The Fiery Furnace. Daniel 3:1-30

Notes

1. It will be remembered that the great image of Daniel 2 was composed of various metals, of which only the head was gold. It was, no doubt, pleasing to Nebuchadnezzar to be told that his kingdom was represented by the head of gold. But to be told that other kingdoms would follow his would not be so pleasing, for his ambition would lead him to desire that his kingdom might continue till the close of human history, and so he made a great image, composed wholly of gold, expressive of this desire.

2. If these Hebrew children had reasoned as many have reasoned, and as many do still, they could have bowed down to the golden image at the king's command, and plead in justification that they did not worship the image, and hence did not break the second commandment, because simply bowing down before a thing is not sin, unless we render worship or homage to it. To have done this, however, they would feign, or try to make others believe, that they were loyal to the king and worshiped his image. In other words, they would have practiced deception, failed to witness for the truth, and dishonored God, just for selfish advantage. So, now, many will receive the mark of the beast by refraining from Sunday labor in obedience to the law of the land, under the plea that they can do this and still obey God in the observance of the Sabbath. But this is false and fallacious. The weekly Sabbath is a divine institution, and abstinence from secular labor is the only outward evidence of its observance. When the State commands abstinence from secular labor on some other day of the week, it sets up a rival Sabbath. Hence, when we obey the State by abstaining from labor on the day it sets apart for rest, we observe that rival Sabbath, and worship the power which makes and enforces it; and thus we prove disloyal to God, and it would all be done for selfish interests.

3. The common version of the Bible quotes Nebuchadnezzar as saying that "the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." This would lead to the idea that he thought that this personage was Christ. While we have no doubt that He was Christ, we have no evidence that Nebuchadnezzar knew of any such being. The new version renders this expression, "the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods." This evidently gives the true meaning of the original, as Nebuchadnezzar was at that time a heathen king, who, no doubt, had many idol gods.