“612. THE FIERY FURNACE—DANIEL 3”

The Fiery Furnace—Daniel 3

King Nebuchadnezzar was what would be called a man of large ideas and vast undertakings. The great empire he had won and consolidated comprised many different nations, with different gods and different forms of religious service. Seeing that all these nations obeyed him as a king, and were subject to his absolute sway, it seemed to him but reasonable that his god should share his triumph, and that, as there was but one civil, so there should be but one religious, obedience. He therefore determined to set up a vast golden image of his god in the plain of Dura, and that, at a signal given by bands of music, all the persons assembled together in the vast plain at the time of dedication, should fall down and worship this image. At the court of Babylon there were necessarily numbers of persons belonging to all nations subject to the king’s scepter; but, that the act might be complete, the governors of the different provinces of the empire were summoned to assist at the ceremony, to represent the nations and provinces, the government of which they administered. Note: These governors, answering to the satraps of the ancient Persian empire, and to the pashas of the modern Turkish empire, were mostly native princes of the provinces they governed, and therefore the more fit representatives of them on such an occasion. These provincial governors are represented in the Assyrian sculptures in the garbs of their different nations, and are easily distinguished by their bearing the model of a city as a symbol of their office. Some bear two such models, one in each hand, and these may be supposed to be governors of two adjacent provinces, or of one province containing two important cities.

Governors of Provinces

It must not be conceded, however, that there have been various interpretations of Nebuchadnezzar’s motives in setting up this image. It is, however, the general opinion, that the image itself was that of Bel or Belus: and in tells case, seeing that this was already the god worshipped in Chaldea, there seems no adequate reason for the stringent and penal enforcement of this worship, but on the ground we have assigned. A penalty—and that of death—must be designed to constrain the worship of those who were not already votaries of the idol. For those who were, nothing of the kind could be needed. This view is now, confirmed by the Assyrian inscriptions, to which we have already referred (p. 91), and which show that this people were very zealous in promoting the worship of Assarac among conquered nations.

The image was of gold—hardly of solid gold, but hollow, or of wood covered with gold. The great size renders this supposition necessary, besides that it was never the ancient custom to make any but small figures of solid gold. The image was no less than sixty cubits high, and six cubits broad—dimensions which must have rendered it visible to the most remote of the worshippers assembled in the great plain at the dedication. This vast size is not without parallel, and has even been exceeded. The Colossus of Rhodes was seventy cubits high, and the Colossus of Nero was not of inferior magnitude, bring one hundred and ten feet high. These, however, were not of gold. It is observable that the height is out of all proportion to the breadth; and as the rules of proportion were usually observed all such cases, it is probable that the assigned height included that of the pedestal on which the image stood. A statue six cubits broad could not well be more than thirty-six cubits high, if the ordinary rules of proportion in the human figure were followed. It is worthy of note that this is not the only instance we possess of gigantic idols of gold among the Babylonians. Herodotus writes, that in his time there was at Babylon an idol image of gold twelve cubits high; and, what is still more remarkable, another authority, obviously speaking of the same statue, mentions that every stranger was obliged to worship it before he was allowed to enter the city. Note: Philostratus, De Vila Apollon., ch. 19.

The penalty upon those who failed to fall down and worship the image the king had set up, was that they should be cast into “a burning fiery furnace.” By this it would appear that death by burning alive was a very ancient punishment for “heresy.” It is the earliest instance; except one, of the infliction of that punishment for any offence—and that instance also occurs among the Babylonians, showing that it was a customary punishment with them. Jeremiah, in denouncing the false prophets, Ahab and Zedekiah, predicted that they should be put to death by the king of Babylon: “And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The Lord maketh thee like Zedekiah, and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.” Note: Jer_29:22. This custom, not long ago, still subsisted in that repository of ancient usages—Persia. Sir John Chardin, describing the punishments used in that country, says: “There is still a particular way of putting to death those who have transgressed in civil affairs—as by causing a dearth, or by selling above the prescribed rate, by means of a false weight, or who have committed themselves in any other way. The cooks are put upon a spit; and roasted before a slow fire. During the dearth of 1668, I saw ovens heated in the royal square of Ispahan to terrify the bakers, and to deter them from deriving advantage from the general distress.” So that, in fact, cooks were cooked, and bakers baked, on such occasions.

To this punishment the three friends of Daniel were condemned, when Nebuchadnezzar was informed that they had disobeyed his mandate, and had not bent down in worship when the music sounded. Indeed, the king was so enraged at their faithful testimony, and their avowed belief that the God they served was able to deliver, and would deliver, them even from “the burning fiery furnace,” that he caused the furnace to be heated “seven times more than it was wont to be heated”—an intimation which alone shows that the punishment was not infrequent, and that the furnace was that used for such executions. So fierce was the heat, that it actually destroyed the strong men employed to thrust the bound martyrs into the fire.

There was a dreadful pause, and every one looked with strained eyes, in the expectation that even a moment had sufficed to destroy every trace of the Hebrew youths in that sea of fire. The king looked—and, lo! he beheld them moving safely and unconcerned amid the flames, which had power only to burn their bonds, but not to singe their clothing, or to hurt a hair of their heads. And they were not alone. There was a fourth, whom the astonished king declared to be “like the son of God.” This phrase has excited some curious questions. It is not likely that this heathen king could have had any notion of the Second Person in the Trinity; but he had notions of angels. It is probable that he meant that he saw one like a son of God, or of the gods (for the word is plural, as usual, meaning thereby an angel or celestial intelligence, such as we see depicted with wings in the Assyrian sculptures, and of which more than one representation has been given in this work. Indeed, he so explains it afterwards, when he glorifies God for having sent “his angel” to deliver his servants. We may presume that it was an angel, sent from heaven to comfort them in their fiery trial, and to work the more thorough conviction in the mind of the king. He was convinced, alarmed, remorseful. He went as near as he durst to the mouth of the furnace, and desired the young men to come forth. They came; and the nobles who crowded around had ample opportunity of witnessing that the fire had no power over the faithful servants of Jehovah. Not only were they entirely unhurt, and their clothes unsinged, but oven “the smell of fire had not passed upon them.”

This had all the effect intended upon the king’s mind. He was convinced that the God of these Hebrews was one not to be trifled with, or safely offended: and his conviction assured to the Jews future protection in the exercise of their religion; for it drew from him a decree that “every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill.”

Autor: JOHN KITTO