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Daniel 3:1 Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

1 Nebuchadnezzar the king hath made an image of gold, its height sixty cubits, its breadth six cubits; he hath raised it up in the valley of Dura, in the province of Babylon;

Cross Reference

Habakkuk 2:19 YLT

Wo `to' him who is saying to wood, `Awake,' `Stir up,' to a dumb stone, It a teacher! lo, it is overlaid -- gold and silver, And there is no spirit in its midst.

Jeremiah 16:20 YLT

Doth man make for himself gods, And they -- no gods?

Isaiah 46:6 YLT

-- They are pouring out gold from a bag, And silver on the beam they weigh, They hire a refiner, and he maketh it a god, They fall down, yea, they bow themselves.

Hosea 8:4 YLT

They have made kings, and not by Me, They have made princes, and I have not known, Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols, So that they are cut off.

Acts 19:26 YLT

and ye see and hear, that not only at Ephesus, but almost in all Asia, this Paul, having persuaded, did turn away a great multitude, saying, that they are not gods who are made by hands;

Acts 17:29 YLT

`Being, therefore, offspring of God, we ought not to think the Godhead to be like to gold, or silver, or stone, graving of art and device of man;

Isaiah 40:19-31 YLT

The graven image poured out hath a artizan, And a refiner with gold spreadeth it over, And chains of silver he is refining. He who is poor `by' heave-offerings, A tree not rotten doth choose, A skilful artizan he seeketh for it, To establish a graven image -- not moved. Do ye not know -- do ye not hear? Hath it not been declared from the first to you? Have ye not understood `From' the foundations of the earth? He who is sitting on the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants `are' as grasshoppers, He who is stretching out as a thin thing the heavens, And spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in. He who is making princes become nothing, Judges of earth as emptiness hath made; Yea, they have not been planted, Yea, they have not been sown, Yea, not taking root in the earth is their stock, And also He hath blown upon them, and they wither, And a whirlwind as stubble taketh them away. And unto whom do ye liken Me, And `am' I equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up on high your eyes, And see -- who hath prepared these? He who is bringing out by number their host, To all of them by name He calleth, By abundance of strength (And `he is' strong in power) not one is lacking. Why sayest thou, O Jacob? and speakest thou, O Israel? `My way hath been hid from Jehovah, And from my God my judgment passeth over.' Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The God of the age -- Jehovah, Preparer of the ends of the earth, Is not wearied nor fatigued, There is no searching of His understanding. He is giving power to the weary, And to those not strong He increaseth might. Even youths are wearied and fatigued, And young men utterly stumble, But those expecting Jehovah pass `to' power, They raise up the pinion as eagles, They run and are not fatigued, They go on and do not faint!

Isaiah 2:20 YLT

In that day doth man cast his idols of silver, And his idols of gold, That they have made for him to worship, To moles, and to bats,

Psalms 135:15 YLT

The idols of the nations `are' silver and gold, Work of the hands of man.

Psalms 115:4-8 YLT

Their idols `are' silver and gold, work of man's hands, A mouth they have, and they speak not, Eyes they have, and they see not, Ears they have, and they hear not, A nose they have, and they smell not, Their hands, but they handle not, Their feet, and they walk not; Nor do they mutter through their throat, Like them are their makers, Every one who is trusting in them.

1 Kings 12:28 YLT

And the king taketh counsel, and maketh two calves of gold, and saith unto them, `Enough to you of going up to Jerusalem; lo, thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.'

Daniel 2:48 YLT

Then the king hath made Daniel great, and many great gifts he hath given to him, and hath caused him to rule over all the province of Babylon, and chief of the perfects over all the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel 5:23 YLT

and against the Lord of the heavens thou hast lifted up thyself; and the vessels of His house they have brought in before thee, and thou, and thy great men, thy wives, and thy concubines, are drinking wine with them, and gods of silver, and of gold, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone, that are not seeing, nor hearing, nor knowing, thou hast praised: and the God in whose hand `is' thy breath, and all thy ways, Him thou hast not honoured.

Daniel 2:31-32 YLT

`Thou, O king, wast looking, and lo, a certain great image. This image `is' mighty, and its brightness excellent; it is standing over-against thee, and its appearance `is' terrible. This image! its head `is' of good gold, its breasts and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of brass;

Jeremiah 10:9 YLT

Spread-out silver from Tarshish is brought, And gold from Uphaz, Work of an artizan, and of the hands of a refiner, Blue and purple `is' their clothing, Work of the skilful -- all of them.

Isaiah 30:22 YLT

And ye have defiled the covering of Thy graven images of silver, And the ephod of thy molten image of gold, Thou scatterest them as a sickening thing, `Go out,' thou sayest to it.

Deuteronomy 7:25 YLT

`The graven images of their gods ye do burn with fire; thou dost not desire the silver and gold on them, nor hast thou taken `it' to thyself, lest thou be snared by it, for the abomination of Jehovah thy God it `is';

Exodus 32:31 YLT

And Moses turneth back unto Jehovah, and saith, `Oh this people hath sinned a great sin, that they make to themselves a god of gold;

Exodus 20:23 YLT

ye do not make with Me gods of silver, even gods of gold ye do not make to yourselves.

Exodus 32:2-4 YLT

And Aaron saith unto them, `Break off the rings of gold which `are' in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring in unto me;' and all the people themselves break off the rings of gold which `are' in their ears, and bring in unto Aaron, and he receiveth from their hand, and doth fashion it with a graving tool, and doth make it a molten calf, and they say, `These thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.'

Revelation 9:20 YLT

and the rest of men, who were not killed in these plagues, neither did reform from the works of their hands, that they may not bow before the demons, and idols, those of gold, and those of silver, and those of brass, and those of stone, and those of wood, that are neither able to see, nor to hear, nor to walk,

Daniel 3:30 YLT

Then the king hath caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, to prosper in the province of Babylon.

Esther 1:1 YLT

And it cometh to pass, in the days of Ahasuerus -- he `is' Ahasuerus who is reigning from Hodu even unto Cush, seven and twenty and a hundred provinces --

2 Kings 19:17-18 YLT

`Truly, O Jehovah, kings of Asshur have laid waste the nations, and their land, and have put their gods into fire, for they `are' no gods, but work of the hands of man, wood and stone, and destroy them.

Judges 8:26-27 YLT

and the weight of the rings of gold which he asked is a thousand and seven hundred `shekels' of gold, apart from the round ornaments, and the drops, and the purple garments, which `are' on the kings of Midian, and apart from the chains which `are' on the necks of their camels, and Gideon maketh it into an ephod, and setteth it up in his city, in Ophrah, and all Israel go a-whoring after it there, and it is to Gideon and to his house for a snare.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Daniel 3

Commentary on Daniel 3 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Introduction

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.)


Verses 1-18

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.