Daniel In Babylon

Part 5. Ordeal by Fire

The story of the three Hebrews who were cast alive into a fiery furnace on account of their refusal to fall down before a pagan idol is one of the classics of Biblical literature. The miracle is so apparently marvellous that men have not hesitated to put the story down as a figurative presentation of Israel’s faithfulness to the one true God in all the afflictions suffered at the hands of her Greek and Roman oppressors. But the story in Daniel is older by far than the empires of Greece and Rome. It bears within itself the evidence of its own authenticity. This thing really did happen. These men really were cast into a burning fiery furnace, and did come out unscathed.

The third chapter of Daniel records the story. It does not give any indication as to when it happened. It is probable, however, that this was after Nebuchadnezzar had ended his wars with Egypt and turned to the city‑building and other peaceful pursuits which occupied the last twenty years of his reign. In that case it would be after the dream of the great image which had been the means of Daniel’s advancement but before the king’s madness. It must have been after Daniel had been elevated to the position of Chief of the Magicians, for only so could he have been exempt himself from the obligation to do homage to the Image.

A great many stirring things had happened since the previous event, the dream of the image, recorded by Daniel. Between chapters 2 and 3 lie some twenty momentous years. About five years after the dream came the death of Jehoiakim and the carrying away of many Israelites into Babylon, as described in 2 Kings 24, Jer.22:18 and Jer.36. It was at this time that Ezekiel, a young man of twenty‑five, was taken there and lived among the Jewish captives at Tel‑Abib. Jehoiachin began his three month’s reign and because of disloyalty to the king of Babylon was taken to that city and imprisoned until the death of Nebuchadnezzar. Eleven years later came the final catastrophe. Zedekiah, also disloyal to his suzerain (overlord), who all this time had, as the "head of gold," (Dan.2:38) held the Divine commission of rulership over the nations, saw the Babylonian armies lay siege to Jerusalem for the last time. This was the final taking into captivity; the city was taken and the Temple demolished. The Book of Lamentations was written to commemorate this disaster in Israel’s history. Obadiah and Habakkuk prophesied at this time, both in Judea. Jeremiah was in Judea also, and in disgrace with king Zedekiah and his court for his continued insistence that God required them to submit to the Babylonian conqueror. Jeremiah’s loyalty to God brought him recognition from an unexpected quarter. According to Jer.39:11‑12, when the city was at last captured, "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say to thee." Jeremiah eventually went to Egypt and died there (as far as is known. The thesis advanced by some to the effect that he afterwards made his way to Ireland and ended his days in the Emerald Isles rests upon arguments which have no place in this treatise). One wonders if Nebuchadnezzar’s concern for Jeremiah was inspired in the first place by Daniel, who, away in Babylon, must have remembered his old friend and teacher and used his influence with the king to ensure his safety.

This third chapter is written in a style quite unlike that of the rest of the book. There is a fulsomeness and exaggeration in the use of the words, a grandiloquent and somewhat monotonous repetition of phrases, which is not at all characteristic of the reverent, straightforward literary style of Daniel. This story reads for all the world like the native Babylonian literature of which so many examples are still in existence. It might be that here we have the Babylonian official record of the happening, originally written in cuneiform characters on a clay tablet, and copied from the official archives by Daniel for incorporation in his book. There is a strong argument here against the assertion of those critics who brand the book as a kind of "historical fiction" written several centuries after Nebuchadnezzar’s time.

We do not know the precise nature of this image of gold which the king set up in the plain of Dura. It has been suggested that it was a replica of the metallic image seen previously in the dream which Daniel interpreted. That is improbable—had it been so, the king would have been much more likely to have constructed it of the four metals he saw in that dream, gold, silver, bronze, and iron. There is greater reason for thinking that it was an image of Nebuchadnezzar’s favourite deity Bel. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus says that there was a golden image of Bel forty feet high in the Temple at Babylon, and Herodotus also mentions a similar image. Such images were usually hollow, for the ancients were expert at casting hollow statues in metal. The sixty cubits height of the Biblical image is equivalent to an English measure of fifty‑five feet, all objects of gold being measured by a special cubit of a little under eleven inches, and since the width is given as six cubits, or five feet six, and the height of a human figure of that width could not exceed about twenty‑five feet, it would seem that the figure was placed upon a lofty pedestal so that it could be seen at a distance, and Daniel records the full height.

It is thought that the Plain of Dura was on the south side of the city, alongside the river. Such a site for this colossal statue would render it a prominent object to be seen by seamen and travellers as they came up the river from the sea, creating an impression something like that now afforded by the sight of the statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York Harbour. In this fashion Bel, the patron deity of Babylon, would be honoured in the eyes of all men in front of his own city. The proclamation to "all peoples, nations and languages" to fall down and worship at the sound of the music must be understood, of course, as applying only to the vast concourse of people attending the ceremony. Since Babylon always held numbers of people from other nations, gathered there in connection with their trading enterprises, the proclamation was literally true.

The sun blazed down from the clear sky upon a vast crowd embracing members of almost every known nationality on earth. Native Babylonians, city dwellers and country labourers, rubbed shoulders with captives from other lands, Jews and Syrians and Elamites, free‑roving sons of the desert, Arabs and Sabeans, traders and merchants from Phoenicia and India; an assemblage of black and brown, yellow, and white skins, the whole making a colourful mass of humanity. Near the image stood governmental officials and the various orders of priesthoods, amongst the former being the three Hebrew men who, according to Dan.2:49, had been appointed to positions of authority in the realm of Babylon. In all that vast concourse there were two, and two only, who were not expected to bow down when the signal was given. One was Nebuchadnezzar, the Head of the State, and the other was Daniel, the Chief of all the priesthoods and wise men. According to the Babylon mythology, these two men between them represented the heavenly powers, and would not be called upon to participate in an act of obeisance which was incumbent upon all others.

The dedication ceremony proceeded; the herald cried his announcement and, doubtless after a long succession of prayers and incantations in which the priests of all the leading gods had their part, the climax of the ritual was reached. Music rose upon the air and the whole vast concourse, taking its cue from the officials near the image, prostrated in adoration. It must have been a peculiarly gratifying moment for the king, for Nebuchadnezzar is known to have been especially interested in the introduction of public congregational worship amongst his subjects—a thing unknown in previous times.

Three remained standing—three men, who although high in rank in the national government, would neither serve that country’s gods nor worship the image the king had set up. It is evident that their defection had passed unnoticed by the king—three men in that vast assembly could easily have gone unperceived—but others were on the watch. Some of the Chaldeans, men of the priestly caste, jealous of these three Jews’ position and resentful of their scorn of the Chaldean gods, saw their opportunity and quickly acquainted the king with the facts. It is noteworthy that they added a crime which was not included in the herald’s announcement. "They serve not thy gods..." (Dan.3:12) It is here that we perceive evidence of the king’s growing pride and arrogance, which later was to plunge him into such terrible humiliation. He would brook no opposition to his demands, and, we read, "the form of his visage was changed" (Dan.3:19) against these three who had dared to flout his will.

It is not necessary to assume that the dedication ceremony was broken off whilst the three men were being dealt with. Probably the complaint itself was made when the ceremony was over and the crowds were beginning to disperse. The complainants could hardly have left their places to accost the king at a time when he was the central figure in an important religious ritual. We can imagine; therefore, the subsequent scenes being enacted within a smaller circle composed of Court officials, priests and the military guards.

The option was brutal. The three Hebrews could either bow down and worship at the sound of music, or be cast alive into the furnace: "And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" (v.15) The passionate and ungovernable nature of the king is well displayed in these few verses. By contrast the calm declaration of the threatened men is inspiring. "We are not careful (i.e. we are not possessed by anxiety) to answer thee in this matter." (v.16) If God wills to deliver us, He will do so; and if He wills not to deliver, we are his servants. We will not worship.

So they were bound in all their official robes and insignia of office and cast immediately into the burning fiery furnace; and the heat thereof was so great that the men who cast them in themselves died from the flames and heat to which they had perforce (inevitably) exposed themselves.

The furnace was probably one that was normally used for the smelting of iron or copper from crude ore. The extraction and working of metal goes back very far in the history of man, the Bible telling us that it was practised by the ante‑diluvians, for Tubal‑cain, of the race of Cain, in the eighth generation from Adam was the first man to work in copper and iron. (Gen.4:22) The blast furnace, in which metallic ore is smelted by intense heat in order to extract the pure metal, is a very old invention and relics of such furnaces dating back two, three or four thousand years have been found in Mesopotamia and India, and were evidently in use in Egypt, for they are depicted on certain tomb wall paintings there. Reference to Egyptian blast furnaces is made in three places in the Old Testament. (Deut.4:20; 1 Kings 8:51; Jer.11:4) They were built of thick brick walls faced with clay treated so as to withstand the intense heat, with an opening at the top through which the flames and heat escaped, and another opening at the bottom closed by a door, through which the molten metal ran out into prepared moulds, and the clinker and refuse could be periodically removed. Huge bellows worked by a number of men provided a forced air draught to maintain the high temperature. The fuel used was charcoal, or more probably coal, for timber was not plentiful in the Euphrates plains, whilst coal was, and is still, easily worked from surface seams in the northern mountains.

An indication of the extent to which such furnaces were then in use is afforded by the fact that when Khorsabad, a suburb of Nineveh, was excavated during the nineteenth century, a stock of one hundred and fifty tons of iron ingots ready for working up into articles of commerce was discovered. They had lain there since the destruction of Nineveh in Nebuchadnezzar’s own day. There is in existence also a clay tablet invoice from an unknown Babylonian blacksmith of several centuries before Abraham, setting out his account for the forging of certain bronze weapons.

The accuracy of the narrative is very striking here. The furnace was heated to seven times its usual heat. One can picture the bellows of men straining at their levers and blowing up the white‑hot mass to a temperature far exceeding the usual. From the top of the furnace, probably fifteen or twenty feet above the ground, the flames streamed out with a deafening blast. The Scripture says, they "fell down bound into the midst of the... furnace." (v.23) They were carried up to the platform around the top and thrown into the yawning opening, falling down to the bed of burning fuel beneath. But say our translators rather quaintly, "because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men" who cast them in. (v.22) Either they were overcome by the excessive heat at the furnace mouth, and fell in after their victims and were destroyed, or what is perhaps more likely, the flames streaming out ignited their clothing and they were burned to death before help could be brought.

The lower door had evidently been opened and the king had stationed himself at a respectful distance in order to observe the execution of his sentence. What he did see gravely disturbed him and he rose up from his seat in some agitation. He had expected to watch three bound bodies fall into the fire from above and be quickly consumed. He saw, instead, four men, loose, walking in the midst of the fire—and, said he in a hushed tone to his courtiers, who evidently were not placed so that they too could see into the furnace, "the form of the fourth is like to a son of the gods." (v.25)

It is a pity that our translators rebelled at this piece of unadulterated paganism and rendered this phrase "the son of God," (KJV) using capital letters into the bargain, so that the English reader instinctively thinks of our Lord Jesus Christ, and pictures His presence with the three Hebrews in the fire. Nebuchadnezzar knew nothing of Jesus Christ—and, at that time, very little of the true God. The Hebrew phrase is "a son of the gods" and by this term the king meant one of the guardian spirits in Babylonian mythology who were thought to be the special messengers of the gods in their dealings with men. No wonder that he was awe‑stricken. The very action by which he had sought to demonstrate his personal loyalty to the gods had been reproved by them, and a special messenger sent to preserve alive the three men he had condemned to a cruel death. That was the interpretation King Nebuchadnezzar must have placed upon this amazing happening. And in a swift revulsion of feeling he called to the three men to come forth from the furnace. So they came forth, climbing out through the open door as though no furnace raged within, and stepped up to where the king stood, without so much as the hair of their heads singed, or the smell of fire upon them (v.27).

How the story must have run like wildfire through the Jewish communities in Babylon and at Tel‑Abib, fifty miles to the south, where the prophet Ezekiel was conducting his own mission. What a wave of renewed confidence must have swept over the exiles as this great manifestation of the power of their God was added to the signs and wonders which had gone before. The king’s decree must have followed very quickly, proclaiming penalties upon any who spoke against the Most High God, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, for, said the decree somewhat wonderingly, "there is no other God that can deliver after this sort!" (v.29).

Some twenty years after this stirring happening, Ezekiel, by the river of Chebar fifty miles away, saw that glorious vision of the Millennial Kingdom so wonderfully symbolised in the description of the great Temple with its river and trees of life. (Ezek. chaps.40‑48). There is something very fitting in this contrast between the massive image, symbolic of the pomp and majesty of this world and its false gods, with all men bowed down before it in abject homage, and the saintly prophet of God, quietly sitting upon his mountain, viewing the calm beauty of that coming kingdom which shall never pass away or be destroyed. The image of Bel has long since crumbled into dust and been forgotten and no man now knows what it was like, but the glowing words of the prophet live on, and before our mental vision there stands out plainly the vista of that fair city whose name shall be "The LORD is there." (Ezek.48:35) "So shall all thine enemies perish, O LORD, but the name of the righteous shall endure for ever."

There is a New Testament parallel to this story. It is enshrined in the imagery of the Book of Revelation, where the seer tells of the whole world united in the worship of another image, the "Image of the Beast." All who do not worship the image, he hears, are to be put to death. The only ones to refrain from such worship are the "servants of God," who have been "sealed in their foreheads." In the outcome, as in the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, there is intervention from Heaven. A Rider upon a white horse comes forth and gives battle to all the powers of evil, and the Image, now branded a False Prophet in the eyes of all men (compare Rev.13:14‑18 with Rev.19:20) is cast into the fiery lake and destroyed. There are various detailed interpretations of all this symbolism but the main tenor of the vision is commonly agreed. In the end of the Age there will arise to challenge the incoming Kingdom of God a final and supreme system of power to which nearly all the world will ignorantly give support, the only exceptions being those who are earnest and devoted disciples of the Master. These will pass through fiery experiences and may suffer loss and even death but even so will emerge unscathed. And in the next scene they are shown as riding forth behind their Leader and Captain to establish upon the ruins of that system of which the image has been the head a new one based upon love and righteousness, speaking peace to the people, and ruling the nations with a shepherding rod. The final defeat of the enemies of righteousness at the end of this Age is shown here, and we can as readily accept the assurance of Divine intervention in the world’s extremity at this time as the fact of Divine intervention on that momentous day in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar.

"At that time," says Daniel (12:1) "shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation...and at that time thy people shall be delivered." Daniel’s reference is to Israel’s expected King Messiah, standing up for the overthrow of all evil and the restoration of Daniel’s people, and finds its fulfilment in the long promised Second Advent of Jesus Christ, in the midst of a great time of trouble "such as was not since there was a nation." Jesus used the same expression when talking about his Second Coming. There may be some very definite prophetic truth, therefore, in the sight which met the startled eyes of the Babylonian king. There may—nay, will—come a time in the final phase of this great distress which is now upon all nations when the great men of the world, the kings, politicians, financiers, industrialists, confident that they have given the death blow to the forces which are heralding the New Order of Christ’s Kingdom, will say, "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" And the multitudes submissive as ever, will reply, "True, O king." (Dan.3:24) Then will those kings and politicians and financiers and industrialists tremble exceedingly as they look into that fiery furnace of the world’s trouble and they will say, "Lo, I (we) see four men, loose,...and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

And at that breathless moment in the world’s history the kingdoms of this world will pass under the sovereignty "of our Lord, and of his Christ," (Rev.11:15) and men will know without any possibility of dispute that the Son of God has returned in the glory of his Kingdom.

AOH
To be continued)