Daniel 3:1 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was eighty-eight feet seven inches, and its breadth eight feet ten inches: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. 2 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. 3 Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 4 Then the herald cried aloud, “To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages, 5 that whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up; 6 and whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” 7 Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. NHEB
The reaction seen from Nebuchadnezzar after Daniel interprets his dream is to acknowledge the greatness and power of Daniel’s God and to honor Daniel by giving him a position of authority but we don’t really know the personal (and lasting) impact on him. We might assume he is happy that he will remain a powerful king for a long time but there must be something else he heard in the interpretation that has brought him to the point where he creates a golden statue of himself. Perhaps he is spooked by the stone uncut by human hands that is able to crush the feet of the divided kingdom and topple everything. Or maybe it is Daniel’s statement that God is in charge and appoints and removes kings. Given that he oversees a diverse group of people, he may have believed that through this golden statue he will somehow unify the various cultures and people in his kingdom in order to make his rule last as long as possible and even “appease” Daniel’s God. Regardless of his reasoning, it appears that he has become delusional regarding his power and is now thinking of himself as a deity.
Based upon Daniel’s interpretation of the king’s dream in chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar knows that while his kingdom will endure, it is vulnerable. His response is to do something to give the people something to rally around (i.e., the statue) but just in case, he also adds a threat for those who don’t honor his demand.
Daniel 3:8 Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews. 9 They answered Nebuchadnezzar the king, “O king, live for ever. 10 You, O king, have made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image; 11 and whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. 12 There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not regarded you: they do not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up. 13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar answered them, “Is it on purpose, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? 15 Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, well: but if you do not worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?” 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.” 19 Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Therefore he spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. 20 He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. 21 Then these men were bound in their cloaks, trousers, their turbans, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. 22 Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 23 These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. 24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up quickly. He spoke and said to his ministers, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.” 25 He answered, “Look, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are unharmed; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” 26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace. He spoke and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come here.” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth out of the midst of the fire. 27 The satraps, the prefects, and the governors, and the king’s ministers, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their trousers changed, nor had the smell of fire passed on them. NHEB
A question that arises in chapter 3 is where is Daniel? While it is always perilous to speculate about things where Scripture is silent, there have been three general thoughts regarding Daniel in this chapter. The first is that he is sick. In chapter 8, we get a reference to Daniel having a weakness in the body and since the time period for chapter 3 is generally thought to be 20 years after his arrival in Babylon, the idea is that an older Daniel is ill at home. The Dura is located outside the city with the location being as close as 6 miles but perhaps more in the range of 20 miles away. If Daniel is weak or sick, he would likely be unable to make the journey. A second thought is that because of Daniel’s status, he is exempted from this decree. The third is that since Daniel is such a high court official that he is attending to business elsewhere and simply can’t make it to the gala event.
“While “Chaldean” is a synonym of Babylonian, most think the use of the term here is referring to a subset of Babylonians, i.e., the seers, sooth-sayers and religious officials. In the Babylonian kingdom, these people are subordinate to Daniel but not to the other three captives. It is noteworthy that although Daniel isn’t included, it won’t be much longer in the narrative before he gets cast into the lion’s den.
After telling Nebuchadnezzar that they won’t worship the statue, the three are cast into the furnace still fully bound when suddenly the king sees not just three men but a fourth with them. Nebuchadnezzar tries to make sense of what the divine being he is seeing by fitting it into his polytheistic experience, hence the modern translation “son of the gods”. So who is this fourth person? Is it an angel (angels will show up in chapter 4)? Is it God? Virtually to a person, the early church fathers (the people the apostles cultivated as successors) think this is Jesus. Earlier translations, such as the Latin Vulgate, King James, and Douay-Rheims reflect this belief by translating verse 25 as “the Son of God”. Part of their reasoning is while some people in the Old Testament claim to see God or a glimpse of the Divine, they can only see His energies and not His essence as otherwise, they will die (see Exodus 33:20 where God tells Moses that no one can look at Him and live). The way God manifests Himself to humans is through the Incarnation which is the point where Christ becomes human and walks among us (although this, of course, isn’t the beginning of Jesus).
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. BSB
John 8:58 “Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!” BSB
The Incarnation is not where Jesus comes into being as God has always been Father, Son and Spirit so wherever God appears in the Old Testament to people of faith, what we are seeing is a pre-Incarnation version of the Son. To this day, the eastern church is pretty uniform in this but not so much the west.
There is within the Christian world, even among Orthodox Christian writers and scholars, a certain presupposed narrative regarding the ‘development’ of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity within Christianity. It is presupposed that the people of the Old Testament were Unitarian monotheists, that they believed that only one God existed, and that that God was a single person. It is then presupposed that through his teaching and deeds, culminating in his resurrection and ascension into heaven, early Christians came to believe that Jesus is also divine in some sense. The development of Christian belief over the next several centuries is then seen in evolutionary terms, in which early ‘low’ Christology in which Christ is seen to be divine, but not God in the same sense as his Father is gradually supplanted by the belief that he is God in the same sense, and then in a later, similar development the Holy Spirit came to be seen the same way, finally becoming the Trinitarian doctrine of the fourth century councils. While this narrative is often taken for granted, it is completely false.
Rather, the believers of the Old Testament believed that the God of Israel existed in multiple hypostases, the term translated as ‘persons’ in later doctrinal statements. There was for them only one Yahweh, but he existed as multiple persons…… It was only in the second century AD, in reaction to Christianity, that Judaism declared this previously common view a heresy. The New Testament, then, is a clarification, and a direct teaching regarding this very issue. The texts of the New Testament clarify that the God of Israel has eternally existed in three hypostases, as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…… One example of the God of Israel’s existence as multiple persons which is relatively well known is the figure of ‘the Angel of the Lord’, found in the Old Testament already in the Pentateuch. From Father Stephen De Young: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2018/05/16/the-angel-of-the-lord/
Daniel 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered his servants who trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. 29 Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be reduced to rubble; because there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.” 30Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. NHEB
Daniel 4:1“Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all the peoples, nations, and languages, who dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. 2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked toward me. 3 How great are his signs and how mighty are his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. NHEB
After seeing this, the king states that he will make a decree regarding the God of Shadrach, Meschach and Abenego. The order itself shows up as the beginning of chapter 4 rather than the end of chapter 3. (Although Daniel wrote the text, he wasn’t the one who divided the manuscript into chapters and verses). Most think Daniel had something to do with writing this proclamation as the expression “Most High God” makes sense from the Hebrew standpoint but also from a Babylonian mindset to show that this particular God is above all of the so called “gods” of the pagans.