10 You, O king, have made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image;
Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king's interdict: Haven't you signed an interdict, that every man who shall make petition to any god or man within thirty days, save to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn't alter.
Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages, that whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up; and whoever doesn't fall down and worships shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.
Then were the king's scribes called in the first month, on the thirteenth day of it; and there was written according to all that Haman commanded to the king's satraps, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to the writing of it, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and it was sealed with the king's ring. Letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth [day] of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. A copy of the writing, that the decree should be given out in every province, was published to all the peoples, that they should be ready against that day.
Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, Which brings about mischief by statute?
He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, to be given marks on their right hands, or on their foreheads; and that no one would be able to buy or to sell, unless he has that mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.
Who strum on the strings of a harp; Who invent for themselves instruments of music, like David;
Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to you fall down and worship the image which I have made, [well]: but if you don't worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet! Praise him with harp and lyre! Praise him with tambourine and dancing! Praise him with stringed instruments and flute! Praise him with loud cymbals! Praise him with resounding cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise Yah! Praise Yah!
and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."
> It is a good thing to give thanks to Yahweh, To sing praises to your name, Most High; To proclaim your loving kindness in the morning, And your faithfulness every night, With the ten-stringed lute, with the harp, And with the melody of the lyre.
He set the Levites in the house of Yahweh with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet; for the commandment was of Yahweh by his prophets.
Moreover, David and the captains of the host set apart for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of those who did the work according to their service was: of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asharelah, the sons of Asaph, under the hand of Asaph, who prophesied after the order of the king. Of Jeduthun; the sons of Jeduthun: Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun with the harp, who prophesied in giving thanks and praising Yahweh. Of Heman; the sons of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth. All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of Yahweh, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps, for the service of the house of God; Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman being under the order of the king.
Asaph the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, with psalteries and with harps; and Asaph with cymbals, sounding aloud; and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests with trumpets continually, before the ark of the covenant of God.
Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, sounding aloud with psalteries and harps.
David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brothers the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.
He said, "It isn't the voice of those who shout for victory, neither is it the voice of those who cry for being overcome; but the noise of those who sing that I hear." It happened, as soon as he came near to the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses' anger grew hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain.
Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dances. Miriam answered them, "Sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea."
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Daniel 3
Commentary on Daniel 3 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Daniel's Three Friends in the Fiery Furnace - Daniel 3:1-30
Nebuchadnezzar commanded a colossal golden image to be set up in the plain of Dura at Babylon, and summoned all his high officers of state to be present at its consecration. He caused it to be proclaimed by a herald, that at a given signal all should fall down before the image and do it homage, and that whosoever refused to do so would be cast into a burning fiery furnace (Daniel 3:1-7). This ceremony having been ended, it was reported to the king by certain Chaldeans that Daniel's friends, who had been placed over the province of Babylon, had not done homage to the image; whereupon, being called to account by the king, they refused to worship the image because they could not serve his gods (Daniel 3:8-18). For this opposition to the king's will they were cast, bound in their clothes, into the burning fiery furnace. They were uninjured by the fire; and the king perceived with terror that not three, but four men, were walking unbound and uninjured in the furnace (Daniel 3:19-27). Then he commanded them to come out; and when he found them wholly unhurt, he not only praised their God who had so wonderfully protected them, but also commanded, on the pain of death, all the people of his kingdom not to despise this God (Daniel 3:28-30).
The lxx and Theodotion have placed the date of this event in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, apparently only because they associated the erection of this statue with the taking of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, although that city was not taken and destroyed till the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:8.). But though it is probable that Nebuchadnezzar, after he had firmly established his world-kingdom by the overthrow of all his enemies, first felt himself moved to erect this image as a monument of his great exploits and of his world-power; yet the destruction of the capital of Judea, which had been already twice destroyed, can hardly be regarded as having furnished a sufficient occasion for this. This much, however, is certain, that the event narrated in this chapter occurred later than that of the 2nd chapter, since Daniel 3:12 and Daniel 3:30 refer to Daniel 2:49; and on the other hand, that they occurred earlier than the incident of the 4th chapter, in which there are many things which point to the last half of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, while the history recorded in the chapter before us appertains more to the middle of his reign, when Nebuchadnezzar stood on the pinnacle of his greatness. The circumstance that there is no longer found in the king any trace of the impression which the omnipotence and infinite wisdom of the God of the Jews, as brought to view in the interpretation of his dream by Daniel, made upon his mind (Daniel 2), affords no means of accurately determining the time of the occurrence here narrated. There is no need for our assuming, with Jerome, a velox oblivio veritatis , or with Calvin, the lapse of a considerable interval between the two events. The deportment of Nebuchadnezzar on this occasion does not stand in opposition to the statements made at the close of Daniel 2. The command that all who were assembled at the consecration of the image should all down before it and worship it, is to be viewed from the standpoint of the heathen king. It had no reference at all to the oppression of those who worshipped the God of the Jews, nor to a persecution of the Jews on account of their God. It only demanded the recognition of the national god, to whom the king supposed he owed the greatness of his kingdom, as the god of the kingdom, and was a command which the heathen subjects of Nebuchadnezzar could execute without any violence to their consciences. The Jews could not obey it, however, without violating the first precept of their law. But Nebuchadnezzar did not think on that. Disobedience to his command appeared to him as culpable rebellion against his majesty. As such also the conduct of Daniel's friends is represented to him by the Chaldean informers in Daniel 3:12. The words of the informers, “The Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon have not regarded thee, O king; they serve not thy gods,” etc., clearly show that they were rightly named (Daniel 3:8) “accusers of the Jews,” and that by their denunciation of them they wished only to expel the foreigners from their places of influence; and for this purpose they made use of the politico-national festival appointed by Nebuchadnezzar as a fitting opportunity. Hence we can understand Nebuchadnezzar's anger against those who disregarded his command; and his words, with which he pronounced sentence against the accused - ”who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” - are, judged of from the religious point of view of the Israelites, a blaspheming of God, but considered from Nebuchadnezzar's heathen standpoint, are only an expression of proud confidence in his own might and in that of his gods, and show nothing further than that the revelation of the living God in Daniel 2 had not permanently impressed itself on his heart, but had in course of time lost much of its influence over him.
The conduct of Nebuchadnezzar toward the Jews, described in this chapter, is accordingly fundamentally different from the relation sustained by Antiochus Epiphanes towards Judaism; for he wished entirely to put an end to the Jewish form of worship. In the conduct of Daniel's friends who were accused before the king there is also not a single trace of the religious fanaticism prevalent among the Jews in the age of the Maccabees, who were persecuted on account of their fidelity to the law. Far from trusting in the miraculous help of God, they regarded it as possible that God, whom they served, would not save them, and they only declare that in no case will they reverence the heathen deities of the king, and do homage to the image erected by him (Daniel 3:16.).
The right apprehension of the historical situation described in this chapter is at complete variance with the supposition of the modern critics, that the narrative is unhistorical, and was invented for the purpose of affording a type for the relation of Antiochus Epiphanes to Judaism. The remarkable circumstance, that Daniel is not named as having been present at this festival (and he also would certainly not have done homage to the image), can of itself alone furnish no argument against the historical accuracy of the matter, although it cannot be explained on the supposition made by Hgstb., that Daniel, as president over the wise men, did not belong to the class of state-officers, nor by the assertion of Hitz., that Daniel did not belong to the class of chief officers, since according to Daniel 2:49 he had transferred his office to his friends. Both suppositions are erroneous; cf. under Daniel 2:49. But many other different possibilities may be thought of to account for the absence of all mention of Daniel's name. Either he may have been prevented for some reason from being present on the occasion, or he may have been present and may have refused to bow down before the image, but yet may only not have been informed against. In the latter case, the remark of Calvin, ut abstinuerint a Daniele ad tempus, quem sciebant magnifieri a Rege , would scarcely suffice, but we must suppose that the accusers had designed first only the overthrow of the three rulers of the province of Babylon.
(Note: Kran.'s supposition also (p. 153), that Daniel, as president over the class of the wise men, claimed the right belonging to him as such, while in his secular office he could be represented by his Jewish associates, and thus was withdrawn from the circle of spectators and from the command laid upon them of falling down before the image, has little probability; for although it is not said that this command was laid upon the caste of the wise men, and even though it should be supposed that the priests were present at this festival as the directors of the religious ceremonial, and thus were brought under the command to fall down before the image, yet this can scarcely be supposed of the whole caste. But Daniel could not in conscience take part in this idolatrous festival, nor associate himself with the priests, nor as president of all the Magi withdraw into the background, so as to avoid the ceremony of doing homage of the image.)
But the circumstance that Daniel, if he were present, did not employ himself in behalf of his friends, may be explained from the quick execution of Babylonish justice, provided some higher reason did not determine him confidently to commit the decision of the matter to the Lord his God.
(Note: We have already in part noticed the arguments against the historical accuracy of the narrative presented by the opponents of the genuineness of the book, such as the giving of Greek names to the musical instruments, and the conduct of Antiochus Epiphanes in placing an idol-image on the altar of burnt-offering (pp. 34, 50). All the others are dealt with in the Exposition. The principal objection adduced is the miracle, on account of which alone Hitz. thinks himself warranted in affirming that the narrative has no historical reality.)
The erection and consecration of the golden image, and the accusation brought against Daniel's friends, that they had refused to obey the king's command to do homage to this image.