Daniel 3:8-28

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:20

20. This choice of executioners was made in order to add impressiveness to this public warning against disobedience to the king and disrespect to the national gods. How puny and weak these Hebrew youths appear beside these giants of the royal bodyguard. read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:21

21. “Then these men were bound in their hosen [‘coats,’ Daniel 3:27; rather ‘cloaks,’ or perhaps ‘trousers,’ Syr.], their tunics [margin, ‘turbans’], and their mantles, and their other garments” (R.V.). It was from the “hats” spoken of in the A.V. that George Fox drew his conclusion that no man should remove his hat in the presence of royalty (Bevan). The ancient Greek translators did not seem to know exactly what the garments were corresponding to these Aramaic words. The main point is that... read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:22-23

22, 23. Probably because of their haste or nervousness because the king was looking, the soldiers who carried the three Hebrews up to the top of the furnace are represented as being themselves slain by the flames, which leaped from its open mouth as they leaned over it to throw their prisoners in. Some of the old Jewish commentators are responsible for the improbable statement that ordinarily such criminals were thrown into the furnace by machinery. At this point the LXX. contains a long... read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:24

24. Counselors Probably councilors. One version of the Greek has “his friends.” The word is obscure, but it must refer to the Babylonian officials who surrounded the king. read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:25

25. The construction of the Babylonian furnace in which there is monumental evidence that high criminals were sometimes executed is not well understood. There seems to have been a side door into which the king could look. Within the fires the astonished king sees not only three men walking unharmed, but another with them, “and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Was this fourth Gibil-Nusku, the god of fire and the “messenger” of Bel, who thus expresses the good will of the... read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:26

26. On the furnace see Daniel 3:25. On the most high God compare Genesis 14:18; Micah 6:6, and notes Daniel 3:13-15; Daniel 3:25. Thomson well says that this term did not imply a recognition by the king of Jehovah’s supreme divinity “any more than a king of France acknowledged the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire when in the credentials of his embassador the emperor was called Domiuus urbis et orbis.” It was simply a matter of “religious etiquette” to address the gods thus (Daniel... read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:27

27. See note Daniel 3:21. How triumphantly was Jehovah victor when even the hair of their heads was not singed nor even their loose white trousers scorched. (Compare Isaiah 43:2; Hebrews 11:34, and note Daniel 3:25.) Some Jewish commentators sought to improve even this remarkable climax by saying that while their bodies were protected all their clothes had been burned away excepting this one garment. read more

Daniel Whedon

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Daniel 3:28-29

28, 29. This sounds like the speech of a Hebrew, not a Babylonian, and the decree (Daniel 3:29; compare Daniel 6:25-28) is very unlike those uncovered at Babylon; but see note Daniel 3:26; Daniel 4:1-3. Nebuchadnezzar’s anger now blazes as hot as his furnace against the accusers of the Hebrews (Daniel 3:12) who had, as the king now thinks, so nearly made this mighty God an enemy of the empire and therefore those who shall hereafter say “anything amiss” (“any slander,” Kautzsch) against this... read more

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