Daniel 3:30

This seems to be of slight consequence; but yet it was not added in vain. We are to understand that the miracle was confirmed throughout the whole province and region, because all the Chaldeans knew those three men were cast into the furnace, and then afterwards shared in the imperial sway and were restored to their former honors. In consequence of this event, God’s power could not be unknown. It was just as it God had sent forth three heralds through the whole region, who _everywhere _proclaimed how they were wonderfully delivered from death by God’s special interposition. Whence, also, it would be understood how worthless were all the deities then worshipped in Chaldea, and how that great deity whose statue Nebuchadnezzar had set up had been despised, and how the true God proved his consistency in snatching his servants from death....

28-30 What God did for these his servants, would help to keep the Jews to their religion while in captivity, and to cure them of idolatry. The miracle brought deep convictions on Nebuchadnezzar. But no abiding change then took place in his conduct. He who preserved these pious Jews in the fiery furnace, is able to uphold us in the hour of temptation, and to keep us from falling into sin....

Verse Daniel 3:30. _THEN THE KING PROMOTED, C._] He restored them to the offices which they held before the charge of disobedience and treason was brought against them. At the end of this verse the _Septuagint_ add, "And he advanced them to be governors over all the Jews that were in his kingdom." This may be the meaning of the latter verse. They were more likely to be set over the _Jews_ than over the _Chaldeans_....

THEN THE KING PROMOTED SHADRACH ... - Margin, “made to prosper.” The Chaldee means no more than “made to prosper.” Whether he restored them to their former places, or to higher honors, does not appear. There would be, however, nothing inconsistent with his usual course in supposing that he raised them to more exalted stations. IN THE PROVINCE OF BABYLON - See the notes at Daniel 2:49. The Greek and the Arabic add here, “And he counted them worthy to preside over all the Jews that were in his kingdom.” But nothing of this is found in the Chaldee, and it is not known by whom this addition was made. In the Vulgate and the Greek versions, and in some of the critical editions of the Hebrew Scriptures (Walton, Hahn, etc.), the three first verses of the following chapter are subjoined to this

EXPOSITION DANIEL 3:1 THE GOLDEN IMAGE, AND THE FIERY FURNACE. DANIEL 3:1 NEBUCHADNEZZAR THE KING MADE AN IMAGE OF GOLD, WHOSE HEIGHT WAS THREE SCORE CUBITS, AND THE BREADTH THEREOF AIR CUBITS: HE SET IT UP IN THE PLAIN OF DURA, IN THE PROVINCE OF BABYLON. The Septuagint Version is full of redundance and interpolation, "In the eighteenth year King Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled cities and countries, and all those dwelling (in them)over the earth from India even to Ethiopia, made a golden image; the height of it was sixty cubits, and the breadth of it six cubits, and set it up in a plain within the boundary of the provinc

THEN THE KING PROMOTED SHADRACH, MESHACH, AND ABEDNEGO, IN THE PROVINCE OF BABYLON,.... He restored them to their places of trust and profit, and increased their honours: or, "made them to prosper", as the word x signifies; they flourished in his court, and became very great and famous. The Septuagint and Arabic versions add, "and he counted them worthy to preside over all the Jews that were in his kingdom.'' x הצלח "prosperare fecit", Munster; "prosperari jussit", Junius Tremellius, Piscator "prosperos felicesque fecit", Gejerus....

CHAPTER 3 THE IMAGE OF GOLD _ 1. The image of gold (Daniel 3:1)_ 2. The faithful three (Daniel 3:8) 3. The miraculous deliverance (Daniel 3:19) 4. The worshipping king (Daniel 3:26) Daniel 3:1 . He had an immense statue of gold made, the image of a man, no doubt, and he set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. It was idolatry and the deification of man. Idolatry and the deification of man are then the first moral characteristics mentioned which are to prevail during the times of the Gentiles. The times of the

DANIEL 3. THE GOLDEN IMAGE AND THE FIERY FURNACE. Nebuchadnezzar made a colossal image of gold and commanded the people to worship it. The three friends of Daniel refused to comply with the order. The king thereupon had them thrown into a burning fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. But the fire had no power to consume them, and there appeared walking by the side of the three men in the midst of the furnace a fourth whose aspect was like a son of the gods. The message of this chapter to the men of the Maccabean age is obvious. The devotion and fidelity of the three heroes who faced the fiery furnace rather than prove traitors to their God is held up as an example to those whom Antiochus Epiphanes was tempting to betray their Lord, and their marvellous rescue is held up as a Divine deliverance, and an illustration of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Deutero-Isaiah: When th...

_promoted_ MADE TO PROSPER (cf. Daniel 6:28), i.e. supported them in different ways in the discharge of their office, and so ensured their success (Daniel 2:49)....

THEN THE KING PROMOTED SHADRACH, &C.— Or, "Restored them to their former places and dignities," according to the force of the original word. The LXX add at the end of the verse, And he advanced them to be governors over all the Jews who were in his kingdom. REFLECTIONS.—1st, The king had, as we read in the former chapter, made a noble confession of the glory of Daniel's God; but the conviction is soon forgotten, and his attachment to idolatry prevails: and, as we too often see the dog return to his vomit again, 1. He erects a golden image of immense size, thirty yards high or upwards. At what time, or on what occasion, this was done, is not said. 2. A general summons is sent to all the magistrates, governors, and officers, civil, military, and religious, throughout his vast empire, to attend the dedication of this image; who instantly assembled, ready to obey the king's injunction. 3....