'Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men
before the king. 14. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it
true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods,
nor worship the golden image which I have set up? 15. Now if ye be
ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye
fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye
worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a
burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you
out of my hands? 16. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and
said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer
thee in this matter. 17. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able
to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver
us out of thine hand, O king. 18. But if not, be it known unto
thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the
golden image which thou hast set up. 19. Then was Nebuchadnezzar
full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded
that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was
wont to be heated. 20. And he commanded the most mighty men that
were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to
cast them into the burning fiery furnace. 21. Then these men were
bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other
garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery
furnace. 22. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent,
and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men
that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. 23. And these three
men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the
midst of the burning fiery furnace. 24. Then Nebuchadnezzar the
king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto
his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of
the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. 25.
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the
midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the
fourth is like the Son of God.'--DANIEL iii. 13-25.
The way in which the 'Chaldeans' describe the three recusants, betrays
their motive in accusing them. 'Certain Jews whom thou hast set over the
affairs of the province of Babylon' could not but be envied and hated,
since their promotion wounded both national pride and professional
jealousy. The form of the accusation was skilfully calculated to rouse a
despot's rage. 'They have not regarded thee' is the head and front of
their offending. The inflammable temper of the king blazed up according
to expectation, as is the way with tyrants. His passion of rage is twice
mentioned (vs. 13, 19), and in one of the instances, is noted as
distorting his features. What a picture of ungoverned fury as of one who
had never been thwarted! It is the true portrait of an Eastern despot.
Where was Daniel in this hour of danger? His absence is not accounted
for, and conjecture is useless; but the fact that he has no share in the
incident seems to raise a presumption in favour of the disputed
historical character of the Book, which, if it had been fiction, could
scarcely have left its hero out of so brilliant an instance of
faithfulness to Jehovah.
Nebuchadnezzar's vehement address to the three culprits is very
characteristic and instructive. Fixed determination to enforce his
mandate, anger which breaks into threats that were by no means idle, and
a certain wish to build a bridge for the escape of servants who had done
their work well, are curiously mingled in it. His question, best
rendered as in the Revised Version, 'Is it of purpose ... that ye' do so
and so? seems meant to suggest that they may repair their fault by
pleading inadvertence, accident, or the like, and that He will accept
the transparent excuse. The renewed offer of an opportunity of worship
does not say what will happen should they obey; and the omission makes
the clause more emphatic, as insisting on the act, and slurring over the
self-evident result.
On the other hand, in the next clause the act is slightly touched ('if
ye worship not'); and all the stress comes on the grim description of
the consequence. This monarch, who has been accustomed to bend men's
wills like reeds, tries to shake these three obstinate rebels by terror,
and opens the door of the furnace, as it were, to let them hear it roar.
He finishes with a flash of insolence which, if not blasphemy, at least
betrays his belief that he was stronger than any god of his conquered
subject peoples.
But the main point to notice in this speech is the unconscious
revelation of his real motive in demanding the act of worship. The
crime of the three was not that they worshipped wrongly, but that they
disobeyed Nebuchadnezzar. He speaks of 'my gods', and of the 'image
which I have set up.' Probably it was an image of the god of the
Babylonian pantheon whom he took for his special patron, and was erected
in commemoration of some victorious campaign.
At all events, the worship required was an act of obedience to him, and
to refuse it was rebellion. Idolatry is tolerant of any private opinions
about gods, and intolerant of any refusal to obey authority in worship.
So the early Christians were thrown to the lions, not because they
worshipped Jesus, but because they would not sacrifice at the Emperor's
command. It is not only heathen rulers who have confounded the spheres
of civil and religious obedience. Nonconformity in England was long
identified with disloyalty; and in many so-called Christian countries
to-day a man may think what he likes, and worship as he pleases in his
chamber, if only he will decently comply with authority and pretend to
unite in religious ceremonies, which those who appoint and practise them
observe with tongue in cheek.
But we may draw another lesson from this truculent apostle of his god.
He is not the only instance of apparent religious zeal which is at
bottom nothing but masterfulness. 'You shall worship my god, not because
he is God, but because he is mine.' That is the real meaning of a great
deal which calls itself 'zeal for the Lord.' The zealot's own will,
opinions, fancies, are crammed down other people's throats, and the
insult in not thinking or worshipping as he does, is worse in his eyes
than the offence against God.
The kind of furnace in which recusants are roasted has changed since
Nebuchadnezzar's time, and what is called persecution for religion is
out of fashion now. But every advance in the application of Christian
principle to social and civil life brings a real martyrdom on its
advocates. Every audacious refusal to bow to the habits or opinions of
the majority, is visited by consequences which only the martyr spirit
will endure. Despots have no monopoly of imperious intolerance. A
democracy is more cruel and more impatient of singularity, and
especially of religious singularity, than any despot.
England and America have no need to fear the old forms of religious
persecution. In both, a man may profess and proclaim any kind of
religion or of no religion. But in both, the advance guard of the
Christian Church, which seeks to apply Christ's teachings more rigidly
to individual and social life, has to face obloquy, ostracism,
misrepresentation, from the world and the fossil church, for not serving
their gods, nor worshipping the golden image which they have set up.
Martyrs will be needed and persecutors will exist till the world is
Christian.
How did the three confessors meet this rumble of thunder about their
ears? The quiet determination of their reply is very striking and
beautiful. It is perfectly loyal, and perfectly unshaken. 'We have no
need to answer thee' (Revised Version). 'It is ill sitting at Rome and
striving with the Pope.' Nebuchadnezzar's palace was not precisely the
place to dispute with Nebuchadnezzar; and as his logic was only 'Do as I
bid you, or burn,' the sole reply possible was, 'We will not do as you
bid, and we will burn.' The 'If' which is immediately spoken is already
in the minds of the speakers, when they say that _they_ do not need to
answer. They think that God will take up the taunt which ended the
king's tirade. Beautifully they are silent, and refer the blusterer to
God, whose voice they believe that He will hear in His deed. 'But Thou
shalt answer, Lord, for me,' is the true temper of humble faith, dumb
before power as a sheep before her shearers, and yet confident that the
meek will not be left unvindicated. Let us leave ourselves in God's
hands; and when conscience accuses, or the world maligns or threatens,
let us be still, and feel that we have One to speak for us, and so we
may hold our peace.
The rendering of verse 17 is doubtful, but the general meaning is clear.
The brave speakers have hope that God will rebuke the king's taunt, and
will prove Himself to be able to deliver out of his hand. So they repeat
his very words with singular boldness, and contradict him to his face.
They have no absolute certainty of deliverance, but whether it comes or
not will make no manner of difference to them. They have absolute
certainty as to duty; and so they look the furious tyrant right in the
eyes, and quietly say, 'We will not serve thy gods.' Nothing like that
had ever been heard in those halls.
Duty is sovereign. The obligation to resist all temptations to go
against conscience is unaffected by consequences. There may be hope that
God will not suffer us to be harmed, but whether He does or not should
make no difference to our fixed resolve. That temper of lowly faith and
inflexible faithfulness which these Hebrews showed in the supreme
moment, when they took their lives in their hands, may be as nobly
illustrated in the small difficulties of our peaceful lives. The same
laws shape the curves of the tiny ripples in a basin and of the Atlantic
rollers. No man who cannot say 'I will not' in the face of frowns and
dangers, be they what they may, and stick to it, will do his part, He
who has conquered regard for personal consequences, and does not let
them deflect his course a hairsbreadth, is lord of the world.
How small Nebuchadnezzar was by the side of his three victims! How empty
his threats to men who cared nothing whether they burned or not, so long
as they did not apostatise! What can the world do against a man who
says, 'It is all one to me whether I live or die; I will not worship at
your shrines?' The fire of the furnace is but painted flames to such an
one.
The savage punishment intended for the audacious rebels is abundantly
confirmed as common in Babylon by the inscriptions, which may be seen
quoted by many commentators. The narrative is exceedingly graphic. We
see the furious king, with features inflamed with passion. We hear his
hoarse, angry orders to heat the furnace seven times hotter, which he
forgot would be a mercy, as shortening the victims' agonies. We see the
swift execution of the commands, and the unresisting martyrs bound as
they stood, and dragged away by the soldiers to the near furnace, the
king following. Its shape is a matter of doubt. Probably the three were
thrown in from above, and so the soldiers were caught by the flames.
'And these three men ... fell down bound into the midst of the burning
fiery furnace' Their helplessness and desperate condition are
pathetically suggested by that picture, which might well be supposed to
be the last of them that mortal eyes would see. Down into the glowing
mass, like chips of wood into Vesuvius, they sank. The king sitting
watching, to glut his fury by the sight of their end, had some way of
looking into the core of the flames.
The story shifts its point of view with very picturesque abruptness
after verse 23. The vaunting king shall tell what he saw, and thereby
convict himself of insolent folly in challenging 'any god' to deliver
out of his hand. He alone seems to have seen the sight, which he tells
to his courtiers. The bonds were gone, and the men walking free in the
fire, as if it had been their element. Three went in bound, four walk
there at large; and the fourth is 'like a son of the gods,' by which
expression Nebuchadnezzar can have meant nothing more than he had
learned from his religion; namely, that the gods had offspring of
superhuman dignity. He calls the same person an angel in Daniel iii. 28.
He speaks there as the three would have spoken, and here as Babylonian
mythology spoke.
But the great lesson to be gathered from this miracle of deliverance is
simply that men who sacrifice themselves for God find in the sacrifice
abundant blessing. They may, or may not, be delivered from the external
danger. Peter was brought out of prison the night before his intended
martyrdom; James, the brother of John, was slain with the sword, but God
was equally near to both, and both were equally delivered from 'Herod
and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.' The disposal of
the outward event is in His hands, and is a comparatively small matter.
But no furnace into which a man goes because he will be true to God, and
will not yield up his conscience, is a tenth part so hot as it seems,
and it will do no real harm. The fire burns bonds, but not Christ's
servants, consuming many things that entangled, and setting them free.
'I will walk at liberty: for I seek Thy precepts'--even if we have to
walk in the furnace. No trials faced in obedience to God will be borne
alone. 'When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; ...
when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.'
The form which Nebuchadnezzar saw amid the flame, as invested with more
than human majesty, may have been but one of the ministering spirits
sent forth to minister to the martyrs--the embodiment of the divine
power which kept the flames from kindling upon them. But we have Jesus
for our Companion in all trials, and His presence makes it possible for
us to pass over hot ploughshares with unblistered feet; to bathe our
hands in fire and not feel the pain; to accept the sorest consequences
of fidelity to Him, and count them as 'not worthy to be compared with
the glory which shall be revealed,' and is made more glorious through
these light afflictions. A present Christ will never fail His servants,
and will make the furnace cool even when its fire is fiercest.