathehon] and in their Upper (woollen) Tunics, [ולבושיהון ulebushehon] and their Under (linen) Tunics." And as, according to this interpretation, their סרבלי sarbaley were their outermost garments, we see the propriety with which it is observed at Dan 3:27 that these were not changed by the fire. Verse 23 And these three men - fell down bound - There is a most evident want of connection between this and the following verse; and it is between these verses that the apocryphal Song of the Three Children, as it is called, has been inserted by St. Jerome and others; but with this note: Quae sequuntur in Hebraeis voluminibus non reperi; "What follows I have not found in the Hebrew books." And then begins, "They walked in the midst of the flame, praising God, and blessing the Lord." The Septuagint and Arabic read the twenty-fourth verse thus: "Then Nebuchadnezzar heard them singing praise, and was astonished." To connect the two verses Houbigant adds two verses found in the Vulgate, which are the forty-ninth and the twenty-third: "But an angel of the Lord went down with Azariah and his companions into the furnace, and drove out the flame of fire from the furnace; and they walked in the midst of the furnace." This verse (the forty-ninth) has been added to show the reason of Nebuchadnezzar's astonishment, and also to account for the appearance of a fourth person in the furnace, as in verse 25. Verse 25 Is like the Son of God - A most improper translation. What notion could this idolatrous king have of the Lord Jesus Christ? for so the place is understood by thousands. בר אלהין bar elahin signifies a son of the gods, that is, a Divine person or angel; and so the king calls him in Dan 3:28 : "God hath sent his Angel, and delivered his servants." And though even from this some still contend that it was the Angel of the covenant, yet the Babylonish king knew just as much of the one as he did of the other. No other ministration was necessary; a single angel from heaven was quite sufficient to answer this purpose, as that which stopped the mouths of the lions when Daniel was cast into their den. Verse 27 Upon whose bodies the fire had no power - The heathens boasted that their priests could walk on burning coals unhurt; and Virgil mentions this of the priests of Apollo of Soracte: - Summe Deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo! Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor acervo Pascitur; et medium, freti pietate, per ignem Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna. Virg. Aen. 11:785. O Phoebus, guardian of Soracte's woods And shady hills; a god above the gods; To whom our natives pay the rites divine, And burn whole crackling groves of hallowed pine; Walk through the fire in honor of thy name, Unhurt, unsinged, and sacred from the flame. Pitts. But Varro tells us that they anointed the soles of their feet with a species of unguent that preserved them from being burnt. Very lately a female showed many feats of this kind, putting red hot iron upon her arms, breasts, etc., and passing it over her hair without the slightest inconvenience; but in the case of the three Hebrews all was supernatural, and the king and his officers well knew it. Verse 28 Blessed be the God of Shadrach, etc. - Here is a noble testimony from a heathen. And what produced it? The intrepidly pious conduct of these three noble Jews. Had they been time-servers, the name of the true God had not been known in Babylon. What honor does the Lord put on them that are steadfast in the faith! Verse 29 Speak any thing amiss - Though by the decree the king does not oblige the people to worship the true God, yet he obliges them to treat him with reverence. Verse 30 Then the king promoted, etc. - He restored them to the offices which they held before the charge of disobedience and treason was brought against them. At the end of this verse the Septuagint add, "And he advanced them to be governors over all the Jews that were in his kingdom." This may be the meaning of the latter verse. They were more likely to be set over the Jews than over the Chaldeans. Introduction Nebuchadnezzar, after having subdued all the neig

ebuchadnezzar Gives Glory to God; Nebuchadnezzar Honours God. ( b. c. 587.) 28 Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. 29 Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort. 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the province of Babylon. The strict observations that were made, super visum corporis—on inspecting their bodies, by the princes and governors, and all the great men who were present upon this public occasion, and who could not be supposed partial in favour of the confessors, contributed much to the clearing of this miracle and the magnifying of the power and grace of God in it. That indeed a notable miracle has been done is manifest, and we cannot deny it, Acts iv. 16 . Let us now see what effect it had upon Nebuchadnezzar. I. He gives glory to the God of Israel as a God able and ready to protect his worshippers ( v. 28 ): " Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Let him have the honour both of the faithful allegiance which his subjects bear to him and the powerful protection he grants to them, neither of which can be paralleled by any other nation and their gods." The king does himself acknowledge and adore him, and thinks it is fit that he should be acknowledged and adored by all. Blessed be thee God of Shadrach. Note, God can extort confessions of his blessedness even from those that have been ready to curse him to his face. 1. He gives him the glory of his power, that he was able to protect his worshippers against the most mighty and malign ant enemies: There is no other God that can deliver after this sort ( v. 29 ), no, not this golden image which he had set up. For this reason there was no other god that obliged his worshippers to cleave to him only, and to suffer death rather than worship any other, as the God of Israel did, for they could not engage to bear them out in so doing, as he could. If God can work such deliverance as no other can, he may demand such obedience as no other may. 2. He gives him the glory of his goodness, that he was ready to do it ( v. 28 ): He has sent his angel and delivered his servants. Bel could not save his worshippers from being burnt at the mouth of the furnace, but the God of Israel saved his from being burnt when they were cast into the midst of the furnace because they refused to worship any other god. By this Nebuchadnezzar was plainly given to understand that all the great success which he had had, and should yet have, against the people of Israel, which he gloried in, as he had therein overpowered the God of Israel, was owing purely to their sin: if the body of that nation had faithfully adhered to their own God and the worship of him only, as these three men did, they would all have been delivered out of his hand as these three men were. And this was a necessary instruction for him at this time. II. He applauds the constancy of these three men in their religion, and describes it to their honour, v. 28 . Though he is not himself persuaded to own their God for his and to worship him, because, if he do so, he knows he must worship him only and renounce all others, and he calls him the God of Shadrach, not my God, yet he commends them for cleaving to him, and not serving nor worshipping any other God but their own. Note, There are many who are not religious themselves, and yet will own that those are clearly in the right that are religious and are stedfast in their religion. Though they are not themselves persuaded to close with it, they will commend those who, having closed with it, cleave to it. If men have given up their names to that God who will alone be served, let them keep to their principles, and serve him only, whatever it cost them. Such a constancy in the true religion will turn to men's praise, even among those that are without, when unsteadiness, treachery, and double dealing, are what all men will cry shame on. He commends them that they did this, 1. With a generous contempt of their lives, which they valued not, in comparison with the favour of God and the testimony of a good conscience. They yielded their own bodies to be cast into the fiery furnace rather than they would not only not forsake their God, but not affront him, by once paying that homage to any other which is due to him alone. Note, Those shall have their praise, if not of men, yet of God, who prefer their souls before their bodies, and will rather lose their lives than forsake their God. Those know not the worth and value of religion who do not think it worth suffering for. 2. They did it with a glorious contradiction to their prince: They changed the king's word, that is, they were contrary to it, and thereby put contempt upon both his precepts and threatenings, and made him repent and revoke both. Note, Even kings themselves must own that, when their commands are contrary to the commands of God, he is to be obeyed and not they. (3.) They did it with a gracious confidence in their God. They trusted in him that he would stand by them in what they did, that he would either bring them out of the fiery furnace back to their place on earth or lead them through the fiery furnace forward to their place in heaven; and in this confidence they became fearless of the king's wrath and regardless of their own lives. Note, A stedfast faith in God will produce a stedfast faithfulness to God. Now this honourable testimony, thus publicly borne by the king himself to these servants of God, we may well think, would have a good influence upon the rest of the Jews that were, or should be, captives in Babylon. Their neighbours could not with any confidence urge them to do that, nor could they for shame do that, which their brethren were so highly applauded by the king himself for not doing. Nay, and what God did for these his servants would help not only to keep the Jews close to their religion while they were in captivity, but to cure them of their inclination to idolatry, for which end they were sent into captivity; and, when it had had that blessed effect upon them, they might be assured that God would deliver them out of that furnace, as now he delivered their brethren out of this. III. He issues a royal edict, strictly forbidding any to speak evil of the God of Israel, v. 29 . We have reason to think that both the sins and the troubles of Israel had given great occasion, though no just occasion, to the Chaldeans to blaspheme the God of Israel, and, it is likely, Nebuchadnezzar himself had encouraged it; but now, though he is no true convert, nor is wrought upon to worship him, yet he resolves never to speak ill of him again, nor to suffer others to do so: " Whoever shall speak any thing amiss, any error (so some), or rather any reproach or blasphemy, whoever shall speak with contempt of the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they shall be counted the worst of malefactors, and dealt with accordingly, they shall be cut in pieces, as Agag was by the sword of Samuel, and their houses shall be demolished and made a dunghill. " The miracle now wrought by the power of this God in defence of his worshippers, publicly in the sight of the thousands of Babylon, was a sufficient justification of this edict. And it would contribute much to the ease of the Jews in their captivity to be by this law screened from the fiery darts of reproach and blasphemy, with which otherwise they would have been continually annoyed. Note, It is a great mercy to the church, and a good point gained, when its enemies though they have not their hearts turned, yet have their mouths stopped and their tongues tied. If a heathen prince laid such a restraint upon the proud lips of blasphemers, much more should Christian princes do it; nay, in this thing, one would think that men should be a law to themselves, and that those who have so little love to God that they care not to speak well of him, yet could never find in their hearts, for we are sure they could never find cause, to speak any thing amiss of him. IV. He not only reverses the attainder of these three men, but restores them to their places in the government ( makes them to prosper, so the word is), and prefers them to greater and more advantageous trusts than they had been in before: He promoted them in the province of Babylon, which was much to their honour and the comfort of their brethren in captivity there. Note, It is the wisdom of princes to prefer and employ men of stedfastness in religion; for those are most likely to be faithful to them who are faithful to God, and it is likely to be well with them when God's favourites are made theirs.