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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 3:14 - 3:14
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The trial of the accused.
Dan 3:14
The question הַצְדָא the old translators incorrectly explain by Is it true? In the justice of the accusation Nebuchadnezzar had no doubt whatever, and צְדָא has not this meaning. Also the meaning, scorn, which אִַּצְדִי in Aram. has, and L. de Dieu, Häv., and Kran. make use of, does not appear to be quite consistent, since Nebuchadnezzar, if he had seen in the refusal to do homage to the image a despising of his gods, then certainly he would not have publicly repeated his command, and afforded to the accused the possibility of escaping the threatened punishment, as he did (Dan 3:15). We therefore agree with Hitz. and Klief., who interpret it, after the Hebr. צְדִיָּה, Num 35:20., of malicious resolution, not merely intention, according to Gesen., Winer, and others. For all the three could not unintentionally or accidentally have made themselves guilty of transgression. The form הַצְדָא we regard as a noun form with הinterrog. prefixed in adverbial cases, and not an Aphel formation: Scorning, Shadrach, etc., do ye not serve? (Kran.) The affirmative explanation of the verse, according to which the king would suppose the motive of the transgression as decided, does not agree with the alternative which (Dan 3:15) he places before the accused. But if הַצְדָא is regarded as a question, there is no need for our supplying the conjunction דִּי before the following verb, but we may unite the חַצְדָא in one sentence with the following verb: “are ye of design ... not obeying?” Nebuchadnezzar speaks of his god in contrast to the God of the Jews.
Dan 3:15
עֲתִידִין taken with the following clause, תִּפְּלוּן ... דִּי, is not a circumlocution for the future (according to Winer, Chald. Gram. §45, 2). This does not follow from the use of the simple future in contrast, but it retains its peculiar meaning ready. The conclusion to the first clause is omitted, because it is self-evident from the conclusion of the second, opposed passage: then ye will not be cast into the fiery furnace. Similar omissions are found in Exo 32:32; Luk 13:9. For the purpose of giving strength to his threatening, Nebuchadnezzar adds that no god would deliver them out of his hand. In this Hitz. is not justified in supposing there is included a blaspheming of Jehovah like that of Sennacherib, Isa 37:10. The case is different. Sennacherib raised his gods above Jehovah, the God of the Jews; Nebuchadnezzar only declares that deliverance out of the fiery furnace is a work which no god can accomplish, and in this he only indirectly likens the God of the Jews to the gods of the heathen.
Dan 3:16
In the answer of the accused, נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר is not, contrary to the accent, to be placed in apposition to לְמַלְכָּא; for, as Kran. has rightly remarked, an intentional omission of מַלְכָּא in addressing Nebuchadnezzar is, after Dan 3:18, where מַלְכָּא occurs in the address, as little likely as that the Athnach is placed under לְמַלְכָּא only on account of the apposition going before, to separate from it the nomen propr.; and an error in the placing of the distinctivus, judging from the existing accuracy, is untenable. “The direct address of the king by his name plainly corresponds to the king's address to the three officers in the preceding words, Dan 3:14.” We are not to conclude from it, as Hitz. supposes, “that they address him as a plebeian,” but much rather, as in the corresponding address, Dan 3:14, are to see in it an evidence of the deep impression sought to be produced in the person concerned.
פִּתְגָּם is the accus., and is not to be connected with דְּנָה עַל: as to this command (Häv.). If the demonstrative were present only before the noun, then the noun must stand in the status absol. as Dan 4:15 (18). פִּתְגָּם, from the Zend. paiti = πρός, and gâm, to go, properly, “the going to,” therefore message, edict, then generally word (as here) and matter (Ezr 6:11), as frequently in the Targ., corresponding to the Hebr. דָּבָר.
Dan 3:17-18
יָכִיל denotes the ethical ability, i.e., the ability limited by the divine holiness and righteousness, not the omnipotence of God as such. For this the accused did not doubt, nor will they place in question the divine omnipotence before the heathen king. The conclusion begins after the Athnach, and הֵן means, not see! lo! (according to the old versions and many interpreters), for which Daniel constantly uses אֲלוּ or אֲרוֹ, but it means if, as here the contrast לָא וְהֵן, and if not (Dan 3:18), demands. There lies in the answer, “If our God will save us, then ... and if not, know, O king, that we will not serve thy gods,” neither audacity, nor a superstitious expectation of some miracle (Dan 3:17), nor fanaticism (Dan 3:18), as Berth., v. Leng., and Hitz. maintain, but only the confidence of faith and a humble submission to the will of God. “The three simply see that their standpoint and that of the king are altogether different, also that their standpoint can never be clearly understood by Nebuchadnezzar, and therefore they give up any attempt to justify themselves. But that which was demanded of them they could not do, because it would have been altogether contrary to their faith and their conscience. And then without fanaticism they calmly decline to answer, and only say, 'Let him do according to his own will;' thus without superstitiousness committing their deliverance to God” (Klief.).