Jesus was in the blazing furnace

JESUS WAS IN THE BLAZING FURNACE
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Daniel 3:24-2724Then King Nebuchadnezzarleaped
to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers,
"Weren'tthere three men that we tied up and threw
into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, Your
Majesty." 25He said, "Look! I see four men walking
around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the
fourth looks like a son of the gods."
26Nebuchadnezzar then approachedthe opening of
the blazing furnace and shouted, "Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come
out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego came out of the fire, 27andthe satraps,
prefects, governors and royal adviserscrowded
around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed
their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their
robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire
on them.
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25He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in
the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks
like a son of the gods."
The Unexpected Fruits Of Persecution
Daniel 3:24-27
J.D. Davies
As soonas the fierce tempest in Nebuchadnezzar's mind had expended its
little force, there succeededthe calm of exhaustion. The tyrant is transformed
into a servant, and appears like a docile child. Something has produced a
strange impression on him - perhaps the sudden burning of his own officers,
perhaps the unbending fortitude of the three Hebrews, perhaps the natural
reactionfrom high-wrought excitement. Abandoning royal pomp, he visits
himself the fiery furnace, that he may discern the wreck of human life
wrought by foolishviolence. An unexpected sight awaits him.
I. PERSECUTION IS HARMLESS TO THE SAINTS. Their experience is not
always uniform. God seldom follows preciselythe same course twice. The
bodily life of the oppressedis not always preserved. Yet, in every case, it is
true that no real harm is done to them. Often -
"Persecutionhas draggedthem into fame,
And chasedthem up to heaven." On this occasionthe material flame, though
heated sevenfold, was not nearly so vindictive and deadly as the fiery rage of
the king. He had summoned into his service one of the most destructive
elements of nature, but it would not obey him. The flame did them no harm: it
did them good. It consumedtheir bends; it did not singe their clothes. It gave
them liberty. It brought them new experience. It put a new sceptre into their
hands, and made them kings of nature. They were mightier men than ever. It
admitted them into new society, and brought an angel into their circle. God
himself gave them new evidence of his presence, his tender concernfor them,

and his all-sufficient power, Now it is evident that fire has no consuming
property of its own. It is a property given and maintained by God. All the
forces of nature are like the manuals of an organtouched by a Divine hand.
By faith in God these men "quenched the violence of fire."
II. PERSECUTION OF THE SAINTS GIVES OCCASION FOR THE
MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION OF GOD. All oppositionraised against
God only brings out the greaterresourcesofhis omnipotence. Satan's
oppressionof our race gave scope forthe redemptive miracle. Creationis
miracle, for the like was not before. Providence, which is but a continuous act
of creation, is a miracle. Granting that there is a God, there is nothing
unreasonable in miracle. Whenever God is pleasedto work, if ordinary
methods fail, extraordinary methods are forthwith introduced. No occasionis
more fitting for the introduction of miracle than persecution. God has
identified himself with his people, and injury done to them is resentedas
injury done to him. Nor are we to think only of the miracle wrought on the
material flame or on the living bodies of these men. That is a narrow view of
miracle. There was miraculous agencyalso displayedin the mind, the temper,
and the conduct of these oppressedHebrews. It was not natural that they
should submit to human injustice without a word. It was not natural, but
supernatural, that they showedno vindictive spirit nor indulged in any
language ofpersonal triumph. Their modesty and self-forgetfulnesswere as
miraculous as their faith. With the ending of the persecutioncame the ending
of the angel's visit.
III. PERSECUTIONPATIENTLYENDURED PRODUCESCONVICTION
IN THE UNGODLY. The king himself was overcome by astonishment. He
could not believe the evidence of his eyes. He could scarcelytrust his memory.
Hence he summoned his princes and counsellors to his assistance. He appeals
to their recollections.He requires them to see, to investigate, and to
understand these strange facts for themselves. In their presence the king
himself (not a deputy) entreats these injured Hebrews to come out of the
mystic flame. He prays to them whom just now he cruelly condemned. The
king styles them, not fanatics, miscreants, traitors - he styles them "servants
of the most high God." Yes, of that God whom he had awhile despised. The
proof of Divine succourand of supernatural protection is complete,

undeniable, overwhelming. And, with candour of mind, Nebuchadnezzar
yields himself to the evidence. - D.
Biblical Illustrator
Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire.
Daniel 3:25
Consolationin the Furnace
The narrative of the glorious boldness and marvellous deliverance of the three
holy children, or rather champions, is well calculatedto excite in the minds of
believers firmness and steadfastnessin upholding the truth in the teeth of
tyranny and in the very jaws of death. Let young men especially, since these
were young men, learn from their example both in matters of faith in religion,
and matters of integrity in business, never to sacrifice their consciences. To
have a clearconscience, to weara guileless spirit, to have a heart void of
offence, is greaterriches than the mines of Ophir could yield or the traffic of
Tyre could win. Betteris a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalledox and
inward contentiontherewith. An ounce of heart's-easeis worth a ton of gold;
and a drop of innocence is better than a sea of flattery.
I. The place WHERE GOD'S PEOPLE OFTENARE. In the text we find
three of them in a burning fiery furnace, and singular as this may be literally,
it is no extraordinary thing spiritually, for, to say the truth, it is the usual
place where the saints' are found. The ancients fabled of the salamanderthat
it lived in the fire; the same canbe said of the Christian without any fable
whatever. It is rather a wonder when a Christian is not in trial, for to
wanderers in a wilderness discomfortand privation will naturally be the rule
rather than the exception. It is through "much tribulation" that we inherit the
kingdom.
1. First, there is the furnace which men kindle. As if there were not enough
misery in the world, men are the greatesttormentors to their fellow men. The

elements in all their fury, wild beasts in all their ferocity, and famine and
pestilence in all their horrors, have scarcelyproved such foes to man, as men
themselves have been. Religious animosity is always the worstof all hatreds,
and incites to the most fiendish deeds; persecutionis as unsparing as death,
and as cruel as the grave. At times the Christian feels the heat of the furnace
of open persecution. Another furnace is that of oppression. In the iron furnace
of Egypt the children of Israel were made to do hard bondage in brick and in
mortar; and doubtless many of God's people are in positions where they are
little better than slaves. There is also the furnace of slander.
2. Secondly, there is a furnace which Satan blows with three greatbellows —
some of you have been in it. It is hard to bear, for the prince of the powerof
the air hath greatmastery over human spirits; he knows our weak places, and
can strike so as to cut us to the very quick. He fans the fire with the blast of
temptation. Then he works the secondbellows of accusation. He hisses into the
ear, "Thy sins have destroyed thee! The Lord hath forsakenthee quite! Thy
God will be gracious no more!" Then he will beset us with suggestions of
blasphemy; for while tormenting as with insinuations, he has a way of uttering
foul things againstGod, and then casting them into our hearts as if they were
our own.
3. And thirdly, there is a furnace which God himself prepares for His people.
There is the furnace of physical pain. A furnace still worse, perhaps, is that of
bereavement. Then, added to this, there will crowdin upon us temporal losses
and sufferings. The business which we thought would enrich, impoverishes.
4. The context reminds us that sometimes the Christian is exposedto very
peculiar trials. The furnace was heatedseventimes hotter; it was hot enough
when heated once;but I suppose that Nebuchadnezzar had pitch and tar, and
all kinds of combustibles thrown in to make it flame out with greater
vehemence. Truly at times the Lord appears to deal thus with His people. It is
a peculiarly fierce heat which surrounds them, and they cry out, "Surely I am
the man that hath seenaffliction — I may take precedence ofall others in the
realm of sorrow."

5. I do not like to leave this point without observing, too, that these holy
champions were helpless when thrown into the furnace. They ware castin
bound; and many of us have been castin bound, too, so that we could not lift
hand or foot to help ourselves. Pretty plight to be in! Who does not shudder at
it! Certainly none of us would choose it; but we have not the choice, and as we
have said with David, "Thou shalt choosemine inheritance for me," if the
Lord determines to choose it for us among the coals offire, it is the Lord, lot
Him do what seemethHim good. Where Jehovahplaces His saints they are
safe in reality, although exposedto destruction in appearance.
II. WHAT THEY LOSE THERE. Look at the text, and it will be clearto you
that they lostsomething. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego lost something
in the fire — not their turbans, nor their coats, northeir hosen, nor one hair
of their heads or boards — no; what then?
1. Why, they lost their bonds there. Do observe:"Did not we castthree men
bound into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst
of the fire." The fire did not hurt them, but it snapped their bonds. Blessed
loss this! A true Christian's lossesare gains in another shape. Now, observe
this carefully, that many of God's servants never know the fulness of spiritual
liberty till they are castinto the midst of the furnace. Shall I show you some of
the bonds which God looses forHis people when they are in the fire of human
hatred? Sometimes He bursts the cords of fearof man, and desire to please
man. When persecutionrages, it is wonderful what liberty it gives to the child
of God. Nevera freer tongue than Luther's! Never a braver mouth than that
of John Knox! Nevera bolder speechthan that of John Calvin! Never a
braver heart than that which throbbed beneath the ribs of Wickliffe!
2. Again, when Satanputs us in the furnace, he is often the means of breaking
bonds. How many Christians are bound by the bonds of frames and feelings;
the bonds of depend-once upon something within, insteadof resting upon
Christ the greatSacrifice. Fierce temptations may be like waves that washthe
mariner on a rock — they may drive us nearer to Christ. It is an ill wind
which blows no one any good;but the worstwind that Satan cansend blows
the Christian good, because it hurries him nearer to his Lord. Temptation is a

greatblessing when it looses ourbonds of self-confidence and reliance upon
frames and feelings.
3. As for the afflictions which God sends, do they not loose our bonds? Doubts
and fears are more common to us in the midst of work and business than
when laid aside by sickness.
III. WHAT SAINTS DO THERE. "Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the
midst of the fire." Walking!They are walking — it is a symbol of joy, of ease,
of peace, ofrest — not flitting like unquiet ghosts, as if they were disembodied
spirits traversing the flame; but walking with real footsteps, treading on hot
coals as though they were roses, and smelling the sulphureons flames as
though they yielded nothing but aromatic perfume. Enoch"walkedwith
God." It is the Christian's pace, it is his generalpace;he does sometimes run,
but his generalpace is walking with God, walking in the Spirit; and you see
that these goodmen did not quicken their pace, and they did not slackenit —
they continued to walk as they usually did; they had the same holy calm and
peace ofmind which they enjoyed elsewhere.Theirwalking shows not only
their liberty, and their ease, andtheir pleasure, and their calm, but it shows
their strength. Their sinews ware not snapped, they were walking. These men
had no limping gait, they were walking, walking in the midst of the fire.
IV. WHAT THEY DID NOT LOSE THERE. The text says, "And they have
no hurt." They did not lose anything there.
1. But we may sayof them first, their persons were not hurt. The child of God
loses in the furnace nothing of himself that is worth keeping. He does not lose
his spiritual life — that is immortal; he does not lose his graces — he gets
them refined and multiplied, and the glitter of them is best seenby furnace-
light.
2. The Christian does not lose his garments there. You see their hats, and their
hosen, and their coats were not singed, nor was there the smell of fire upon
them; and so with the Christian: his garment is the beauteous dress which
Christ himself wrought out in His life, and which He dyed in the purple of His
own blood. As it is not hurt by age, nor moth, nor worm, nor mildew, so
neither canit be touched by fire. I know you dread that furnace — who would

not? — but courage, courage,the Lord who permits that furnace to be heated
will preserve you in it, therefore be not dismayed!
V. WHO WAS WITH THEM IN THE FURNACE. There was a fourth, and
he was so bright and glorious that even the heathen eyes of Nebuchadnezzar
could discern a supernatural lustre about him. "The fourth," he said, "is like
the Sonof God," What appearance Christhad put on I cannot tell, which was
recognisable by that heathen monarch; but I suppose that He appearedin a
degree of that glory in which He showedHimself to His servantJohn in the
Apocalypse. You must go into the furnace if you would have the nearestand
dearestdealings with Christ Jesus. Wheneverthe Lord appears, it is to His
people when they are in a militant posture. The richestthought that a
Christian perhaps can live upon is this, that Christ is in the furnace with him.
I know that to the worldling this seems a very poor comfort, but then if you
have never drank this wine you cannot judge its flavour. What must it be to
dwell with everlasting burnings! One's heart beats high at the thought of the
three poor men being thrown into that furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, with its
flaming pitch and bitumen reaching upwards its streamers offlame, as though
it would setthe heavens on a blaze; yet that fire could not touch the three
children, it was not consuming fire. But, be ye warned, there is One who is "a
consuming fire," and once let Him flame forth in anger, and none can deliver
you. He calls to you to leave your sins and look to Him, and then you shall
never die, neither upon you shall the flame of wrath kindle because its power
was spent on Him, and He felt the furnace of Divine wrath, and trod the
glowing coals for every soul that believeth in Him.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Two Aspects of Life
DeanStanley.
Now, what I want to derive from the passageas an illustration is this — that
there are two aspects oflife; one which is here described, as Nebuchadnezzar
describedit to his counsellors, and as they acknowledgedthat it was;and the

other as it appears to the eye of faith, which is representedto us by this king,
who had his eyes opened to see that which apparently his counsellors did not
see. The three men, then, being castinto the furnace of fire, may be taken as
instances of daily commonplace life; that which Nebuchadnezzar himself was
enabled to perceive may be taken as that interpretation and glorificationof
the ordinary facts of everyday life which the Bible, which religion, and which
emphatically Christianity is enabled to castover all the circumstances ofour
existence here. Now this may be takenas a pattern of all the circumstances of
life. There is the ordinary, the commonplace, the matter-of-fact, the prosaic
way of looking at everything; and as things are so lookedat, they show very
much as the natural features of this city do on one of our dull, foggy
November mornings. There is nothing to delight, there is no poetry, there is
no light about them; they all seemdull, and dead, and leaden. But, then, there
is another aspect, and that is such as the king had his eyes open to perceive;
and you observe that what he saw was something totally different from what
things were to the eyes of his counsellors, andfrom what they were as he
thought they must be. He said, "Lo, I see four men." There is another there.
These men are not alone; they are not left to grapple with the violence of the
flame; they have a friend with them; and, moreover, as they were castbound,
so now he perceives that they are loosened, he sees them also walking in the
midst of the fire. Observe that they were there exposedto all these mighty
flames. He allowedthem to go down into them, but they were walking about
in the fire and they had no hurt. So it is with Christian life. The Christian is
not delivered out of temptation; he is not one of those who are never exposed
to trial; there is no exemption wrought on his behalf; he has his lot with other
men; he takes his part with other men; and sometimes his lot and part are
worse than those of other men, or at leastthey appear to be so. But yet he is
enabled to walk about in the midst of the fire. Now there are those persons
who always take the commonplace, matter-of-factview of life, and they are
the tedious people. I know no people so tedious, so difficult to geton with, as
those who always see things in their dull, grey light, preciselyas they are;
whereas those who can throw into the commonplace and into the ordinary the
glamour of a Divine existence and of a higher life, who canthrow poetry into
the scene — those are the people who are interesting, those are the people who
know with whom it is a joy and a privilege to be. Then, again, observe very

often we may be in the midst of danger and not know it. Who can tell how
many dangers he has been preserved from? It is quite possible that many of us
from time to time walk over difficulties and dangers of which we have no
notion, and we probably never discoverthat we have been preserved from
difficulty and danger. Is not this the case withmany of us? Or, on the other
hand, it is possible for us to walk in the midst of danger and to know that we
are in the midst of danger, as these men knew they were;and then sometimes
we are not consciousofthat unseen, invisible protectionwhich is nigh unto us.
Now I want you to learn to see this, to believe in it. We, as Christians, walk by
faith, and not by sight, and there should be no emergencyand no trial into
which the Christian comes in which he should feel himself left alone; he
should always know that there is someone there with him, a mighty friend, the
strongestof the strong, and that the form of that unseenone is like the Son of
God. Oh, it is only the Word of God, it is only the power of religion, it is only
the truth of Christianity and the presence of the grace of God, which can thus
throw .into the ordinary, the dull, and the commonplace the light of the glory
of the Sun of Righteousness, whichtips everything with gold, and makes
everything to shine as with the light of the glory of Kenyon. That, and that
alone, can make life glorious; that, and that alone, cansteelyour heart so that
you may bear up under all opposition, and under all trials, and may quit
yourselves like men in the day of the Lord. That question, "Did we not cast
three men bound into the midst of the fire?" could be answeredonly in one
way — "True, O king!" But it was the grace of God, it was the mystery of the
promise of God and the presence of God which enabled that greatking to say,
"Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, anal they have no
hurt; the smell of the fire has not passedon them. It had no powerto damage
or injure them because there was One with them who was mightier than the
flames, and the form of that fourth Mighty One was like the Son of God."
Now, it is a very remarkable thing that in this Book ofthe Prophet Daniel, the
fourth and last of the four greatprophets, we have such an extraordinary
foretaste, if I may sayso, of the coming Gospelof Jesus Christ. But when the
king here says, "The fourth is like that of the Sonof God." it is impossible,
and we see ourselves that it is impossible, that he canmean one of those
persons who are called by a figure of speech"sons ofGod." He must mean the
Son of God, who is, by eminence and excellence,the only begotten Sonof'

God, the one who is made in God's imago and God's likeness, who is of God
and from God, and who stands in the exact relationto God that a child stands
to his father. Such, then, is the glorificationwhich is offeredto every Christian
for all the times of life. Life, no doubt, for everyone under the most
advantageous circumstances,has its dull aspect. "We allknew what it is to
travel along a road which has no variety, which is nothing but monotonous
from beginning to end, and we feel the effectof such journey on our spirit.
Life has such journeys for us all, even under the most favourable
circumstances. Whatwe want is not to have those circumstances altered —
because it may be that they never will be altered, and certainly when we most
feel their monotony they are not so likely to be altered — but what we want is
something which will make us proof againsttheir dulness and monotony,
something which will give us strength to cope with them, something which will
shed the sunlight of eternalday over the darkness and gloominess ofthe
morning spread upon the mountains, and will kindle for us by it a glorious
day in which and through which we may walk from hour to hour with the
presence ofHim whose form is like that of the Son of God. Now, have you this
presence ofthe Son of God with you? I am quite sure you want Him. I am
sure there is no one whose heart does not yearn after a friend. Sometimes one
solitary friend is worth a mine of wealth to us, and if we have got one such
friend we may count ourselves rich. Now, there is such a friend for every one
of us in the person of the Son of God, who is also the Son of man, "so pitying
found." That Son of man and Son of God is very near to every one of us; and
if we would see Him we must have our eyes open as this greatking's eyes were
opened. It is only by faith that we can behold Him. We are not told that these
three men even knew that there was a fourth with them. It was only given to
one man to see that fourth, and it was only given to him to recognise in Him
the form "like that of the Son of God." The Son of God may be with us now.
He is with us now, because He has promised to be with us. What we want to
make us strong is to know that He is with us, and to feel that the form of that
Son of God is indeed the form of the Son of man, who was crucified for us,
who rose from the dead for us, and who now sitteth at the right hand of God,
evermore to make intercessionforus. But, pray that your eyes may be
opened, that in every want that you have in this life, in every trial and

temptation, you may ever feel that the Son of God and the Son of man is with
you.
(DeanStanley.)
And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. —
Folly of Polytheism and Pantheism
DeanPayne-Smith, D.D.
There can be no confidence nor firm trust where men suppose that there is a
multitude of gods. Forone god may have to yield to another, or may find his
powerlimited by another's dominion. The Greeks ofold believed that there
wore quarrels and feuds and divisions among the inhabitants of their
Olympus, and that one deity might have to sacrifice the interests of his
devotees in order to obtain some concessionfor other favourites. Happy was
Israelof old in the belief in one God, and many were the deeds of heroism
wrought in the strength of this conviction. Nor can there be peace of mind and
calm fortitude where the one god is the mere sum of the being of the universe.
To the pantheist God is not a person, omniscient, omnipresent, almighty, who
sees and knows and takes interestin all he does. To him God is a blind power,
the mere aggregateofthe working of nature and man, of whom he is himself
part, and into whom he will be finally absorbed. Such a deity has no separate
existence, no separate action, no separate knowledge, no personalwill, no
specialsphere of duty. The man may see, but the god, who is the mere sum of
all human and animal seeing, himselfsees not. Man may work, and nature
may employ her physical and vegetative energies, but the sum of all this
working can do nothing. Whateverit be, it has not even an existence for and
in itself, and caninspire no hope, can give man no courage in danger, no
consolationin sorrow, no strength for right action. Such a god is a name, and
not a being, and there is no such thing as responsibility to him. And
absorption into him at death simply means the ceasing to have a separate
existence. In life we are the acting, thinking, energising part of the pantheistic
god, to be absorbedinto him at death is to fall into unconsciousness. In neither

Polytheism nor pantheism is there any nobleness of thought, or anything to
make man better and aid him in becoming godlike on earth. It is
responsibility to an almighty, omniscient, and just Judge which raises man to
the true height of his dignity, as a being endowedby God with free will and a
conscience;and the answerto the question why God has made this world such
as it is, and placedman in a position so full of difficulty, is to be found in the
thought that only by bearing the burden of responsibility can man be made fit
for God's service in Heaven. Here, on earth, men rise in moral worth and
socialinfluence by responsibility rightly borne; and the whole doctrine of a
future judgment, and of eternalrewards and punishments, has for one great
purpose the impressing the minds of men with a sense that they are
responsible to a righteous Judge for all they think and sayand do. It was this
sense ofresponsibility to a personalGod which gave these three Jewish
martyrs their high courage, their strength to resista despotic monarch, their
calmness and joy in the hour of suffering.
(DeanPayne-Smith, D.D.)
The Son of God in the Fiery Furnace
W. F. Adeney, M.A.
The concluding words should read not "the Son of God," but "a Son of God."
Nebuchadnezzarwas a heathen, ignorant of the high religious teachings of the
Jews, andcertainly not acquainted with the Christian doctrine of the second
Personin the Trinity. The fourth figure in the furnace struck him as Divine in
its beauty, majesty, glory, a godlike form.
I. A REVELATION IN A FIERYFURNACE. Whether the startling
appearance were anangel, or Christ before His incarnation, or any other
mode of Divine manifestation, it was in any case a revelationof God.
I. God only needs to be revealedto be seen. He exists always;He is seenat
rare intervals. He is not more existent when seenthan when unseen. The veil
hides His light, but does not extinguish it. All we need is that the veil should be
lifted. Then the ever-presentGod will be recognised.

2. God is revealedin the fiery furnace of trouble. Invisible writing starts into
appearance whenheld to the fire. Characters suddenly flash out in their true
light at seasonsofstorm, terror, and pain. God reveals Himself in critical
moments of agonyand need.
3. The revelation in the fiery furnace is seenby the outside world. The three
youths are not alone favoured with the cheering vision of the Heavenly
presence. Nebuchadnezzaralso seesthe wonderful appearance. Indeed, it is he
only who is expresslystated to have observedthis additional figure in the
furnace. Godwas revealedby means of the faithful Jews, but so that the
heathen world might behold Him. The vision of God in the passionof Christ is
open to the gaze of the world, and may arrest the attention of those who are
blind to the daily revelation of the Divine in nature. May not this fact be an
explanation of the mystery of suffering? We take too narrow and personala
view of the mission of pain. It has larger and wider ends than the sufferer's
own private advantage. Maynot others be called to endure pain that through
the flames that kindle about their own souls the light of Goalmay flash out
upon their fellow-men?
II. DIVINE FELLOWSHIP IN HUMAN TROUBLE.
1. God is with His people in their troubles. He does not only look down from
Heaven. Pity from the serene altitude of perfectbliss may only aggravate the
torture of those who are writhing in the torture-chamber of affliction. But we
are told of God that in all His people's afflictions He is afflicted. Christ came
into the world to suffer with men. He was with St. Stephen in the council
chamber, with St. Paul in the gaolat Philippi.
2. The comforting Divine presence is dependent on the fidelity of God's
people. There are troubles in the midst of which we dare not expectto see the
cheering radiance of our Saviour's countenance. If He appears in them at all,
our consciencestellus that it must be with a look of grief or anger, and a voice
saying, "What doestthou here?" The trouble which we bring upon ourselves
by heedless indifference or culpable disobedience to the will of God invites no
comforting Divine fellowship.

3. The Divine presence in trouble is a security againstall real harm. The cruel
flames play about their would-be victims as harmlessly as forest leaves. Sects
the presence ofChrist and all will be well.
(W. F. Adeney, M.A.)
A Son of God in the Fire
JosephA. Seiss, D.D.
Scepticalcriticismhas railed out againstall this, as showing too much of the
wonderful to be believed. But with the Almighty one thing is no harder than
another. He can make a blazing sun in the heavens with as much ease as make
a daisy in the meadow. Some have urged that it was unfitting the Deity to
show such wonders here. But who can decide what is, and what is not,
becoming to a Being whose thoughts no man can fathom? And when we
considerthat millions of His chosenpeople were then in servitude in that
empire; that the greatobject of their being there was to purge them of their
idolatries; that no ordinary ministries for this purpose existed; that here was a
greatand mighty people that knew not God, destitute of any effectualmeans
of being made acquainted with His superior majesty and power; and that here
was an assemblyof all their heads and chiefs, who would thus be made to see
His signs, and to become the attestors and heralds of the miracle to all parts of
the mighty realm — there certainly would seemto be reason.enoughthat
here and now, if anywhere or ever, the greatestwonders ofthe God of Heaven
should be enacted. Who cansay that there was not ample occasionforjust
such a display of the Eternalomnipotence? And see also the effect. A decree
went forth from the throne to "everypeople, nation, and language," reciting
the wonder, proclaiming the majesty of Jehovah, and forbidding, on pain of
death, the speaking of"anything amiss againstthe God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego." And these men were thenceforwardpromoted and
honoured by the empire as the living witnesses ofthe living God.
(JosephA. Seiss, D.D.)

True Souls
Homilist.
I. IMMENSELYTRIED. "Walking in the midst of the fire."
II. MORALLY UNCONQUERABLE. Notall the influence of the monarch
and his ministers could break their purpose, or make them unfaithful to God.
You can't conquer a true soul.
III. ESSENTIALLY UNINJURABLE. "And they have no hurt." "Who is that
will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good!" "Fearnot him that
can kill the body."
IV. DIVINELY ACCOMPANIED. "The form of the fourth is like the Sonof
God." What a sight for the monarch! Did it not rouse his conscience, think
you? God always accompaniesHis people. "Lo, I am with you alway."
(Homilist.)
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego
The Thinker.
I. THEIR TEMPTATION.
II. THEIR FAITHFULNESS.
1. They stoodalone (v. 7). Might they not fall in with the current and perform
the outward actwith inward reserve?
2. Then the terrible alternative: "Ye shall be castthe same hour into the midst
of a burning fiery furnace" (Daniel 3:15). Nothing more calculatedto inspire
terror. But, like St. , they "preferred the fire which lasts an hour and then
cools, to the perpetual torment of eternal fire." In the same way, the Christian
martyrs, St. Lawrence and others, were prepared to undergo terrible tortures
of gridiron and flame rather than lose the favour of God by denying Christ.
But these "three children" were faithful in the days of the old covenant, when

God's love to man had not been made known by Christ, nor did the Spirit of
God as yet personallydwell among men; this accentuatestheir courage.
3. Then note their readiness to endure the torture.
III. THEIR RESCUE.
1. It was miraculous. An old writer enumerates eight miracles in this lesson;
but, without going into minutiae, that they were not consumedby the flames
could certainly only be owing to Divine intervention.
2. It was the fulfilment of prophecy, "When thou walkestthrough the fire,
thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isaiah
43:2). "The flame," says St. , "setfree the captive, and itself was bound by the
captive." The reality of the fire was shownby the molten chains; and the
deaths of those who castthe three children into the flames; but the Divine
promise was evidencedby their preservation.
3. The mode of the rescue was through the instrumentality of an angel: "The
form of the fourth is like the Son of God";"a sonof the gods" (R.V.), that is,
an angel. Some ancientinterpreters thought Christ Himself was here meant (,
St. ), of whom Nebuchadnezzar had heard from Daniel, and thus it would be
classedwith the "theophanies";but St. says, "It was in truth an angel." The
visible presence ofthe angel was proof to the king that the deliverance of the
three youths was the result of God's protection, and from no deception.
Similarly, God delivered Jerusalemfrom the power of the Assyrians by the
ministry of an angel(2 Kings 19:35);the Apostles from prison (Acts 5:19; Acts
12:7); and St. John from the cauldron of flaming oil.
4. The deliverance was complete. Completeness marks all the works of God.
There are no half-measures or imperfect contrivances — only the chains are
destroyed, not their garments, nor their hair singed, nor the smell of fire had
passedupon them (v. 27).
IV. LESSONS.
1. Temptation may be strong, but faithfulness to conscienceshouldbe
stronger. Temptation, though strong, is never overwhelming or an excuse for

sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). The three children were faithful unto death; they
were, like St. John, martyrs in will (Revelation2:10).
2. What Nebuchadnezzardesigned is unconsciouslycarriedout by multitudes
amongstourselves. Theyfall down before the golden image;they worship
wealth, and make a god Of "the mammon of unrighteousness";and this
covetousness "is idolatry" (Colossians3:5; Ephesians 5:5).
3. Let us admire and imitate the courage of the three children in disobeying
the royal mandate, and take the side of Christ and His Church, if ever
obedience to the powers of the world should involve a violation of the Laws of
God.
4. Let us rejoice in the Divine deliverance. "The angelof the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them" (Psalm 34:7). The
furnace of Nebuchadnezzar is an image of the "fiery trial" of persecution, of
sensualpassion, and of affliction; but to those who are faithful, like the three
children, temptation and tribulation are times of Divine manifestation, of
refinement and election, and of more entire self-surrender. "Behold, I have
refined thee, but not as silver; I have chosenthee in the furnace of affliction"
(Isaiah 48:10, R.V.).
(The Thinker.)
The Three Children in the Furnace
Anon.
This transactionis typical. It sets forth the security of God's saints in the hour
of their greatestperil — togetherwith the reasonof that security. Fire
represents trial, persecution, for fire consumes, devours, destroys. A furnace
is the very image of destruction in its wildestshape. To have fallen down
bound into such a furnace, and straightwayto be seenwalking about there
loose, is the liveliest picture possible of perfect security amid tremendous
danger. The presence of a companion, and he the Son of God, explains the rest

of the marvel, for it accounts forthat safety which before was simply
inexplicable.
1. In every trial the victory is promised to faith; the same faith which on the
plain of Dura "quenchedthe violence of fire."
2. The fire of temptation is illustrated by the security of the three children in
the furnace. The man is safe, because the Lord is with him.
3. We are here taught to behold the safetyof God's electchildren in that
tremendous day when "the Lord Jesus shallbe revealedfrom heaven with his
mighty angels in flaming fire." God Almighty so preserve us in adversity; so
be with us amid temptation; so absolve us in that tremendous day — even for
His own mercy's sake!
(Anon.)
The Divine Presence in the Fire
W. Boyd-Carpenter, D.D.
This story has a far-reaching suggestiveness. It represents an oft-repeated
conflict. It stands as the picture of man in the face of the fierce elements which
oppose him — man in his agony, man in his heroism, man, also, in his
consolation. It does not need much insight to perceive one aspectof the
universality of the story. Man and the fire — that is life. All too soonwe say,
man is thrust into the fire of pain and suffering. It needs some insight, or some
reflection, to perceive the other aspectof its universality. If man and the fire
shall be described as life, man and the fire and the Divine presence walking
with man in the fire — that is religion. It is something that we are given the
powerof perceiving a greaterthan man with man in the fire. Look againat
man in the fire. I take man first as an intellectual being. It is by reasonof the
understanding which the beasts do not possessthat there comes an added
keenness to human suffering. We have memory, we have anticipation; and out
of these come fierce fires to increase our agony. Pain, which comes to the sons
of men, comes with an appealto their consciousness. Mancananticipate, and

he knows that the pain which enters into his life to-day is the indication of
something which is working there, and he lives in constantdread of its
recurrence. From memory and anticipation there comes the agonyof
retrospectand the agonyof suspense. Bythe very law of our intellectual being
we suffer more than the beasts. But would you part with it? Though you know
that the capacities with which you are endowedmake you capable of the
greatersuffering, you will not forego the painful gifts. It is precisely as we
grow in the scale ofbeing that our powerof suffering grows with it. We are
reasonable beings, and because we are so we suffer the more. Take man as a
moral being. These Hebrews suffered because oftheir allegiance to a law
higher than the law of self-preservation. Why. is it that a man who is
conscientious must suffer? It is just because he is conscientious.He cannot
demoralize himself, and the law within asserts itself, and makes him face the
greaterpain. But this proclaims his greatness.He is the greaterbecause he is
the witness to a law which is larger, truer, deeperthan any of the outside laws
that touch the physical world. In another way his sense of right makes him
suffer. He must do right, though the world frown, because the Divine law
within him is asserting itself over the law outside. His suffering springs from
this — his capacityto understand the allegiance whichhe owes to the higher
law. Take man as a spiritual being. Men, in the history of religion, have
exhibited a spiritual conscientiousness.There are things which, though not
wrong, are wrong to them. The cause is within themselves. Others cannot
understand. The man has recogniseda law of his being, which is deeperthan
the law of the Decalogue. Whateverseemsto him to drag him down is wrong
for him, because hostile to his better life. He is grieved with anything which
hinders the spiritual development of his being. In all this the Lord Jesus is our
model. Mark Him in His temptation; see the moral standard. Suffering seems
to me as Heaven's subpoena, compelling men to bear witness to the Divine
which is within, and underneath, to the eternal laws of right, and to the
manifestation of a presence like unto the Son of God. What shall be the law by
which a man shall pass through the fire, and the smell of fire shall not pass
upon him? How few having gone into the fire of life come out unsinged,
untouched, the smell of fire not passing on them! Are not men tainted so that
you know that they have suffered? They have been singed in the fire. How
noble and greatseemthe few souls that pass through the fire and come forth

unharmed! They are the men who held their own in the battle! What is the
law? In every universal thing there is some law. The men at whose side the
Son of God walks, who are triumphant over the fierceness ofthe flame, are
the men who have had a victory previous to that. Their victory over the fire
was precededby their victory over the multitude. They would not bow down.
We must go back further. These men have first been victors over themselves.
The man who is victorious over self is the man who is victorious over the
world; and the man who is victorious over the world is victorious over the fire
that is in the world. That is the law. But when you have discovereda law you
are very far from having discoveredall you need. Is is not always easyto put
the law into operation. What force is at work behind law? In the midst of the
fire there was revealeda fourth figure, and his form was like unto the Sonof
God. In the midst of the fire was the Divine presence. The motive force was
the Divine energy, the Divine life, the Divine presence. The law of successis
self-control, but the powerto make the law effective is in the Divine presence.
Life has little meaning unless I recognise thatwhereverthe fire is kindled,
there the Divine presence is also. To recognisethat is the part of faith; to work
and live by that is the power of faith. Another question this truth may answer.
We are called upon to suffer, and who will unriddle its pain? The pain is given
that the Divine may be made manifest. The cross was to be the symbol of the
world's agony, and of the Divine presence also...Thenlet us cultivate self-
control as a protest againstthe frivolity of life which destroys the heart,
againstthe sensuality of life that corrupts the conscience, againstthe
intellectual dishonesty which disturbs the pure vision of what life ought to be.
As we do this, we shall not be alone. He who wore our nature walkedbefore us
in the ways of suffering. When the flame shall kindle upon us He will be with
us.
(W. Boyd-Carpenter, D.D.)
Standing Fire
G. T. Coster.

I. THEIR PREPARATION FOR THE DAY OF TRIAL. It came not
unawares. Duty is easywhen no lion is in the way. In the narrative we only see
the valiant three in the day of trial. Their heart was fixed before it came. With
no wavering mind went they out to the plain of Dura. They stoodin the evil
day because they were wellprepared, well-equipped for it. Great men are not
known by the world till they are great. So trials are to come on us; sharp
temptations. They will revealour character, ofwhat sort it is. Let us every day
be pure, unselfish, Christ-trusting, Christ-copying men. Then every day will
be a preparation for the terrible time when temptation will assailus like fire;
and we shall stand in the evil day.
II. THE CONDUCT OF THE THREE IN THE DAY OF TRIAL. They stood
in apparent isolation. To do goodis easierwhen we go with the multitude. But
when we stand alone, then is the agony. Alone, yet not alone. Christ is the
maker of greatmen, great hearts. Many a young man He is making brave,
daring to stand alone amid terrible temptations to impurity.
III. THEIR DELIVERANCE IN THE DAY OF TRIAL. The king's eye is on
the furnace, and he sees a fourth, one looking like a son of the gods. We
identify with the angel Jehovahthe messengerofthe covenant. Christ's
presence canmake even a furnace into paradise. Their deliverer was strong.
He will be ours, and save us, if we seek it, from sin, all evil, all that will harm
us. Then trust in Him.
(G. T. Coster.)
A Sermon to Firemen
Gordon Calthrop, M.A.
The events here recordedprobably occurredin the eighteenthyear of
Nebuchadnezzar. He had just returned from triumphant war, bringing with
him the spoil of subjugated nations, and captives without number. At this
juncture he was inclined to make a pause. He thought the time was come for
the inauguration of a new era. First, however, he must be certainof the
allegiance ofthese races. The foundation must be firmly laid before he

proceeds to erectthe superstructure on it. So he decided on the ceremonial
which took place on the vast plain of Dura. He was knownto be a devout man
in his way; an enthusiastic worshipper of his god Merodach. The ceremony
was no mere idle pageant;it was not only a matter of state policy, it was an act
of gratitude, due to the deity to whom he believed himself to owe his victories
and his throne. It is well to bear this in mind if we would enter into the real
difficulties of both the monarch and his recalcitrantJewishmonarchs. The
line of conduct to which the three Jews felt themselves compelledwas looked
on by Nebuchadnezzaras open rebellion, and an insult both to himself and his
god. These Jews had a most painful and distressing alternative before them —
either to actin opposition to their own deepestconvictions by worshipping an
idol, or else to submit to a horrible death. We can imagine their mutual
anxiety, conference, and prayer. When the public refusal was made the
monarch was infuriated. To be bearded by his own officials at such a moment,
in presence of such a multitude, would have tried the patience of more patient
men than he was. He had a passionate temper. The king felt that he was
committed to a struggle with the God of the Hebrews.
1. We are inclined to praise the indomitable resolution of these young men;
but we must go behind them, and realise their trust in the unseen Jehovah,
and in the promises of His word. It was that made them manly. The three
young men found their way into a spiritual position, which enabled them to
endure the wrath of the king, because they could see a greater, althoughan
invisible King behind him.
2. In this chapter we have a duel betweenthe world-powerand the Lord God
himself. We have in it the Church of God almost at its lowestebb. We have
the world in all the plenitude of its power, and in all the insolence of its
authority. Can we over-estimate the value of such a testimony as this to the
faithfulness of God? Take awaythis story of the three children from the Bible,
and how infinitely greatwould have been the church's loss!
3. A thought for ourselves. In some shape we may all of us have to pass
through the fire. Any one of us may be tried by the seductions of his senses;
the snares ofbusiness life, bitter loss and dissappiontment, or the keenedge of
long-protractedbodily agony. Let us see to it that we have with us, as we may

have, the presence of the personalChrist, of Jesus the greatHigh Priest, the
Angel of the Covenant. Then we shall pass through the flame, and it will not
gather upon nor burn us. So shall we, in our small way, bring glory to God
and strength be ether people.
(Gordon Calthrop, M.A.)
Safetywith the Masterof the Elements
J. Cumming.
The flame recogisedthe presence ofHim that made it, and bowedreverently
before the Son of God, just as on other occasions the waters of the sea owned
Him, the winds heard Him, and all nature responded to Him, and obeyed
Him. The flame lostits powerto consume, because it was commanded not to
do so by Him that kindled it at the first. Nature is all pliant in the hand of
Jesus. He is the Lord of creation; He has but to speak, andall things will
respond in ten thousand echoes, "Speak,Lord thy servants hear." These
Hebrew youths, we are told by the apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews,
"quenched the violence of fire" by their faith.
(J. Cumming.)
Jesus with us in the Hour of Trouble
Thou wilt not, Christian, have to pass through the river without thy Master.
We remember an old tale of our boyhood, how poor RobinsonCrusoe,
wreckedona foreign strand, rejoicedwhen he saw the print of a man's foot.
So it is with the Christian in his trouble; he shall not despair in a desolate
land, because there is the foot-print of Christ Jesus onall our temptations, our
troubles. Go on rejoicing, Christian; thou art in an inhabited country; thy
Jesus is with thee in all thy afflictions, and in all thy woes. Thoushalt never
have to tread the wine-press alone.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)

COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(25) The Sonof God.—Thesewords, letus remember, are uttered by a
heathen king, who calls this same Person, in Daniel3:28, “an angel” ofthe
God whom the three children worshipped. Probably Nebuchadnezzar thought
that He stood to Jehovahin the same relation that he himself did to
Merodach. His conceptions ofthe powerof Jehovah were evidently raisedby
what he had witnessed, though as yet he does not recogniseHim as being more
than a chief among gods. He has not risen to that conceptionof the unity of
God which is essentialto His absolute supremacy. But still the question has to
be answered, What did the king see? The early Patristic interpretation was
that. it was none other than Christ Himself. We have no means of ascertaining
anything further, and must be content with knowing that the same “Angel of
God’s presence” who was with Israel in the wilderness watchedoverthe
people in Babylon.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
3:19-27 Let Nebuchadnezzar heat his furnace as hot as he can, a few minutes
will finish the torment of those castinto it; but hell-fire tortures, and yet does
not kill. Those who worshipped the beastand his image, have no rest, no
pause, no moment free from pain, Re 14:10,11. Now was fulfilled in the letter
that greatpromise, Isa 43:2, When thou walkestthrough the fire, thou shalt
not be burned. Leaving it to that Godwho preserved them in the fire, to bring
them out, they walkedup and down in the midst, supported and encouraged
by the presence ofthe Son of God. Those who suffer for Christ, have his
presence in their sufferings, even in the fiery furnace, and in the valley of the
shadow of death. Nebuchadnezzar owns them for servants of the most high
God; a God able to deliver them out of his hand. It is our God only is the
consuming fire, Heb 12:29. Could we but see into the eternal world, we should

behold the persecutedbeliever safe from the malice of his foes, while they are
exposedto the wrath of God, and tormented in unquenchable fires.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
He answeredand said, Lo, I see four men loose - From the fact that he saw
these men now loose, andthat this filled him with so much surprise, it may be
presumed that they had been bound with something that was not combustible
- with some sort of fetters or chains. In that case it would be a matter of
surprise that they should be "loose," eventhough they could survive the
actionof the fire. The "fourth" personage now so mysteriously added to their
number, it is evident, assumedthe appearance ofa "man," and not the
appearance ofa celestialbeing, though it was the aspectof a man so noble and
majestic that he deservedto be calleda son of God.
Walking in the midst of the fire - The furnace, therefore, was large, so that
those who were in it could walk about. The vision must have been sublime;
and it is a beautiful image of the children of God often walking unhurt amidst
dangers, safe beneaththe Divine protection.
And they have no hurt - Margin, "There is no hurt in them." They walk
unharmed amidst the flames. Of course, the king judged in this only from
appearances,but the result Daniel 3:27 showedthat it was really so.
And the form of the fourth - Chaldee, (‫הור‬ rēvēh) - "his appearance" (from
‫האר‬ râ'âh - "to see");that is, he "seemed" to be a sonof God; he "looked" like
a son of God. The word does not refer to anything specialorpeculiar in his
"form" or "figure," but it may be supposedto denote something that was
noble or majestic in his mien; something in his countenance and demeanour
that declaredhim to be of heavenly origin.
Like the sonof God - There are two inquiries which arise in regardto this
expression:one is, what was the idea denoted by the phrase as used by the
king, or who did he take this personage to be? the other, who he actually was?
In regard to the former inquiry, it may be observed, that there is no evidence
that the king referred to him to whom this title is so frequently applied in the
New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is clear

(1) because there is no reasonto believe that the king had "any" knowledge
whateverthat there would be on earth one to whom this title might be
appropriately given;
(2) there is no evidence that the title was then commonly given to the Messiah
by the Jews, or, if it was, that the king of Babylon was so versedin Jewish
theologyas to be acquainted with it; and
(3) the language which he uses does not necessarilyimply that, even "if" he
were acquainted with the fact that there was a prevailing expectationthat
such a being would appearon the earth, he designedso to use it.
The insertion of the article "the," which is not in the Chaldee, gives a different
impression from what the originalwould if literally interpreted. There is
nothing in the Chaldee to limit it to "any" "sonof God," or to designate
anyone to whom that term could be applied as peculiarly intended. It would
seemprobable that our translators meant to convey the idea that ""the" Son
of God" peculiarly was intended, and doubtless they regardedthis as one of
his appearancesto men before his incarnation; but it is clearthat no such
conceptionentered into the mind of the king of Babylon. The Chaldee is
simply, ‫רבר‬ ‫איחלא‬ ‫ימה‬ dâmēh lebar 'ĕlâhı̂yn - "like to A son of God," or to a
son of the gods - since the word ‫איחלא‬ 'ĕlâhı̂yn (Chaldee), or ‫אירלא‬ 'ĕlohı̂ym
(Hebrew), though often, and indeed usually applied to the true God, is in the
plural number, and in the mouth of a pagan would properly be used to denote
the gods that he worshipped.
The article is not prefixed to the word "son," and the language would apply to
anyone who might properly be calleda son of God. The Vulgate has literally
rendered it, "like to A son of God" - similis filio Dei; the Greek in the same
way - ὁμοία ὑιῷ θεοῦ homoia huiō theou; the Syriac is like the Chaldee;
Castellio renders it, quartus formam habet Deo nati similem - "the fourth has
a form resembling one born of God;" Coverdale "the fourth is like an angelto
look upon;" Luther, more definitely, und der vierte ist gleich, als ware er ein
Sohn der Gotter- "and the fourth as if he might be "a" sonof the gods." It is
clearthat the authors of none of the other versions had the idea which our
translators supposedto be conveyedby the text, and which implies that the

Babylonian monarch "supposed" that the personwhom he saw was the one
who afterwardbecame incarnate for our redemption.
In accordance withthe common well-knownusage ofthe word "son" in the
Hebrew and Chaldee languages,it would denote anyone who had a
"resemblance"to another, and would be applied to any being who was of a
majestic or dignified appearance, andwho seemedworthy to be ranked
among the gods. It was usual among the pagan to suppose that the gods often
appearedin a human form, and probably Nebuchadnezzar regardedthis as
some such celestialappearance. If it be supposed that he regardedit as some
manifestation connectedwith the "Hebrew" form of religion, the most that
would probably occurto him would be, that it was some "angelic" being
appearing now for the protectionof these worshippers of Jehovah. But a
secondinquiry, and one that is not so easily answered, in regard to this
mysterious personage,arises.Who in fact "was" this being that appeared in
the furnace for the protectionof these three persecutedmen?
Was it an angel, or was it the secondpersonof the Trinity, "the" Son of God?
That this was the Son of God - the secondpersonof the Trinity, who
afterward became incarnate, has been quite a common opinion of expositors.
So it was held by Tertullian, by Augustine, and by Hilary, among the fathers;
and so it has been held by Gill, Clarius, and others, among the moderns. Of
those who have maintained that it was Christ, some have supposed that
Nebuchadnezzarhad been made acquaintedwith the belief of the Hebrews in
regard to the Messiah;others, that he spoke under the influence of the Holy
Spirit, without being fully aware of what his words imported, as Caiaphas,
Saul, Pilate, and others have done. - Poole's "Synopsis."The Jewishwriters
Jarchi, Saadias, and Jacchiades suppose thatit was an angel, called a sonof
God, in accordancewith the usual custom in the Scriptures. That this latter is
the correctopinion, will appearevident, though there cannotbe exact
certainty, from the following considerations:
(1) The language used implies necessarilynothing more. Though it "might"
indeed be applicable to the Messiah - the secondpersonof the Trinity, if it
could be determined from other sources thatit was he, yet there is nothing in
the language whichnecessarilysuggeststhis.

(2) In the explanation of the matter by Nebuchadnezzar himself Daniel 3:28,
he understood it to be an angel - "Blessedbe the Godof Shadrach, etc., "who
hath sent his angel,"" etc. This shows that he had had no other view of the
subject, and that he had no higher knowledge in the case thanto suppose that
he was an angel of God. The knowledge ofthe existence ofangels was so
common among the ancients, that there is no improbability in supposing that
Nebuchadnezzarwas sufficiently instructed on this point to know that they
were sent for the protection of the good.
continued...
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
25. four—whereas but three had been castin.
loose—whereasthey had been castin "bound." Nebuchadnezzar's question, in
Da 3:24, is as if he can scarcelytrust his own memory as to a factso recent,
now that he sees through an aperture in the furnace what seems to contradict
it.
walking in … midst of … fire—image of the godly unhurt, and at large (Joh
8:36), "in the midst of trouble" (Ps 138:7; compare Ps 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 waitedin the tomb as God's prisoner, till God should
let Him out (Ac 2:26, 27). So Paul (2Co 12:8, 9). So Noahwaitedin the ark,
after the flood, till God brought him forth (Ge 8:12-18).
like the Son of God—Unconsciously, like Saul, Caiaphas (Joh11:49-52), and
Pilate, he is made to utter divine truths. "Sonof God" in his mouth means
only an "angel" from heaven, as Da 3:28 proves. Compare Job 1:6; 38:7; Ps
34:7, 8; and the probably heathen centurion's exclamation(Mt 27:54). The
Chaldeans believed in families of gods:Bel, the supreme god, accompaniedby
the goddess Mylitta, being the father of the gods;thus the expressionhe
meant: one sprung from and sent by the gods. Reallyit was the "messengerof
the covenant," who herein gave a prelude to His incarnation.
Matthew Poole's Commentary

I see;the fire gave light to see them, though it had no power of heat to burn
them.
Like the Sonof God; a Divine, most beautiful, and glorious countenance;
either of a mere angel, or rather of Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant,
who did sometimes appearin the Old Testamentbefore his incarnation,
Genesis 12:7 18:10,13,17,20Exo 23:23 33:2 Joshua 5:13-15 Proverbs 8:31; in
all which places it is Jehovah; Genesis 19:24 Exodus 3:2 Acts 7:30,32,33,38.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
He answeredand said, lo, I see four men loose,.... Notbound as the three were,
when castin; but quite at liberty in their hands and feet, and separate from
one another. As this fiery furnace may be an emblem of the fiery trials and
afflictive dispensations the children of God pass through in this world, being
not joyous, but grievous to the flesh, though useful to purge and purify; so this
and some other circumstances attending these goodmen in the furnace are
applicable to the saints in such cases;for though afflictions are sometimes
themselves calledcords, with which men are said to be bound, yet by means of
them they are loosedfrom other things from the power and prevalence of sin
over them; from the world, and the things of it, they sometimes too much
cleave and are glued unto; from a spirit of bondage, and from doubts and
fears;their hearts under them being comfortedand enlargedwith the love of
God; he knowing, visiting, and choosing them in the furnace of affliction; or
making known himself to them, his love and choice of them; whereby their
souls are setat liberty, and the graces ofhis Spirit are drawn forth into a
lively exercise, through his love being shed abroad in them.
Walking in the midst of the fire; the furnace being large enough to walk in,
and where they took their walks as in a garden; nor were they concernedto
come out of it; nor uneasy at being in it; the violence of the fire being
quenched, as the apostle says, referring to this instance, Hebrews 11:34.
Saadiahsays, the angelGabriel, who is over the hail, came and cooledthe fire
of the furnace. So afflictions are a path to walk in, the narrow way to eternal
life, through which all must enter the kingdom of heaven, of which there will

be an end. Walking in it supposes strength, which God gives his people at such
seasons;and when they have his presence they are unconcerned; none or these
things move them, nor can they separate them from the love of Christ; they
walk on with pleasure and delight, sing the praises of God, as did Paul and
Silas in a prison, and as many martyrs have done in the flames:conversing
with Christ, and with his people, they pass on, and pass through the more
cheerfully, and are not anxious about their deliverance, but leave it with God
to work it in his own time and way; nay, are ready to say with the disciples, it
is goodfor them to be here; and indeed it was better for these goodmen to be
with Christ in the fiery furnace, than to be with Nebuchadnezzar in his palace
without him.
And they have no hurt; either in their bodies, or in their garments, neither of
them being burnt; they suffered no pain in the one, nor loss in the other.
Afflictions do no hurt to the people of God; not to their persons, which are
safe in Christ, and to whom he is a hiding place and covert, as from the storm
and tempest, so from the force of fire, that it shall not kindle upon them to
hurt them; nor to their graces, whichare tried, refined, and brightened
hereby; faith is strengthened, hope is encouraged, and love made to abound.
All the afflictions of the saints are in love, and are designed for good, and do
work togetherfor goodto them that love God; they are sometimes for their
temporal, and often for their spiritual good, and always work for them an
exceeding weightof glory.
And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God; like one of the angels, who
are calledthe sons of God; so Jarchi, Saadiah, and Jacchiades;but many of
the ancientChristian writers interpret it of Christ the Son of God, whom
Nebuchadnezzar, though a Heathen prince, might have some knowledge of
from Daniel and other Jews in his court, of whom he had heard them speak as
a glorious Person;and this being such an one, he might conclude it was he, or
one like to him; and it is highly probable it was he, since it was not unusual for
him to appear in a human form, and to be present with his people, as he often
is with them, and even in the furnace of affliction; see Isaiah43:2, to
sympathize with them; to revive and comfort them; to bear them up and
support them; to teachand instruct them, and at last to deliver them out of
their afflictions.

Geneva Study Bible
He answeredand 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 {k} Son of
God.
(k) For the angels were calledthe sons of God because oftheir excellency.
Therefore the king calledthis angelwhom God sent to comfort his own in
these greattorments, the sonof God.
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
25. loose]the fire had burnt awaythe fetters, but left the bodies of the three
youths untouched.
form] aspect, appearance,as Daniel2:31.
is like the Son of God] is like a son of (the) gods, i.e. a heavenly being or angel:
cf. the ‘sons of God’ (or, of the gods)in Genesis 6:2; Job 1:6 (where see
Davidson’s note), Job38:7. The rendering ‘the Son of God’ cannot stand:
’ĕlôhim is, indeed, used with a singular force in Hebrew, but the Aram. ’ělâhîn
is always a true plural (Daniel 2:11; Daniel2:47, Daniel 3:12; Daniel3:18,
Daniel 4:8; Daniel 4:19; Daniel 4:18, Daniel 5:4; Daniel 5:11; Daniel 5:14;
Daniel 5:23), ‘God’ being in the Aram. of Ezra and Dan. denoted regularly by
the sing. ’ĕlâh. The meaning is simply that Nebuchadnezzar saw an angelic
figure (LXX, ὁμοίωμα ἀγγέλου Θεοῦ)beside the three youths (cf. Daniel3:28,
‘his angel’).
BetweenDaniel3:23 and Daniel 3:24 LXX, and Theodotion, and following
them the Vulgate (but with notes prefixed and added to the effectthat Jerome
did not find the passagein the Heb. text, but translated it from Theodotion),
have a long insertion (Daniel 3:24-30), which, after describing how the three

youths walkedin the midst of the fire, praising God (Daniel3:24), narrates the
confessionandprayer of Azarias (Daniel 3:25-30), and then, after another
short descriptive passage(v. 46–50), represents the three as uttering a
doxology(v. 52–56), whichleads on into the hymn known familiarly as the
Benedicite (v. 57–90). This insertion constitutes the Apocryphal book called
the ‘Song of the Three Children.’
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 25. - He answeredand 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. The Greek versions do not present much worthy of note, only
both insert molka, "king," instead of the pronoun, and omit "answered."
From the fact that ver. 24 ends with malka, it may have been dropped out of
the Masse-retie text. The insertion of ‫ע‬ ot eud eb yam",derewsna" ,(ana') ‫נר‬
the frequent recurrence of this phrase. The Peshitta omits "four," otherwise
agreeing with the Massoretic.The phrase," the Son of God," is clearly wrong;
the correcttranslationis, "The appearance ofthe fourth is like a son of the
gods." Along with the three victims of his superstition was seena fourth
figure, like one of the figures portrayed on his palace walls as belonging to the
demi-gods. This is the culmination of the king's astonishment. It was
astonishing to see those men loose that had been eastinto the furnace bound;
still more so to see them walking, and none showing signs of having received
any hurt; but most awe-inspiring of all is the vision of the fourth figure, like a
son of the gods. We must not interpret this on Hebrew lines, as does Mr.
Bevan, and comp. Genesis 6:2. He knows the usage in the Tar-gums is to
retain the Hebrew plural in ‫אל‬ when "God" is meant, as in the Peshitta
Version of the passagehe refers to. As in most heathen mythologies, there
were not only gods, but demi-gods, of severaldifferent classes. The god
Nebuchadnezzarspecially worshipped, Silik-Moulou-ki (Marduk), was
regardedas the son of Hea. There was a godof fire also, who was associated
with these. The suggestionofDr. Fuller, that here in bar we have not the word
for "son," but rather a truncated form of this god of fire, Iz-bar, is worthy of
consideration. It is impossible to say whether Ibis vision of a divine being was
vouchsafedto those standing about Nebuchadnezzaras wellas to himself.
While we ought to guard againstascribing to the Babylonian monarch the

idea that this appearance was that of the SecondPersonofthe Christian
Trinity, we are ourselves at liberty to maintain this, or to hold that it was an
angelwho strengthened these servants of God in the furnace. The Septuagint
renders bar-cloheenby ἄγγελος. Theodotionhas υἱῷ Θεοῦ.
Keil and DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament
The division of the land, like the definition of the boundaries (Ezekiel47:15),
commences in the north, and enumerates the tribes in the order in which they
were to receive their inheritances from north to south: first, seventribes from
the northern boundary to the centre of the land (Ezekiel48:1-7), where the
heave for the sanctuary, with the land of the priests and Levites and the city
domain, togetherwith the prince's land on the two sides, was to be setapart
(Ezekiel48:8-22;and secondly, the other five tribes from this to the southern
boundary (Ezekiel48:23-29). Compare the map on Plate IV.
Ezekiel48:1. And these are the names of the tribes: from the north end by the
side of the wayto Chetlon towardHamath (and) Hazar-Enon the boundary of
Damascus -toward the north by the side of Hamath there shall eastside, west
side belong to him: Dan one (tribe-lot). Ezekiel48:2. And on the boundary of
Dan from the eastside to the westside: Asher one. Ezekiel48:3. And on the
boundary of Asher from the eastside to the westside: Naphtali one. Ezekiel
48:4. And on the boundary of Naphtali from the eastside to the westside:
Manassehone. Ezekiel48:5. And on the boundary of Manassehfrom the east
side to the westside: Ephraim one. Ezekiel48:6. And on the boundary of
Ephraim from the eastside to the westside: Reuben one. Ezekiel48:7. And on
the boundary of Reuben from the eastside to the westside: Judah one.
Ezekiel48:8. And on the boundary of Judah from the eastside to the westside
shall be the heave, which ye shall lift (heave) off, five and twenty thousand
(rods) in breadth, and the length like every tribe portion from the eastside to
the westside; and the sanctuaryshall be in the midst of it. Ezekiel48:9. The
heave which ye shall lift (heave)for Jehovahshall be five and twenty thousand
in length and ten thousand in breadth. Ezekiel48:10. And to these shall the
holy heave belong, to the priests, towardthe north, five and twenty thousand;
toward the west, breadth ten thousand; toward the east, breadth ten
thousand; and toward the south, length five and twenty thousand; and the

sanctuary of Jehovahshall be in the middle of it. Ezekiel48:11. To the priests,
whoeveris sanctified of the sons of Zadok, who have kept my charge, who
have not strayedwith the straying of the sons of Israel, as the Levites have
strayed, Ezekiel48:12. To them shall a portion lifted off belong from the
heave of the land; a most holy beside the territory of the Levites. Ezekiel
48:13. And the Levites (shall receive)parallel with the territory of the priests
five and twenty thousand in length, and in breadth ten thousand; the whole
length five and twenty thousand, and (the whole) breadth ten thousand.
Ezekiel48:14. And they shall not sell or exchange any of it, nor shall the first-
fruit of the land pass to others; for it is holy to Jehovah. Ezekiel48:15. And
the five thousand which remain in the breadth along the five and twenty
thousand are common land for the city for dwellings and for open space;and
the city shall be in the centre of it. Ezekiel48:16. And these are its measures:
the north side four thousand five hundred, the south side four thousand five
hundred, the eastside four thousand five hundred, and the westside four
thousand five hundred. Ezekiel48:17. And the open space of the city shall be
toward the north two hundred and fifty, toward the south two hundred and
fifty, towardthe easttwo hundred and fifty, and towardthe westtwo hundred
and fifty. Ezekiel48:18. And the remainder in length parallel with the holy
heave, ten thousand toward the eastand ten thousand towardthe west, this
shall be beside the holy heave, and its produce shall serve the workmen of the
city for food. Ezekiel48:19. And as for the workmenof the city, they shall
cultivate it from all the tribes. Ezekiel48:20. The whole of the heave is five
and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand; a fourth of the holy heave
shall ye take for the possessionofthe city. Ezekiel48:21. And the remainder
shall belong to the prince on this side and on that side of the holy heave and of
the city possession;along the five and twenty thousand of the heave to the
easternboundary, and towardthe westalong the five and twenty thousand to
the westernboundary parallel with the tribe portions, it shall belong to the
prince; and the holy heave and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the
midst. Ezekiel48:22. Thus from the possessionofthe Levites (as)from the
possessionofthe city shall that which lies in the midst of what belongs to the
prince between the territory of Judah and the territory of Benjamin belong to
the prince. Ezekiel48:23. And the rest of the tribes are from the eastside to
the westside: Benjamin one. Ezekiel48:24. And on the boundary of Benjamin

from the eastside to the westside: Simeon one. Ezekiel48:25. And on the
boundary of Simeon from the eastside to the westside: Issacharone. Ezekiel
48:26. And on the boundary of Issacharfrom the eastside to the westside:
Zebulon one. Ezekiel48:27. And on the boundary of Zebulon from the east
side to the westside: Gadone. Ezekiel48:28. And on the boundary of Gad on
the south side towardthe south, the boundary shall be from Tamar to the
waterof strife from Kadesh along the brook to the greatsea. Ezekiel48:29.
This is the land which ye shall divide by lot for inheritance to the tribes of
Israel; these are their portions, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah.
The new division of the land differs from the former one effectedin the time
of Joshua, in the first place, in the fact that all the tribe-portions were to
extend uniformly across the entire breadth of the land from the eastern
boundary to the MediterraneanSea on the west, so that they were to form
parallel tracts of country; whereas in the distribution made in the time of
Joshua, severalofthe tribe-territories coveredonly half the breadth of the
land. Forexample, Dan receivedhis inheritance on the westof Benjamin; and
the territories of half ManassehandAsher ran up from the northern
boundary of Ephraim to the northern boundary of Canaan;while Issachar,
Naphtali, and Zebulon receivedtheir portions on the eastof these;and lastly,
Simeon receivedhis possessionwithin the boundaries of the tribe of Judah.
And secondly, it also differs from the former, in the fact that not only are all
the twelve tribes locatedin Canaanproper, betweenthe Jordan and the
MediterraneanSea;whereas previously two tribes and a half had received
from Moses, attheir own request, the conquered land of Bashanand Gilead
on the easternside of the Jordan, so that the land of Canaancould be divided
among the remaining nine tribes and a half. But besides this, the centraltract
of land, about the fifth part of the whole, was separatedfor the holy heave, the
city domain, and the prince's land, so that only the northern and southern
portions, about four-fifths of the whole, remained for distribution among the
twelve tribes, seven tribes receiving their hereditary portions to the north of
the heave and five to the south, because the heave was so selectedthat the city
with its territory lay near the ancient Jerusalem. - In Ezekiel48:1-7 the seven
tribes which were to dwell on the north of the heave are enumerated. The
principal points of the northern boundary, viz., the way to Chetlon and

Hazar-Enon, the boundary of Damascus, are repeatedin Ezekiel48:1 from
Ezekiel47:15, Ezekiel 47:17, as the starting and terminal points of the
northern boundary running from westto east. The words ‫חבא‬ ‫לר‬ ‫אי‬ fix the
northern boundary more preciselyin relation to the adjoining territory; and
in '‫ורלו‬ the enumeration of the tribe-lots begins with that of the tribe of Dan,
which was to receive its territory againstthe northern boundary. ‫יו‬ refers to
the name ‫ןא‬ which follows, and which Ezekielalready had in his mind. ‫אא‬
‫רדא‬ ‫םרלא‬ is constructedasyndetôs;and ‫אא‬ is to be repeated in thought before
‫:רדא‬ the eastside (and) the west(side) are to belong to it, i.e., the tract of land
toward its westand its eastside. The words which follow, ‫אחר‬ ‫,ןא‬ are attached
in an anacoluthistic manner: "Dan (is to receive)one portion," for "one shall
belong to Dan." To ‫רחא‬ we are to supply in thought the substantive ‫,ימח‬ tribe-
lot, according to Ezekiel47:13. "The assumption that one tribe was to receive
as much as another (vid., Ezekiel47:14), leads to the conclusionthat each
tribe-lot was to be taken as a monas" (Kliefoth). In this way the names in
Ezekiel48:2-7, with the constantly repeated‫,רחא‬ must also be taken. The same
form of description is repeatedin Ezekiel48:23-28 in the case of the five tribes
placed to the south of the heave. - In the order of the severaltribe-territories it
is impossible to discoverany universal principle of arrangement. All that is
clearis, that in the case of Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, andEphraim,
regard is had to the former position of these tribe-territories as far as the
altered circumstances allowed. In the time of the Judges a portion of the
Danites had migrated to the north, conqueredthe city of Laish, and given it
the name of Dan, so that from that time forward Danis generallynamed as
the northern boundary of the land (e.g., as early as 2 Samuel 3:10, and in
other passages). AccordinglyDanreceives the tract of land along the northern
boundary. Asher and Naphtali, which formerly occupiedthe most northerly
portions of the land, follow next. Then comes Manasseh, as halfManassehhad
formerly dwelt on the eastof Naphtali; and Ephraim joins Manasseh, as it
formerly joined the westernhalf of Manasseh. The reasonforplacing Reuben
betweenEphraim and Judah appears to be, that Reuben was the first-born of
Jacob's sons. The positionof the termuah betweenJudah and Benjamin is
probably connectedwith the circumstance that Jerusalemformerly stood on
the boundary of these two tribes, and so also in the future was to skirt
Benjamin with its territory. The other tribes had then to be locatedon the

south of Benjamin; Simeon, whose territory formerly lay to the south;
Issacharand Zebulon, for which no room was left in the north; and Gad,
which had to be brought over from Gileadto Canaan.
In Ezekiel48:8-22, the terumah, which has already been describedin Ezekiel
45:1-7 for a different purpose, is more preciselydefined: first of all, in Ezekiel
48:8, according to its whole extent - viz. twenty-five thousand rods in breadth
(from north to south), and the length the same as any one ( equals every one)
of the tribe-lots, i.e., reaching from the Jordanto the MediterraneanSea (cf.
Ezekiel45:7). In the centre of this separatedterritory the sanctuary (the
temple) was to stand. ‫,ואותו‬ the suffix of which refers ad sensum to ‫חים‬ instead
of ‫,ההובר‬ has not the indefinite meaning "therein," but signifies "in the
centre;" for the priests' portion, in the middle of which the temple was to
stand, occupiedthe centralposition betweenthe portion of the Levites and the
city possession, as is evident from Ezekiel48:22. The circumstance that here,
as in Ezekiel45:1., in the division of the terumah, the priests' portion is
mentioned first, then the portion of the Levites, and after this the city
possession, proves nothing so far as the localorder in which these three
portions followedone another is concerned;but the enumeration is regulated
by their spiritual significance, so thatfirst of all the most holy land for the
temple and priests is defined, then the holy portion of the Levites, and lastly,
the common land for the city. The command, that the sanctuaryis to occupy
the centre of the whole terumah, leads to a more minute description in the
first place (Ezekiel48:9-12)of the priests' portion, in which the sanctuary was
situated, than of the heave to be lifted off for Jehovah. In Ezekiel 48:10, ‫,יאאר‬
which stands at the head, is explained by ‫יירנלא‬ which follows. The extent of
this holy terumah on all four sides is then given; and lastly, the command is
repeated, that the sanctuary of Jehovahis to be in the centre of it. In Ezekiel
48:11, ‫רבםןה‬ is rendered in the plural by the lxx, Chald. and Syr., and is taken
in a distributive sense by Kimchi and others: to the priests whoever is
sanctifiedof the sons of Zadok. This is required by the position of the
participle between‫יירנלא‬ and ‫ירום‬ ‫בונל‬ (compare 2 Chronicles 26:18, and for
the singular of the participle after a previous plural, Psalm 8:9). The other
rendering, "for the priests is it sanctified, those of the sons of Zadok," is at
variance not only with the position of the words, but also with the fact,

namely, that the assignmentto the priests of a heave setapart for Jehovahis
never designatedas ‫,םןה‬ and from the nature of the case couldnot be so
designated. The apodosis to Ezekiel 48:11 follows in Ezekiel 48:12, where
‫יירנלא‬ is resumed in ‫ההובדר‬ .‫ירא‬ is an adjective formation derived from ‫,ההובר‬
with the significationof an abstract: that which is lifted (the lifting) from the
heave, as it were "a terumah in the secondpotency" (for these formations, see
Ewald, 164 and 165). This terumiyah is calledmost holy, in contrastwith the
Levites' portion of the terumah, which was ‫םרה‬ (Ezekiel48:14). The priests'
portion is to be beside the territory of the Levites, whether on the southern or
northern side cannot be gatheredfrom these words any more than from the
definition in Ezekiel48:13 : "and the Levites beside (parallel with) the
territory of the priests." Both statements simply affirm that the portions of
the priests and Levites were to lie side by side, and not to be separatedby the
town possession. -Ezekiel48:13 and Ezekiel48:14 treat of the Levites'
portion: Ezekiel48:13, of its situation and extent; Ezekiel48:14, of its law of
tenure. The seemingly tautologicalrepetitionof the measurementof the length
and breadth, as "allthe length and the breadth," is occasionedby the fact
"that Ezekielintends to express himself more briefly here, and not, as in
Ezekiel48:10, to take all the four points of the compass singly; in 'all the
length' he embraces the two long sides of the oblong, and in '(all) the breadth'
the two broad sides, and affirms that 'all the length,' i.e., of both the north and
south sides, is to be twenty-five thousand rods, and 'all the breadth,' i.e., of
both the eastand westsides, is to be ten thousand rods" (Kliefoth). Hitzig has
missed the sense, and therefore proposes to alter the text. With regardto the
possessionofthe Levites, the instructions given in Leviticus 25:34 for the field
of the Levites' cities - namely, that none of it was to be sold - are extended to
the whole of the territory of the Levites: no part of it is to be alienatedby sale
or barter. And the characterof the possessionis assignedas the reason:the
first-fruit of the land, i.e., the land lifted off (separated)as first-fruit, is not to
pass into the possessionofothers, because as such it is holy to the Lord. The
Chetib ya`abowr‫הומעל‬ is the correctreading: to pass over, sc. to others, to
non-Levites.
Ezekiel48:15-18 treatof the city possession. As the terumah was twenty-five
thousand rods in breadth (Ezekiel48:8), after measuring off ten thousand

rods in breadth for the priests and ten thousand rods in breadth for the
Levites from the entire breadth, there still remain five thousand rods ‫,עי‬ in
front of, i.e., along, the long side, which was twenty-five thousand rods. This
remnant was to be ‫,חי‬ i.e., common (not holy) land for the city (Jerusalem).
‫,יבוהמ‬ for dwelling-places, i.e., forbuilding dwelling-houses upon; and ‫,יבגהה‬
for open space, the precinct around the city. The city was to stand in the
centre of this oblong. Ezekiel48:16 gives the size of the city: on eachof the
four sides, four thousand five hundred rods (the ‫,חבה‬ designatedby the
Masoretesas ‫מלאת‬ ‫איו‬ ‫,להם‬ has crept into the text through a copyist's error);
and Ezekiel48:17, the extent of the open space surrounding it: on eachside
two hundred and fifty rods. This gives for the city, togetherwith the open
space, a square of five thousand rods on every side; so that the city with its
precinct filled the entire breadth of the space left for it, and there only
remained on the eastand westan open space of ten thousand rods in length
and five thousand rods in breadth along the holy terumah. This is noticedin
Ezekiel48:18;its produce was to serve for bread, i.e., for maintenance, for the
labourers of the city (the masculine suffix in ‫המואאר‬ refers grammatically to
‫.)רתואה‬ By ‫לרמע‬ ‫הלער‬ Hitzig would understand the inhabitants of the city,
because one cultivates a piece of land even by dwelling on it. But this use of
ni deyolpme nemkrow eht ‫רעלה‬ ‫עמרל‬ era roN .dehsilbatse eb tonnac ‫עמר‬
building the city, as Gesenius, Hvernick, and others suppose;for the city was
not perpetually being built, so that there should be any necessityfor setting
apart a particular piece of land for the builders; but they are the working men
of the city, the labouring class living in the city. They are not to be without
possessionin the future Jerusalem, but are to receive a possessionin land for
their maintenance. We are told in Ezekiel48:19 who these workmen are. Here
lla fo tuo elpoep ,ytic ehtfo ssalc gniruobal eht rofsa :ylevitcelloc desu si‫רעמר‬
the tribes of Israelshall work upon the land belonging to the city. The suffix
in ‫לעמרורו‬ points back to ‫.רתואה‬ The transitive explanation, to employ a person
in work, has nothing in the language to confirm it. The fact itself is in
harmony with the statement in Ezekiel 45:6, that the city was to belong to all
Israel. Lastly, in Ezekiel 48:20 the dimensions of the whole terumah, and the
relation of the city possessionto the holy terumah, are given. ‫רההובר‬ ‫יי‬is the
whole heave, so far as it has hitherto been described, embracing the property
of the priests, of the Levites, and of the city. In this extent it is twenty-five

thousand rods long and the same broad. If, however, we add the property of
the prince, which is not treated of till Ezekiel48:21-23, it is considerably
longer, and reaches, as has beenstated in Ezekiel48:8, to the boundaries of
the land both on the eastand west, the Jordan and the MediterraneanSea, as
the severaltribe-territories do. But if we omit the prince's land, the space set
apart fro the city possessionoccupiedthe fourth part of the holy terumah, i.e.,
of the portion of the priests and Levites. This is the meaning of the secondhalf
of Ezekiel48:20, which literally reads thus: "to a fourth shall ye lift off the
holy terumah for the city possession." This is not to be understood as meaning
that a fourth was to be takenfrom the holy terumah for the city possession;
for that would yield an incorrect proportion, as the twenty thousand rods in
breadth would be reduced to fifteen thousand rods by the subtraction of the
fourth part, which would be opposedto Ezekiel48:9 and Ezekiel48:15. The
meaning is rather the following: from the whole terumah the fourth part of
the area of the holy terumah is to be takenoff for the city possession, i.e., five
thousand rods for twenty thousand. According to Ezekiel48:15, this was the
size of the domain set apart for the city.
In Ezekiel48:21-23 the situation and extent of the prince's possessionare
described. For Ezekiel48:21, vid., Ezekiel 45:7. ‫,רתואה‬ the rest of the terumah,
as it has been defined in Ezekiel48:8, reaching in length from the Jordan to
the Mediterranean. As the holy terumah and the city possessionwere only
twenty-five thousand rods in length, and did not reachto the Jordanon the
east, or to the sea onthe west, there still remained an area on either side
whose length or extent towardthe eastand westis not given in rods, but may
be calculatedfrom the proportion which the intervening terumah bore to the
length of the land (from eastto west). ‫נל‬ ‫אי‬ and ‫נל‬ ‫,עי‬ in front of, or along,
the front of the twenty-five thousand rods, refer to the easternand western
boundaries of the terumah, which was twenty-five thousand rods in length. In
Ezekiel48:21 the statementis repeated, that the holy terumah and the
sanctuary were to lie in the centre of it, i.e., betweenthe portions of land
appointed for the prince on either side; and lastly, in Ezekiel48:22 it is still
further stated, with regardto the prince's land on both sides of the terumah,
that it was to lie betweenthe adjoining tribe-territories of Judah (to the north)
and Benjamin (to the south), so that it was to be bounded by these two. But

this is expressedin a heavy and therefore obscure manner. The words ‫ואות‬
‫לרלרא‬ ‫ינאלא‬ ‫,הה‬ "in the centre of that which belongs to the prince," belong to
‫ובאחעא‬ ...‫,רעלה‬ and form togetherwith the latter the subject, which is written
absolutely; so that ‫אב‬ is not used in a partitive, but in a localsense (from), and
the whole is to be rendered thus: And as for that which lies on the side of the
possessionofthe Levites, and of the possessionofthe city in the centre of what
belongs to the prince, (that which lies) betweenthe territory of Judah and the
territory of Benjamin shall belong to the prince. Hitzig's explanation - what
remains betweenJudah and Benjamin, from the city territory to the priests'
domain, both inclusive, shall belong to the prince - is arbitrary, and perverts
the sense. The periphrastic designationof the terumah bounded off between
the prince's land by the two portions named togetherwithout a copula, viz.,
"possessionofthe Levites and possessionofthe city," is worthy of notice. This
periphrasis of the whole by two portions, shows that the portions named
formed the boundaries of the whole, that the third portion, which is not
mentioned, was enclosedwithin the two, so that the priests' portion with the
sanctuary lay betweenthem. - In Ezekiel48:23-27 the restof the tribes located
to the south of the terumah are mentioned in order; and in Ezekiel48:28 and
Ezekiel48:29 the accountof the division of the land is brought to a close with
a repetition of the statement as to the southern boundary (cf. Ezekiel47:19),
and a comprehensive concluding formula.
If now we attempt, in order to form a clearidea of the relationin which this
prophetic division of the land stands to the actual size of Canaanaccording to
the boundaries described in Ezekiel47:15., to determine the length and
breadth of the terumah given here by their geographicaldimensions, twenty-
five thousand rods, according to the metrologicalcalculations ofBoeckhand
Bertheau, would be 1070 geographicalmiles, or, according to the estimate of
the Hebrew cubit by Thenius, only 975 geographical miles.
(Note:According to Boeckh, one sacredcubit was equal to 234-1/3 Paris lines
equals 528.62millimtres; according to Thenius equals 214-1/2 P. l. equals
481.62millim. Now as one geographicalmile, the 5400thpart of the
circumference of the globe, which is 40,000,000metres, is equivalent to
7407.398metres equals 22, 803.290 oldParis feet, the geographicalmile
according to Boeckhis 14, 012-1/10cubits equals 2335-1/2rods (sacred

measure); according to Thenius, 15, 380-1/6 cubits equals 2563-1/3roads (s.
m.), from which the numbers given in the text may easilybe calculated.)
The extent of Canaanfrom Beersheba, orKadesh, up to a line running across
from Rs esh-Shukah to the spring El Lebweh, is 3 1/3 degrees,i.e., fifty
geographicalmiles, ten of which are occupiedby the terumah, and forty
remain for the twelve tribe-territories, so that eachtribe-lot would be 3 1/3
geographicalmiles in breadth. If, now, we reckonthree geographicalmiles as
the breadth of eachof the five tribe-lots to the south of the terumah, and as
the land becomes broadertowardthe south a breadth of 3-4/7 geographical
miles for the seventribe-lots to the north, the terumah set apart in the centre
of the land would extend from the site of Jerusalemto Dothan or Jenin. If,
however, we take into considerationthe breadth of the land from eastto west
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, or where the Jordanenters the Dead Sea,
Canaanis eleven geographicalmiles in breadth, whereas atJenin it is hardly
ten geographicalmiles broad. If, therefore, the length of the terumah (from
eastto west)was fully ten geographicalmiles, there would only remain a piece
of land of half a mile in breadth on the eastand westat the southern
boundary, and nothing at all at the northern, for prince's land. We have
therefore given to the terumah upon the map (Plate IV) the length and
breadth of eight geographicalmiles, which leaves a tract of two miles on the
average forthe prince's land, so that it would occupy a fifth of the area of the
holy terumah, whereas the city possessioncovereda fourth. No doubt the
breadth of the terumah from south to north is also diminished thereby, so that
it cannot have reachedquite down to Jerusalemor quite up to Jenin. - If, now,
we consider that the distances ofplaces, and therefore also the measurements
of a land in length and breadth, are greaterin reality than those given upon
the map, on accountpartly of the mountains and valleys and partly of the
windings of the roads, and, still further, that our calculations ofthe Hebrew
cubit are not quite certain, and that even the smaller estimates ofThenius are
possibly still too high, the measurements of the terumah given by Ezekiel
correspondas exactly to the actualsize of the land of Canaanas could be
expectedwith a knowledge ofits extent obtained not by trigonometrical
measurement, but from a simple calculationof the length of the roads. - But
this furnishes a confirmation by no means slight of our assumption, that the

lengths and breadths indicated here are measuredby rods and not by cubits.
Reckonedby cubits, the terumah would be only a mile and a half or a mile
and two-thirds in length and breadth, and the city possessionwould be only a
third of a mile broad; whereas the prince's land would be more than six times
as larg
PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES
BRUCE HURT MD
Daniel 3:20 He commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to
tie up Shadrach, Meshachand Abed-nego in order to castthem into the
furnace of blazing fire.
Tie: Da 3:15 Ac 12:4,5 16:23,25
Daniel 3 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries
He commanded some of his best, elite, strongestmen to bind the boys. He
would soonsee the folly of this angry command in conjunction with the
"superheating" ofthe furnace.
One has to marvel at the mind of an angry man, binding them up as if they
were actually going to be able to escape!
Daniel 3:21 Then these men were tied up in their trousers, their coats, their
caps and their other clothes, and were castinto the midst of the furnace of
blazing fire.
Trousers - The Greek historian Herodotus says the Babylonian dress was a
linen tunic, another of woolen, a white short cloak, anda turban.

Showers makes the cogentobservationthat "Three things should be noted
about the punishment. First, Shadrach, Meshachand Abed-nego were thrown
into the furnace with highly flammable clothing. Second, the fire in the
furnace was such a raging inferno that it killed the soldiers when they got
close enoughto castin the Jews. Third, the Jews were bound so well that they
could not move when they were dropped into the fire. All three points
emphasize the miracle about to take place. (Ibid)
Daniel 3:22 For this reason, becausethe king's command was urgent and the
furnace had been made extremely hot, the flame of the fire slew those men
who carried up Shadrach, Meshachand Abed-nego.
urgent: Ex 12:33
slew:Da 6:24 Pr 11:8 21:18 Zec 12:2,3 Mt 27:5 Ac 12:19
Slew those men - The irony is that while the earthly king of kings (Da 2:37,
Ezek 26:7) could not protect his valiant warriors, the God of heaven (Da 2:18,
19, 37, 44), the true King of kings (Re 17:14-note, Re 19:16-note), was able to
protect His valiant warriors of faith!
Athanasius, Bishopof Alexandria, opposedthe hereticalteaching of Arius
who denied the deity of Christ. He was exiled five times for his opposition to
Arius. They brought Athanasius before Emperor Theodosius who mandated
that he cease his opposition to Arius. The Emperor sharply reproved him and
said, “Do you not realize that all the world is againstyou?” Athanasius
answered, “ThenI am againstall the world!” (Ref)
Carried up - Just imagine the thoughts of these three men as their fate in the
furnace neared. There is little doubt (in my mind) that they were experiencing
the peace that passesall human understanding. They were not unaware of the
potential that they might die but they had a sure and steadfastbeliefthat they
were in God's hands, in life or through death, for either waythey would be
delivered! The test of their faith extended up to the edge of the flaming
furnace. O, to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. (Hebrews 6:12)

Jesus was in the blazing furnace

Jesus was in the blazing furnace

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Jesus was in the blazing furnace