Daniel 3:19 Commentary and Bible Study

There was nothing haughty or defiant about the response of the three Jewish young men, but their answer was firm and nothing would change it. Therefore the king was beside himself with rage and all could see it. This was a very dangerous moment for all in the court. He had controlled himself long enough to give them the opportunity to change their minds, but now that they had refused he exploded with rage – pride demands revenge – and his rage was directed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whom he had previously promoted.‘Therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.’ We don’t’ worry about the mathematics of this statement; he just wanted it as hot as it could possibly be. They increased the draft at the bottom, and poured in more fuel or whatever they were using to heat it.Then he does a curious thing: this is pure theatre. ‘He commanded the most mighty men that were in his army’ – those awarded the Victoria Cross, if you like, the heroes, the senior men who had been capable of what they regarded us conspicuous valour; it was a symbol of his own power – ‘to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.’ So here is the buildup; they are bound by the most powerful heroes in the military, and they are taken up some sort of staircase and thrown down into this terrible furnace. We can see how much fearsome this command of the king was. Daniel says, ‘because the king's commandment was urgent.’ The men that took up the three young men were terrified not to carry out the king’s command with the greatest alacrity. Because it all had to be done instantly in response to the king's command, those hero knights pushed themselves beyond all reasonable bounds and, because the furnace had been stoked up so much, perished in the heat. So hard were they pressed, that – though this was not the king’s intention – they perished in carrying out his orders. Nebuchadnezzar was a tyrant indeed. The generals who tied them up probably got their juniors to throw them in, but these men succumbed to the flames in carrying out their instructions, and probably spontaneously ignited. Twice Daniel tells us that they were bound, and this is significant. They were ‘bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments,’ – in their full-dress uniform as regional governors – ‘and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace … And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.’ They were in the worst possible state to deliver themselves. Even if the fierceness of the heat did not instantly consume them, as it consumed those who threw them in, they could not free themselves or each other. Nebuchadnezzar had wanted to reduce them to this helpless state, but God did otherwise.