Daniel 3:1

Daniel’s Friends Are Tested

3:1 ¹ King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden ²  statue made. ³  It was ninety feet ⁴  tall and nine feet ⁵  wide. He erected it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Daniel 3:6-8

3:6 Whoever does not bow down and pay homage will immediately ⁶  be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire!” 3:7 Therefore when they all ⁷  heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, ⁸  and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations, and language groups began bowing down and paying homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected.

3:8 Now ⁹  at that time certain ¹⁰  Chaldeans came forward and brought malicious accusations against ¹¹  the Jews.

Daniel 3:19-23

3:19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and his disposition changed ¹²  toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He gave orders ¹³  to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was normally heated. 3:20 He ordered strong ¹⁴  soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. 3:21 So those men were tied up while still wearing their cloaks, trousers, turbans, and other clothes, ¹⁵  and were thrown into the furnace ¹⁶  of blazing fire. 3:22 But since the king’s command was so urgent, and the furnace was so excessively hot, the men who escorted ¹⁷  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were killed ¹⁸  by the leaping flames. ¹⁹  3:23 But those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the furnace ²⁰  of blazing fire while still securely bound. ²¹ 

[3:1]  ¹ sn The LXX introduces this chapter with the following chronological note: “in the eighteenth year of.” Such a date would place these events at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8). However, there seems to be no real basis for associating the events of Daniel 3 with this date.

[3:1]  ² sn There is no need to think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as being solid gold. No doubt the sense is that it was overlaid with gold (cf. Isa 40:19; Jer 10:3-4), with the result that it presented a dazzling self-compliment to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements.

[3:1]  ³ sn According to a number of patristic authors, the image represented a deification of Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is not clear from the biblical text, however.

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Aram “sixty cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 90 feet (27.4 m) high.

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Aram “six cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 9 feet (2.74 m) wide.

[3:1]  sn The dimensions of the image (ninety feet high and nine feet wide) imply that it did not possess normal human proportions, unless a base for the image is included in the height dimension. The ancient world knew of other tall statues. For example, the Colossus of Rhodes – the huge statue of Helios which stood (ca. 280-224 B.C.) at the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – was said to be seventy cubits (105 ft or 32 m) in height, which would make it even taller than Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

[3:6]  ⁶ tn Aram “in that hour.”

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Aram “all the peoples.”

[3:7]  ⁸ tc Though not in the Aramaic text of BHS, this word appears in many medieval Hebrew MSS, some LXX MSS, and Vulgate. Cf. vv. 5, 10, 15.

[3:8]  ⁹ tc This expression is absent in Theodotion.

[3:8]  ¹⁰ tn Aram “men.”

[3:8]  ¹¹ tn Aram “ate the pieces of.” This is a rather vivid idiom for slander.

[3:19]  ¹² tn Aram “the appearance of his face was altered”; cf. NLT “his face became distorted with rage”; NAB “[his] face became livid with utter rage.”

[3:19]  ¹³ tn Aram “he answered and said.”

[3:20]  ¹⁴ tn This is sometimes taken as a comparative: “[some of the] strongest.”

[3:21]  ¹⁵ sn There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the specific nature of these items of clothing.

[3:21]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

[3:22]  ¹⁷ tn Aram “caused to go up.”

[3:22]  ¹⁸ tn The Aramaic verb is active.

[3:22]  ¹⁹ tn Aram “the flame of the fire” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); NRSV “the raging flames.”

[3:23]  ²⁰ tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

[3:23]  ²¹ sn The deuterocanonical writings known as The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three present at this point a confession and petition for God’s forgiveness and a celebration of God’s grace for the three Jewish youths in the fiery furnace. Though not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel, these compositions do appear in the ancient Greek versions.