Daniel 3:12-18 There are certain Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men… In the second chapter, which immediately precedes the history of the golden idol, we have an account of a prophetic vision granted to Nebuchadnezzar, and in which were foreshadowed the destinies of the four great secular empires whose foundation succeeded the foundation of the kingdom of Israel, and preceded the foundation of Christianity. Now in this vision it is to be remarked that these empires were exhibited to the king under the guise of a great statue or image. And explaining the meaning of this strange and tremendous apparition, Daniel addresses the king thus: "Thou art this head of gold." Now there is a circumstance in the description of the golden idol set up in the plain of Dura in the next chapter which has greatly puzzled commentators, and has been used by some critics to throw discredit on the whole narrative. This circumstance is the utter disproportion of the idol. Assuming it to have been a human figure, how can we imagine a statue representing a human figure sixty cubits high and only six cubits broad? a statue, the height of which is exactly ten times its breadth? Now to me, this monstrous disproportion seems at once to hint at a different conception of what the idol was. I believe it to have been a representation of the image the king had shortly before beheld in his prophetic dream. But, mark you, not of the whole of that image. The other parts of the terrible apparition had been explained by Daniel as denoting other kingdoms less exalted by nature, less glorious in appearance than that of the Babylonian monarch. He was "the head of gold." Accordingly the image he set up in the plain of Dura was, I conceive, a representation not of the whole image of the vision, but simply of the head of gold, elevated on a pedestal of the same metal, tall enough to exhibit it completely to the whole multitude convened to worship it. The image of the plain of Dura was, in other words, the image of the prophetic dream, so far as it concerned Nebuchadnezzar's self; it was the representation of himself as the mightiest sovereign the world had ever seen, or ever was to see; and the adoration he demanded for it was a deification of mere worldly power and grandeur in his own person. This hypothesis will appear less startling when we recollect that Oriental kings were often — indeed, generally — considered as emanations from the Deity, incarnations of His attributes; and were approached with exactly the same forms of adoration as were used to the Deity they represented or embodied. And in this case, the representation of the king's superhuman power and grandeur might actually seem to be authorised by the prophetic vision from which Nebuchadnezzar had adopted it. Viewed in this light, we can at once perceive why all the great officials of the empire, the princes, captains, judges, sheriffs and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled to its dedication — of the people at large nothing is said — and why such an extraordinary and terrific punishment was denounced on those who might refuse to prostrate themselves before it. The official who would not adore the consecrated representation of his own monarch's power and place in the history of the world might justly, according to Oriental notions, be regarded as a traitor. Nothing but disloyalty could refuse the worship demanded. Why should he not display to all his officers of state the disclosures made to him by the Divinity and explained by the master of the magicians? Why not require Divine honours to be paid to the Divinely revealed representation of his own great place In the destinies of the world — in the history of the human race? Assuming this conception of the connection between the vision of the second chapter and the idol of the third chapter to be correct, how significant a hint does it not give us of the propensity of the human heart to turn even God's benefits into poison! Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, like Pharaoh of Egypt, had been made the recipient of superhuman knowledge, though on a far grander scale than Pharaoh. He had been favoured with a disclosure of the destinies not of one single kingdom, but of all secular power whatever, previous to the advent of the Christ. But, instead of giving heed to the impressive warning, instead of a salutary lesson of humility, a conviction of the nothingness of all mere worldly power, he had been so puffed up with being told that he was the first and the greatest of those temporal powers that were so soon to be destroyed by the great spiritual Power, as to convert the very emblem of warning into an emblem of daring and blasphemous impiety. God interposes by miracle, not in every case where such interposition might seem desirable, but only in cases peculiar and critical — cases which mark epochs and decide great destinies. Now such an one was pre-eminently the case of the three youths in the burning fiery furnace. God's people had been completely subjugated by the mighty autocrat of Babylon. Had the three Jews perished in the furnace destined to annihilate all who would not pay Divine honour to the embodiment of human power, the cause of God might, perhaps, have been lost; His people might have been so discouraged that not a remnant would have maintained the truth. Here, then, was a worthy case for Divine interposition. 1. Individually we learn from the behaviour of the three Jews before the terrible King of Babylon, that we have nothing to do with expediency when principle is at stake. How plausibly might they not have reasoned themselves into compliance had expediency been consulted! They were no politicians. They simply asked, Hath God forbidden His people to bow down and worship idols, or hath He not? If He hath, no reasoning can make that right which He hath said is wrong. And as the command was plain and direct, they felt their obedience to it must be plain and direct. Let this magnificent example of heroic steadfastness in the path of duty teach us that simple but difficult lesson how to say NO when we are tempted or threatened in order to make us do what we are aware is wrong. The man who has learned that lesson can go through the fiery furnace of this world unscorched, unharmed, without even the smell of its flame passing on him; for One shall walk beside him who has also overcome temptation — One whose form shall be indeed "the form of the Son of God!" 2. The same considerations apply with added force and on a grander scale to the case of Christ's Church on earth and every part thereof. The history of that church is one of the strangest and. saddest ever written by human passion and human error on the course of time. How the very consolations of God, the sweet ordinances of the Gospel, have, by the cunning of God's adversary and the fierce narrowmindedness of man, been transformed into whips of scorpions, with which loveless zeal and arrogant pride have scourged generation after generation, they know too well who know anything of the story of Christianity. (C. P. Reichel, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. |
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