{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"DAN","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Daniel","commonName":"Daniel","introduction":"DANIEL, that is, \"God is my judge\"; probably of the blood royal (compare Dan 1:3, with Ch1 3:1, where a son of David is named so). Jerusalem may have been his birthplace (though Dan 9:24, \"thy holy city,\" does not necessarily imply this). He was carried to Babylon among the Hebrew captives brought thither by Nebuchadnezzar at the first deportation in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. As he and his three companions are called (Dan 1:4) \"children,\" he cannot have been more than about twelve years old when put in training, according to Eastern etiquette, to be a courtier (Dan 1:3, Dan 1:6). He then received a new name, by which it was usual to mark a change in one's condition (Kg2 23:34; Kg2 24:17; Ezr 5:14; Est 2:7), Belteshazzar, that is, \"a prince favored by Bel\" (Dan 1:7). His piety and wisdom were proverbial among his countrymen at an early period; probably owing to that noble proof he gave of faithfulness, combined with wisdom, in abstaining from the food sent to him from the king's table, as being polluted by the idolatries usual at heathen banquets (Dan 1:8-16). Hence Ezekiel's reference to him (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:20; Eze 28:3) is precisely of that kind we should expect; a coincidence which must be undesigned. Ezekiel refers to him not as a writer, but as exhibiting a character righteous and wise in discerning secrets, in those circumstances now found in his book, which are earlier than the time when Ezekiel wrote. As Joseph rose in Egypt by interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, so Daniel, by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's, was promoted to be governor of Babylonia, and president of the Magian priest-caste. Under Evil-merodach, Nebuchadnezzar's successor, as a change of officers often attends the accession of a new king, Daniel seems to have had a lower post, which led him occasionally to be away from Babylon (Dan 8:2, Dan 8:27). Again he came into note when he read the mystic writing of Belshazzar's doom on the wall on the night of that monarch's impious feast. BEROSUS calls the last Babylonian king Nabonidus and says he was not killed, but had an honorable abode in Carmania assigned to him, after having surrendered voluntarily in Borsippa. RAWLINSON has cleared up the discrepancy from the Nineveh inscription. Belshazzar was joint king with his father, Evil-merodach or Nabonidus (called Minus in the inscriptions), to whom he was subordinate. He shut himself up in Babylon, while the other king took refuge elsewhere, namely, in Borsippa. BEROSUS gives the Chaldean account, which suppresses all about Belshazzar, as being to the national dishonor. Had Daniel been a late book, he would no doubt have taken up the later account of BEROSUS. If he gave a history differing from that current in Babylonia, the Jews of that region would not have received it as true. Darius the Mede, or Cyaxares II, succeeded and reigned two years. The mention of this monarch's reign, almost unknown to profane history (being eclipsed by the splendor of Cyrus) is an incidental proof that Daniel wrote as a contemporary historian of events which he knew, and did not borrow from others. In the third year of Cyrus he saw the visions (the tenth through twelfth chapters) relating to his people down to the latest days and the coming resurrection. He must have been about eighty-four years old at this time. Tradition represents Daniel as having died and been buried at Shushan. Though his advanced age did not allow him to be among those who returned to Palestine, yet he never ceased to have his people's interests nearest to his heart (Dan. 9:3-19; Dan 10:12).\n\nAUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. Dan 7:1, Dan 7:28; Dan 8:2; Dan 9:2; Dan 10:1-2; Dan 12:4-5, testify that it was composed by Daniel himself. He does not mention himself in the first six chapters, which are historical; for in these it is not the author, but the events which are the prominent point. In the last six, which are prophetical, the author makes himself known, for here it was needed, prophecy being a revelation of words to particular men. It holds a third rank in the Hebrew canon: not among the prophets, but in the Hagiographa (Chetubim), between Esther and Ezra, books like it relating to the captivity; because he did not strictly belong to those who held exclusively the profession of \"prophets\" in the theocracy, but was rather a \"seer,\" having the gift, but not the office of prophet. Were the book an interpolated one, it doubtless would have been placed among the prophets. Its present position is a proof of its genuineness, as it was deliberately put in a position different from that where most would expect to find it. Placed between Esther, and Ezra and Nehemiah, it separated the historical books of the time after the captivity. Thus, Daniel was, as BENGEL calls him, the politician, chronologer, and historian among the prophets. The Psalms also, though many are prophetical, are ranked with the Hagiographa, not with the prophets; and the Revelation of John is separated from his Epistles, as Daniel is from the Old Testament prophets. Instead of writing in the midst of the covenant people, and making them the foreground of his picture, he writes in a heathen court, the world kingdoms occupying the foreground, and the kingdom of God, though ultimately made the most significant, the background. His peculiar position in the heathen court is reflected in his peculiar position in the canon. As the \"prophets\" in the Old Testament, so the epistles of the apostles in the New Testament were written by divinely commissioned persons for their contemporaries. But Daniel and John were not in immediate contact with the congregation, but isolated and alone with God, the one in a heathen court, the other on a lonely isle (Rev 1:9). PORPHYRY, the assailant of Christianity in the third century, asserted that the Book of Daniel was a forgery of the time of the Maccabees (170-164 B.C.), a time when confessedly there were no prophets, written after the events as to Antiochus Epiphanes, which it professes to foretell; so accurate are the details. A conclusive proof of Daniel's inspiration, if his prophecies can be shown to have been before the events. Now we know, from JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.11.7], that the Jews in Christ's days recognized Daniel as in the canon. Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, centuries before Antiochus, refer to it. Jesus refers to it in His characteristic designation, \"Son of man,\" Mat 24:30 (Dan 7:13); also expressly by name, and as a \"prophet,\" in Mat 24:15 (compare Mat 24:21, with Dan 12:1, &c.); and in the moment that decided His life (Mat 26:64) or death, when the high priest adjured him by the living God. Also, in Luk 1:19-26, \"Gabriel\" is mentioned, whose name occurs nowhere else in Scripture, save in Dan 8:16; Dan 9:21. Besides the references to it in Revelation, Paul confirms the prophetical part of it, as to the blasphemous king (Dan 7:8, Dan 7:25; Dan 11:36), in Co1 6:2; Th2 2:3-4; the narrative part, as to the miraculous deliverances from \"the lions\" and \"the fire,\" in Heb 11:33-34. Thus the book is expressly attested by the New Testament on the three points made the stumbling-block of neologists--the predictions, the narratives of miracles, and the manifestations of angels. An objection has been stated to the unity of the book, namely, that Jesus quotes no part of the first half of Daniel. But Mat 21:44 would be an enigma if it were not a reference to the \"stone that smote the image\" (Dan 2:34-35, Dan 2:44-45). Thus the New Testament sanctions the second, third, sixth, seventh, and eleventh chapters. The design of the miracles in the heathen courts where Daniel was, as of those of Moses in Egypt, was to lead the world power, which seemed to be victorious over the theocracy, to see the essential inner superiority of the seemingly fallen kingdom of God to itself, and to show prostrate Israel that the power of God was the same as of old in Egypt. The first book of Maccabees (compare 1 Maccabees 1:24; 9:27, 40, with Dan 12:1; Dan 11:26, of the Septuagint) refers to Daniel as an accredited book, and even refers to the Septuagint Alexandrian version of it. The fact of Daniel having a place in the Septuagint shows it was received by the Jews at large prior to the Maccabean times. The Septuagint version so arbitrarily deviated from the Hebrew Daniel, that Theodotius' version was substituted for it in the early Christian Church. JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 11.8.5] mentions that Alexander the Great had designed to punish the Jews for their fidelity to Darius, but that Jaddua (332 B.C.), the high priest, met him at the head of a procession and averted his wrath by showing him Daniel's prophecy that a Grecian monarch should overthrow Persia. Certain it is, Alexander favored the Jews, and JOSEPHUS' statement gives an explanation of the fact; at least it shows that the Jews in JOSEPHUS' days believed that Daniel was extant in Alexander's days, long before the Maccabees. With Jaddua (high priest from 341-322 B.C.) the Old Testament history ends (Neh 12:11). (The register of the priests and Levites was not written by Nehemiah, who died about 400 B.C., but was inserted with divine sanction by the collectors of the canon subsequently.) An objection to Daniel's authenticity has been rested on a few Greek words found in it. But these are mostly names of Greek musical instruments, which were imported by Greece from the East, rather than vice versa. Some of the words are derived from the common Indo-Germanic stock of both Greek and Chaldee: hence their appearance in both tongues. And one or two may have come through the Greeks of Asia Minor to the Chaldee. The fact that from the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of the seventh, the language is Chaldee, but the rest Hebrew, is not an argument against, but for, its authenticity. So in Ezra the two languages are found. The work, if that of one author, must have been composed by someone in the circumstances of Daniel, that is, by one familiar with both languages. No native-born Hebrew who had not lived in Chaldea would know Chaldee so well as to use it with the same idiomatic ease as his native tongue; the very impurities in Daniel's use of both are just such as were natural to one in his circumstances, but unnatural to one in a later age, or to one not half Hebrew, half Chaldean in residence as Daniel was. Those parts of Daniel which concern the whole world are mostly Chaldee, then the language of the world empire. So Greek was made the language of the New Testament, which was designed for the whole world. Those affecting the Jews, mostly Hebrew; and this not so impure as that of Ezekiel. His Chaldee is a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Two predictions alone are enough to prove to us that Daniel was a true prophet. (1) That his prophecies reach beyond Antiochus; namely, he foretells the rise of the four great monarchies, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome (the last not being in Daniel's time known beyond the precincts of Italy, or rather of Latium), and that no other earthly kingdom would subvert the fourth, but that it would divide into parts. All this has come to pass. No fifth great earthly monarchy has arisen, though often attempted, as by Charlemagne, Charles V, and Napoleon. (2) The time of Messiah's advent, as dated from a certain decree, His being cut off, and the destruction of the city. \"He who denies Daniel's prophecies,\" says SIR ISAAC NEWTON, \"undermines Christianity, which is founded on Daniel's prophecies concerning Christ.\"\n\nCHARACTERISTICS OF DANIEL. The vision mode of revelation is the exception in other prophets, the rule in Daniel. In Zechariah (Zec. 1:1-6:15), who lived after Daniel, the same mode appears, but the other form from the seventh chapter to the end. The Revelation of St. John alone is perfectly parallel to Daniel, which may be called the Old Testament Apocalypse. In the contents too there is the difference above noticed, that he views the kingdom of God from the standpoint of the world kingdoms, the development of which is his great subject. This mode of viewing it was appropriate to his own position in a heathen court, and to the relation of subjection in which the covenant-people then stood to the world powers. No longer are single powers of the world incidentally introduced, but the universal monarchies are the chief theme, in which the worldly principle, opposed to the kingdom of God, manifests itself fully. The near and distant are not seen in the same perspective, as by the other prophets, who viewed the whole future from the eschatological point; but in Daniel the historical details are given of that development of the world powers which must precede the advent of the kingdom [AUBERLEN].\n\nSIGNIFICANCE OF THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. The exile is the historical basis of Daniel's prophecies, as Daniel implies in the first chapter, which commences with the beginning, and ends with the termination, of the captivity (Dan 1:1, Dan 1:21; compare Dan 9:1-2). A new stage in the theocracy begins with the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar made three incursions into Judah. The first under Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), in which Daniel was carried away, subjected the theocracy to the Babylonian world power. The second (598 B.C.) was that in which Jehoiachin and Ezekiel were carried away. In the third (588 B.C.), Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and carried away Zedekiah. Originally, Abraham was raised out of the \"sea\" (Dan 7:2) of the nations, as an island holy to God, and his seed chosen as God's mediator of His revelations of love to mankind. Under David and Solomon, the theocracy, as opposed to the heathen power, attained its climax in the Old Testament, not only being independent, but lord of the surrounding nations; so that the period of these two kings was henceforth made the type of the Messianic. But when God's people, instead of resting on Him, seek alliance with the world power, that very power is made the instrument of their chastisement. So Ephraim (722 B.C.) fell by Assyria; and Judah also, drawn into the sphere of the world's movements from the time of Ahaz, who sought Assyrian help (740 B.C., Isa. 7:1-25) at last fell by Babylon, and thenceforth has been more or less dependent on the world monarchies, and so, till Messiah, was favored with no revelations from the time of Malachi (four hundred years). Thus, from the beginning of the exile, the theocracy, in the strict sense, ceased on earth; the rule of the world powers superseding it. But God's covenant with Israel remains firm (Rom 11:29); therefore, a period of blessing under Messiah's kingdom is now foretold as about to follow their long chastisement. The exile thus is the turning point in the history of the theocracy, which ROOS thus divides: (1) From Adam to the exodus out of Egypt. (2) From the exodus to the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. (3) From the captivity to the millennium. (4) From the millennium to the end of the world. The position of Daniel in the Babylonian court was in unison with the altered relations of the theocracy and the world power, which new relation was to be the theme of his prophecy. Earlier prophets, from the standpoint of Israel, treated of Israel in its relation to the world powers; Daniel, from Babylon, the center of the then world power, treats of the world powers in their relation to Israel. His seventy years' residence in Babylon, and his high official position there, gave him an insight into the world's politics, fitting him to be the recipient of political revelations; while his spiritual experiences, gained through Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation, Belshazzar's downfall, and the rapid decay of the Babylonian empire itself, as well as the miraculous deliverances of himself and his friends (the third through sixth chapters), all fitted him for regarding things from the spiritual standpoint, from which the world's power appears transient, but the glory of God's kingdom eternal. As his political position was the body, the school of magicians in which he had studied for three years (Dan 1:4-5) was the soul; and his mind strong in faith and nourished by the earlier prophecies (Dan 9:2), the spirit of his prophecy, which only waited for the spirit of revelation from above to kindle it. So God fits His organs for their work. AUBERLEN compares Daniel to Joseph: the one at the beginning, the other at the end of the Jewish history of revelation; both representatives of God and His people at heathen courts; both interpreters of the dim presentiments of truth, expressed in God-sent dreams, and therefore raised to honor by the powers of the world: so representing Israel's calling to be a royal priesthood among the nations; and types of Christ, the true Israel, and of Israel's destination to be a light to lighten the whole Gentile world, as Rom 11:12, Rom 11:15 foretells. As Achilles at the beginning, and Alexander at the end, of Grecian history are the mirrors of the whole life of the Hellenic people, so Joseph and Daniel of Israel.\n\nCONTENTS OF THE BOOK. Historical and biographical introduction in the first chapter. Daniel, a captive exile, is representative of his nation in its servitude and exile: while his heavenly insight into dreams, far exceeding that of the magi, represents the divine superiority of the covenant-people over their heathen lords. The high dignities, even in the world, which he thereby attained, typify the giving of the earth-kingdom at last \"to the people of the saints of the Most High\" (Dan 7:27). Thus Daniel's personal history is the typical foundation of his prophecy. The prophets had to experience in themselves, and in their age, something of what they foretold about future times; just as David felt much of Christ's sufferings in his own person (compare Hos 1:2-11; Hos 2:3). So Jon. 1:1-17, &c. [ROOS]. Hence biographical notices of Daniel and his friends are inserted among his prophecies. The second through twelfth chapters contain the substance of the book, and consist of two parts. The first (the second through seventh chapters) represents the development of the world powers, viewed from a historical point. The second (the eighth through twelfth chapters), their development in relation to Israel, especially in the future preceding Christ's first advent, foretold in the ninth chapter. But prophecy looks beyond the immediate future to the complete fulfilment in the last days, since the individual parts in the organic history of salvation cannot be understood except in connection with the whole. Also Israel looked forward to the Messianic time, not only for spiritual salvation, but also for the visible restoration of the kingdom which even now we too expect. The prophecy which they needed ought therefore to comprise both, and so much of the history of the world as would elapse before the final consummation. The period of Daniel's prophecies, therefore, is that from the downfall of the theocracy at the captivity till its final restoration, yet future--the period of the dominion of the world powers, not set aside by Christ's first coming (Joh 18:36; for, to have taken the earth-kingdom then, would have been to take it from Satan's hands, Mat 4:8-10), but to be superseded by His universal and everlasting kingdom at His second coming (Rev 11:15). Thus the general survey of the development and final destiny of the world powers (the second through seventh chapters) fittingly precedes the disclosures as to the immediate future (the eighth through twelfth chapters). Daniel marks the division by writing the first part in Chaldee, and the second, and the introduction, in Hebrew; the former, referring to the powers of the world, in the language of the then dominant world power under which he lived; the latter, relating to the people of God, in their own language. An interpolator in a later age would have used Hebrew, the language of the ancient prophets throughout, or if anywhere Aramaic, so as to be understood by his contemporaries, he would have used it in the second rather than in the first part as having a more immediate reference to his own times [AUBERLEN]. \n\n\n\nNext: Daniel Chapter 1\n\n","order":27,"numberOfChapters":12,"sha256":"52ffb04ed7fdad0a18e31cb0dd5f7354207dcc9f1eb26ff0a5baf325867e27a4","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":12,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/12.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":12},"totalNumberOfVerses":305},"chapter":{"number":3,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["princes--\"satraps\" of provinces [GESENIUS]. \n\ncaptains--rulers, not exclusively military. \n\nsheriffs--men learned in the law, like the Arab mufti [GESENIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["stood before the image--in an attitude of devotion. Whatever the king approved of, they all approve of. There is no stability of principle in the ungodly.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The arguments of the persecutor are in brief, Turn or burn.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["cornet--A wind instrument, like the French horn, is meant. \n\nflute--a pipe or pipes, not blown transversely as our \"flute,\" but by mouthpieces at the end. \n\nsackbut--a triangular stringed instrument, having short strings, the sound being on a high sharp key. \n\npsaltery--a kind of harp. \n\ndulcimer--a bagpipe consisting of two pipes, thrust through a leathern bag, emitting a sweet plaintive sound. Chaldee sumponya, the modern Italian zampogna, Asiatic zambonja. \n\nfall down--that the recusants might be the more readily detected.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["No other nation but the Jews would feel this edict oppressive; for it did not prevent them worshipping their own gods besides. It was evidently aimed at the Jews by those jealous of their high position in the king's court, who therefore induced the king to pass an edict as to all recusants, representing such refusal of homage as an act of treason to Nebuchadnezzar as civil and religious \"head\" of the empire. So the edict under Darius (Dan 6:7-9) was aimed against the Jews by those jealous of Daniel's influence. The literal image of Nebuchadnezzar is a typical prophecy of \"the image of the beast,\" connected with mystical Babylon, in Rev 13:14. The second mystical beast there causeth the earth, and them that dwell therein, to worship the first beast, and that as many as would not, should be killed (Rev 13:12, Rev 13:15). \n\nfurnace--a common mode of punishment in Babylon (Jer 29:22). It is not necessary to suppose that the furnace was made for the occasion. Compare \"brick-kiln,\" Sa2 12:31. Any furnace for common purposes in the vicinity of Dura would serve. CHARDIN, in his travels (A.D. 1671-1677), mentions that in Persia, to terrify those who took advantage of scarcity to sell provisions at exorbitant prices, the cooks were roasted over a slow fire, and the bakers cast into a burning oven.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["None of the Jews seem to have been present, except the officers, summoned specially.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["accused the Jews--literally, \"ate the rent limbs,\" or flesh of the Jews (compare Job 31:31; Psa 14:4; Psa 27:2; Jer 10:25). Not probably in general, but as Dan 3:12 states, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Why Daniel was not summoned does not appear. Probably he was in some distant part of the empire on state business, and the general summons (Dan 3:2) had not time to reach him before the dedication. Also, the Jews enemies found it more politic to begin by attacking Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who were nearer at hand, and had less influence, before they proceeded to attack Daniel.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["live for ever--A preface of flattery is closely akin to the cruelty that follows. So Act 24:2-3, &c., Tertullus in accusing Paul before Felix.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["serve not thy gods--not only not the golden image, but also not any of Nebuchadnezzar's gods.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["bring--Instead of commanding their immediate execution, as in the case of the Magi (Dan 2:12), Providence inclined him to command the recusants to be brought before him, so that their noble \"testimony\" for God might be given before the world powers \"against them\" (Mat 10:18), to the edification of the Church in all ages.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Is it true--rather, as the Margin [THEODOTION], \"Is it purposely that?\" &c. Compare the Hebrew, Num 35:20, Num 35:22. Notwithstanding his \"fury,\" his past favor for them disposes him to give them the opportunity of excusing themselves on the ground that their disobedience had not been intentional; so he gives them another trial to see whether they would still worship the image.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["who is that God--so Sennacherib's taunt (Kg2 18:35), and Pharaoh's (Exo 5:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["not careful to answer thee--rather, \"We have no need to answer thee\"; thou art determined on thy side, and our mind is made up not to worship the image: there is therefore no use in our arguing as if we could be shaken from our principles. Hesitation, or parleying with sin, is fatal; unhesitating decision is the only safety, where the path of duty is clear (Mat 10:19, Mat 10:28).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["If it be so--VATABLUS translates, \"Assuredly.\" English Version agrees better with the original. The sense is, If it be our lot to be cast into the furnace, our God (quoted from Deu 6:4) is able to deliver us (a reply to Nebuchadnezzar's challenge, \"Who is that God that shall deliver you?\"); and He will deliver us (either from death, or in death, Ti2 4:17-18). He will, we trust, literally deliver us, but certainly He will do so spiritually.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["But if not, &c.--connected with Dan 3:18. \"Whether our God deliver us, as He is able, or do not, we will not serve thy gods.\" Their service of God is not mercenary in its motive. Though He slay them, they will still trust in Him (Job 13:15). Their deliverance from sinful compliance was as great a miracle in the kingdom of grace, as that from the furnace was in the kingdom of nature. Their youth, and position as captives and friendless exiles, before the absolute world potentate and the horrid death awaiting them if they should persevere in their faith, all enhance the grace of God, which carried them through such an ordeal.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["visage . . . changed--He had shown forbearance (Dan 3:14-15) as a favor to them, but now that they despise even his forbearance, anger \"fills\" him, and is betrayed in his whole countenance. \n\nseven times more than it was wont--literally, \"than it was (ever) seen to be heated.\" Seven is the perfect number; that is, it was made as hot as possible. Passion overdoes and defeats its own end, for the hotter the fire, the sooner were they likely to be put out of pain.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["coats . . . hosen . . . hats--HERODOTUS [1.195] says that the Babylonian costume consisted of three parts: (1) wide, long pantaloons; (2) a woollen shirt; (3) an outer mantle with a girdle round it. So these are specified [GESENIUS], \"their pantaloons, inner tunics (hosen, or stockings, are not commonly worn in the East), and outer mantles.\" Their being cast in so hurriedly, with all their garments on, enhanced the miracle in that not even the smell of fire passed on their clothes, though of delicate, inflammable material.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["flame . . . slew those men-- (Dan 6:24; Psa 7:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["fell down--not cast down; for those who brought the three youths to the furnace, perished by the flames themselves, and so could not cast them in. Here follows an addition in the Septuagint, Syrian, Arabic, and Vulgate versions. \"The Prayer of Azarias,\" and \"The Song of the Three Holy Children.\" It is not in the Chaldee. The hymn was sung throughout the whole Church in their liturgies, from the earliest times [RUFINUS in Commentary on the Apostles Creed, and ATHANASIUS]. The \"astonishment\" of Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 3:24 is made an argument for its genuineness, as if it explained the cause of his astonishment, namely, \"they walked in the midst of the fire praising God, but the angel of the Lord came down into the oven\" (vs. 1 and vs. 27 of the Apocryphal addition). But Dan 3:25 of English Version explains his astonishment, without need of any addition.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["True, O king--God extorted this confession from His enemies' own mouths.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["four--whereas but three had been cast in. \n\nloose--whereas they had been cast in \"bound.\" Nebuchadnezzar's question, in Dan 3:24, is as if he can scarcely trust his own memory as to a fact so recent, now that he sees through an aperture in the furnace what seems to contradict it. \n\nwalking in . . . midst of . . . fire--image of the godly unhurt, and at large (Joh 8:36), \"in the midst of trouble\" (Psa 138:7; compare Psa 23:3-4). They walked up and down in the fire, not leaving it, but waiting for God's time to bring them out, just as Jesus waited in the tomb as God's prisoner, till God should let Him out (Act 2:26-27). So Paul (Co2 12:8-9). So Noah waited in the ark, after the flood, till God brought him forth (Gen 8:12-18). \n\nlike the Son of God--Unconsciously, like Saul, Caiaphas (Joh 11:49-52), and Pilate, he is made to utter divine truths. \"Son of God\" in his mouth means only an \"angel\" from heaven, as Dan 3:28 proves. Compare Job 1:6; Job 38:7; Psa 34:7-8; and the probably heathen centurion's exclamation (Mat 27:54). The Chaldeans believed in families of gods: Bel, the supreme god, accompanied by the goddess Mylitta, being the father of the gods; thus the expression he meant: one sprung from and sent by the gods. Really it was the \"messenger of the covenant,\" who herein gave a prelude to His incarnation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["the most high God--He acknowledges Jehovah to be supreme above other gods (not that he ceased to believe in these); so he returns to his original confession, \"your God is a God of gods\" (Dan 2:47), from which he had swerved in the interim, perhaps intoxicated by his success in taking Jerusalem, whose God he therefore thought unable to defend it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["nor . . . an hair-- (Luk 12:7; Luk 21:18). \n\nfire had no power--fulfilling Isa 43:2; compare Heb 11:34. God alone is a \"consuming fire\" (Heb 12:29). \n\nnor . . . smell of fire--compare spiritually, Th1 5:22.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["In giving some better traits in Nebuchadnezzar's character, Daniel agrees with Jer 39:11; Jer 42:12. \n\nchanged the king's word--have made the king's attempt to coerce into obedience vain. Have set aside his word (so \"alter . . . word,\" Ezr 6:11) from regard to God. Nebuchadnezzar now admits that God's law should be obeyed, rather than his (Act 5:29). \n\nyielded . . . bodies--namely, to the fire. \n\nnot serve--by sacrificing. \n\nnor worship--by prostration of the body. Decision for God at last gains the respect even of the worldly (Pro 16:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["This decree promulgated throughout the vast empire of Nebuchadnezzar must have tended much to keep the Jews from idolatry in the captivity and thenceforth (Psa 76:10).\n\nPunished with insanity for his haughtiness, he sinks to the level of the beasts (illustrating Psa 49:6, Psa 49:12). The opposition between bestial and human life, set forth here, is a key to interpret the symbolism in the seventh chapter concerning the beasts and the Son of man. After his conquests, and his building in fifteen days a new palace, according to the heathen historian, ABYDENUS (268 B.C.), whose account confirms Daniel, he ascended upon his palace roof (Dan 4:29, Margin), whence he could see the surrounding city which he had built, and seized by some deity, he predicted the Persian conquest of Babylon, adding a prayer that the Persian leader might on his return be borne where there is no path of men, and where the wild beasts graze (language evidently derived by tradition from Dan 4:32-33, though the application is different). In his insanity, his excited mind would naturally think of the coming conquest of Babylon by the Medo-Persians, already foretold to him in the second chapter.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Daniel Chapter 4\n\n"]}],"introduction":"NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S IDOLATROUS IMAGE; SHADRACH, MESHACH, AND ABED-NEGO ARE DELIVERED FROM THE FURNACE. (Dan. 3:1-30)\n\nimage--Nebuchadnezzar's confession of God did not prevent him being a worshipper of idols, besides. Ancient idolaters thought that each nation had its own gods, and that, in addition to these, foreign gods might be worshipped. The Jewish religion was the only exclusive one that claimed all homage for Jehovah as the only true God. Men will in times of trouble confess God, if they are allowed to retain their favorite heart-idols. The image was that of Bel, the Babylonian tutelary god; or rather, Nebuchadnezzar himself the personification and representative of the Babylonian empire, as suggested to him by the dream (Dan 2:38), \"Thou art this head of gold.\" The interval between the dream and the event here was about nineteen years. Nebuchadnezzar had just returned from finishing the Jewish and Syrian wars, the spoils of which would furnish the means of rearing such a colossal statue [PRIDEAUX]. The colossal size makes it likely that the frame was wood, overlaid with gold. The \"height,\" sixty cubits, is so out of proportion with the \"breadth,\" exceeding it ten times, that it seems best to suppose the thickness from breast to back to be intended, which is exactly the right proportion of a well-formed man [AUGUSTINE, The City of God, 15.20]. PRIDEAUX thinks the sixty cubits refer to the image and pedestal together, the image being twenty-seven cubits high, or forty feet, the pedestal thirty-three cubits, or fifty feet. HERODOTUS [1.183] confirms this by mentioning a similar image, forty feet high, in the temple of Belus at Babylon. It was not the same image, for the one here was on the plain of Dura, not in the city.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/3.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":3},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/4.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":4},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/2.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":2},"numberOfVerses":25}