Daniel 3

The first part of the Book of Daniel (chapters 1–6) consists of narratives set in the Babylonian court, and chapter 3 is the third of these. Daniel 2 ends with Daniel's three friends being appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon at the request of Daniel, who had interpreted the king's dream (Daniel 2:49). In chapter 3 these three men become the main characters.

Outline

• Verses 1–7 King Nebuchadnezzar sets up a golden image sixty cubits high and six cubits wide on the plain of Dura and assembles his officials for its dedication. He decrees that all must bow down when the music sounds and that anyone who refuses will be cast into the furnace, and all the people bow down.
• Verses 8–12 Certain Chaldeans accuse Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego of refusing to bow down.
• Verses 13–18 The king summons the three men and gives them another chance, but they reply that God will deliver them and that, even if He does not, they will not bow down.
• Verses 19–23 The king has the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and orders the three men bound and thrown in. The men who carried them are killed by the flames.
• Verses 24–27 The king sees four men, unbound, walking in the midst of the fire. When the three come out, not a hair of their heads has been singed, and there is no smell of fire on them.
• Verses 28–30 The king blesses the God of the three men, issues a decree that anyone who speaks against their God shall be punished, and promotes the three men further.

Key Verses

• Daniel 3:17–18 "But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, … nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up" — the most widely quoted passage in the chapter, a confession of the resolve to keep the faith whether or not deliverance comes.
• Daniel 3:25 "and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" — a verse over which interpreters differ regarding the identity of the fourth figure in the fire.

Characters and Places

• Nebuchadnezzar — king of Babylon.
• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — Daniel's three friends. Their Hebrew names are Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Daniel 1:7).
• The Chaldeans — those who accused the three men before the king.
• Babylon — the setting of the events. The plain of Dura was a plain in the province of Babylon; its exact location is unknown.

Points for Reflection

• Two interpretations of the fourth figure have long existed side by side: one sees a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, while the other sees an angel, in keeping with the king's own reference to "his angel" (v. 28).
• Daniel does not appear in this chapter, and the text does not say why.
• The Septuagint contains additional material between verses 23 and 24: the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church accept these as part of the biblical text, so chapter 3 is longer in translations such as the Korean Common Translation. Protestants regard these passages as apocryphal and do not include them.
• In the Aramaic original (the Masoretic Text), chapter 3 runs to verse 33; verses 31–33 correspond to Daniel 4:1–3 in Korean Bibles.
• In the New Testament, the phrase "quenched the violence of fire" in Hebrews 11:33–38 is commonly read as referring to this event. The event is also sometimes contemplated alongside Isaiah 43:1–2: "when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." The compulsory worship of the image is likewise sometimes compared with the account of the image of the beast in Revelation 13.

In the Korean Church

The fiery furnace episode is frequently taught in Sunday schools, and the phrase "But if not" is widely used as a sermon title and as an expression of personal faith. In discussions of the Shinto shrine worship imposed during the Japanese colonial period and of the refusal to take part in it, this chapter has often been cited as a model for rejecting idolatry.