Notes and Questions for March 15, 2009
This week we talked a bit about integrity. We discussed the meaning of integrity where the outside matches the inside. Certainly we see that Daniel has attempted to match his internal love and clear humbleness to God to the outside. We then turn to Daniel’s friends. Are we really surprised that Daniel’s friends would not bow down to an image?
We also discussed distractions and how, even though many of them are very tempting and sound very good, they are just distractions from our mission as a man or woman of God.
I will reiterate what we asked in one of the questions on the worksheet before we get into the next verses. If you can talk about this with your spouse that would be great:
What is your mission?
Take a little bit to answer this. If you need a view on mission think about those in the bible, your relatives, or even political figures. What is their mission? What do you perceive it to be?
This week we will review how Daniel’s friends had consistency in their mission for God.
Please read the section – Daniel 3:8-18
1. What are the main points of this passage and why?
2. How does this passage relate to the prior 2 chapters? What or who has changed and who has not?
3. What have you been asked to conform to in your world?
The three who refused to acknowledge the golden image were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the close companions of that newly promoted high official Belteshazzar. Those stubborn fools were disobeying the royal decree! The knew that everyone was supposed to conform to it. With death staring them in the face, how could they think of disobeying? Didn’t they know that everyone was watching them and that they could not possibly escape the fiery furnace? How could they think of giving up their high office, the royal favor, and even their lives for the sake of their eccentric religious beliefs?
Read verse 8-12
4. When did these people come forward?
5. Who did these people denounce?
6. Why would someone denounce the Jews?
7. What do they say to Neb? How does this match chapter 1 and 2?
8. Why do they remind him of his command?
9. Why does verse 8 say they generally denounced the Jews and then verses 10 through 12 specifically denounce them?
10. What is the charge brought against them? Is it not following the command or not worshipping the gods? How are these intertwined?
After the public worship, some malicious men (v8) were only too glad to report to the king about the disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These informers are called “Chaldeans”. Unlike chapter 2, chapter 4 does not introduce Chaldeans as one of a long list of soothsayers and sages. Here they approached the king as members of the master race (gubrin is used only of men of importance and high standing in the community, and gubrin kasadain there fore implied Chaldean nobles rather than a class of mere astrologers or soothsayers). This heightens the appropriateness of their reference to Daniel’s three Hebrew associates in government service as Jewish magnates, with a contemptuous emphasis on their despised nationality quite akin to the derogatory tone assumed by King Darius’s officials in 6:13 as they label Daniel “one of the exiles from Judah”.
With a show of zeal for the king, the Chaldeans quoted his edict word for word (v 10-11_ and then related how these three recalicitrant Jews had dared (v 12) to “pay not attention to” (la-samu layk teem – literally “They have not paid regard to you”) the express command of “King Nebuchadnezzar” (v 9); they had refused to bow down and worship the golden image!
Read verses 13-15
11. Why was Neb so mad? Be specific. Is it because they disobeyed, because they made him look bad, because they ….?
12. What does Neb do in verse 14? What is he asking?
13. What offer does Neb make in verse 15?
14. What is the repeated threat in verse 15?
15. What is the final question from Neb to the three at the end of verse 15? What is his real intent in this statement? What is he saying about a God they may worship?
Neb’s response was all the Chaldeans could have hoped for. He became furious and ordered the offenders to be brought before him (v 13). He could not understand that they had defied him, after his many favors and in the face of such a dreadful penalty. Half incredulously he stared at them and asked whether they really had disobeyed his decree (v 14). Then controlling his anger momentarily, he stopped questioning them and magnamimously gave them an opportunity to save themselves. He would order the musicians to play again so the three men might prove their loyalty and obedience by worshipping the image then and there (v15).
But the three friends of Daniel loved Yahweh more than life itself. Not only had they learned to recite the Shema – “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is on. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength: (Deut 6:4-5) – but they made it the center of their lives. For them the will and glory of Yahweh meant more than fame, position, or security. Loving Him with all their heart, they were ready to lay down their lives for Him. Such was the logic of genuine faith, somewhat as Paul the apostle later to say “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – to task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). So these three refused to plead with Neb to make an exception for them.
Read verses 16-18
16. Do you need to defend yourself when people point out something they don’t like about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit or your beliefs? Why or why not?
17. Would this have been your response?
18. What is the significance of verse 17? How does this relate or conflict with verse 15 and the last question Neb asks them?
19. There is definitive resolve with these three about what they will and won’t do.
20. What is your resolve? What are you consistently known for?
21. If God does not provide what is perceived as good in your life or at the right time does that mean He isn’t involved or working?
22. If God doesn’t save these three is Neb correct and right in his ways, methods, and beliefs? Justify your answer
23. What are you scared of? Pain, death, loneliness, ….?
“O Nebuchadnezzar,” the three said “we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.” The Aramaic word order of v 16 places emphasis on the pronoun ‘we’ implying that it is the Lord Himself who will deal with this king who thinks he is sovereign on earth.
The next statement of the three men has been variously interpreted. Its opening clause is usually rendered “If it be so, our god…is able” (v 17). (NIV has “if we are thrown,…the God we serve is able.”) But a more appropriate rendering in this context would be “If our God exists (hen itay lahana, in which itay, like its Heb. Congnate yes, means ‘there is’ or ‘there exists’), whom we worship, he is able to deliver us from the furnace of burning fire; and from yoru hand, O king, he shall deliver.” Neb had made the mistake of deying Yahweh, saying “Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” (v 15). Like Sennacherib, who had derided Hezekiah’s trust in god by boasting that none of the gods of the other nations had ever been able to save their people from the might of Assyria (2 Kings 18:33). Neb had converted his confrontation with men into a contest with the Lord God Almighty. Neb’s doom and fall were sure, even though he had earlier served God’s purpose as a scourge to chasten God’s apostate people (Jer 27:6-8). Ungratefully he had scoffed at the very God who had granted him success in battle; therefore he was to undergo on humiliation after another, till he groveled in the dust before Israel’s God.
But the heroism of the three men went even further as they declared “But even if he does not deliver us we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods, or worship the image of gold you have set up (v 18). They were ready to be burned up in the firery furnace rather than betray the God they had totally surrendered their lives to. Scripture contains few more heroic words than “but even if He does not.”
Concerning this confrontation between Neb and the three Hebrews, in Ford’s commentary he says:
“The courteous but determined refusal of the Hebrews should be carefully observed. They had obeyed “the powers that be” as far as conscience permitted. They journeyed to the Plain of Dura. And right at the point where conscience shouted, “No further” they rejected the temptation to be arrogant in their non-conformity. As Daniel before them had been courteous in his request to follow his convictions, so these three verbally acknowledge Neb as king, while committing their ultimate allegiance to the King of kings alone (Acts 5:29; Matt 22:21).”
Before passing on to verse 19 next week we need to face the puzzling question of why Daniel did not join his three companions in disobeying the king’s decree. Several answers may be given.
Since Daniel is not mentioned in this chapter, he may have been absent from Babylon at the time, perhaps on government business in some other part of the kingdom.
He may have been closeted with other members of the king’s cabinet, working on legislative or military plans.
He may have been (as Wood suggests in his commentary) too ill to attend the public ceremony; we know 8:27 that sickness occasionally interfered with his carrying on with government business (also 7:28 and 10:8)
It may simply have been assumed that as the king’s vizier (prime minister, for his responsibilities amounted to that of high status 2:48, he was not required to make public demonstration of his loyalty by worshipping the image of his god. After all, there is no indication that Neb himself bowed down to the image. It may have been that he simply sat on his royal dais surveying the scene, with his closest friends and advisers at his side.
It is true that Daniel’s office as ruler over the capital province of Babylon (2:48 again) was not specifically listed in the seven categories of public official and none of the “wise men”, over whom Daniel had been made chief, were included in the call for this public ceremony. As a type of the accredited clergy serving under the state, they may have been exempted from this act of allegiance; their religious commitment would have been presumed to be beyond question. In other words, Daniel did not belong to any of the special groups of jurists, advisors, financial experts, or political leaders included in the terms of the call.
perhaps Daniel’s reputation as a diviner was so formidable that even the jealous Chaldeans did not dare attack him before the king.
