Daniel 3:22 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Daniel 3:22
Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flames of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
to kindle · verb, active participle, masculine singular absolute
flame
שְׁבִיבָ֖אshe.vi.Va'
H7631
flame (as split into tongues) · noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
fire
נוּרָֽאnu.Ra'
H5135
fire · noun, common both genders singular determined + particle of affirmation
slew
קַטִּ֣לka.Til
H6992
to kill · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
those
אִלֵּ֗ךְ'i.Lekh
H479
these · demonstrative particle
men
גֻּבְרַיָּ֣אguv.rai.Ya'
H1400
a person · noun, common masculine plural determined + particle of affirmation
up
הַסִּ֙קוּ֙ha.Si.ku
H5267
to go up · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Shadrach
לְשַׁדְרַ֤ךְle.shad.Rakh
H7715
Shadrak · preposition + proper noun, a man's name
Meshach
מֵישַׁךְ֙mei.shaKh
H4336
Meshak · proper noun, a man's name
Abed-nego
וַעֲבֵ֣דva.'a.Ved
H5665
Abed-Nego · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 11:8 The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.
Proverbs 21:18 The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright.
Exodus 12:33 And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.
Daniel 2:15 He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
Daniel 6:24 And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children,…
Zechariah 12:2-3 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and aga…
Matthew 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Acts 12:19 And when Herod had sought for him, and found him not, he examined the keepers, and commanded that they should be put to death. And he went d…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Daniel 3:19-27
In these verses we have,
I. The casting of these three faithful servants of God into the fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar had himself known and owned so much of the true God that, one would have thought, though his pride and vanity induced him to make this golden image, and set it up to be worshipped, yet what these young men now said (whom he had formerly found to be wiser than all his wise men) would revive his convictions, and at least engage him to excuse them; but it proved quite otherwise. 1. Instead of being convinced by what they said, he was exasperated, and made more outrageous, Dan 3:19. It made him full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against these men. Note, Brutish…
Their hats - This word, hat, is found only in this place in the Old Testament. The word סרבל sarbal properly means an outer garment. Herodotus, who lived about one hundred years after Daniel, says, "the dress of the Babylonians consisted of a tunic of linen reaching down to the feet; over this a tunic of woollen; and over all a white short cloak or mantle, χλανιδιον; and on their heads they wore turbans, μιτρησι." Following this, Mr. Parkhurst translates the verse thus: "Then these three men were bound [בסרבליהון besarbaleyhon] in their Cloaks, [פמישיהון patesheyhon] their Turbans, [וכרבלתהון vecharbelathehon] and in their Upper (woollen) Tunics, [ולבושיהון ulebushehon] and their Under (line…
And therefore, because the king's commandment was urgent,.... Or was ordered to be obeyed in haste, and with expedition and dispatch, hence the men were cast into the furnace with clothes on; or those that cast them were not so careful of themselves:
and the furnace exceeding hot; being heated seven times more than usual:
the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; which came out of the furnace, being so excessive hot, and the smoke along with it; so that when those men took up the three children, and brought them so near to it as was necessary to cast them in, the flame and smoke catched their breath, and suffocated them; who might be men that advise…
The Church Fathers
The flames killed because the slanderers, being carried away by their joy, approached the furnace to observe the burning of their [victims], but through divine intervention they were consumed by the heat of the furnace. So also, in order that the king and the Babylonians might not think that because of a hallucination or illusion those youths made the fire harmless, God caused many of those who had gathered around the furnace to be consumed while the youths felt just like the king in his bedroom.
Verse 22. "Then those same men who had cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were slain by the fiery flame." Of course this meant the same men of whom it was said above, "And he commanded the strongest men in his army to bind the legs of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and cast them into the burning furnace of fire (another reading: into the furnace of flaming fire)." And so they were not any chance servants of his whom Nebuchadnezzar destroyed, but men who of all his army were strong and most ready for war. Not only was it intended that the miracle should strike terror but also that his own army might experience injury.
And so the Babylonians, seeing the three boys hymning in the furnace, did not cease to heat the furnace with resin, pitch, tar, and brushwood and the flame climbed forty-nine cubits above the furnace and spread out against they who fought against the mighty God. Scripture says, "The fire broke out and engulfed those whom it found around the furnace of the Chaldeans." See how the fire itself was prudent and recognized and punished the culpable? For it did not singe the slaves of God, but consumed the faithless and godless of the Chaldeans, and those who were within the furnace were besprinkled by an angel, but those careless ones who imagined that they stood outside of the furnace, they were destroyed by fire.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Abednego — Servant of Nego=Nebo, the Chaldee name given to Azariah, one of Daniel’s three companions (Dan. 2:49). With Shadrach and Meshach, he was delivered from the burning fiery furnace (3:12-30).
Furnace — (1.) Chald. attun, a large furnace with a wide open mouth, at the top of which materials were cast in (Dan. 3:22, 23; comp. Jer. 29:22). This furnace would be in constant requisition, for the…
Meshach — The title given to Mishael, one of the three Hebrew youths who were under training at the Babylonian court for the rank of Magi (Dan. 1:7; 2:49; 3:12-30). This was probably the name of some Chaldean…
Nebuchadnezzar — In the Babylonian orthography Nabu-kudur-uzur, which means “Nebo, protect the crown!” or the “frontiers.” In an inscription he styles himself “Nebo’s favourite.” He was the son and successor of…
Abed-Nego · .A Jewish — .A Jewish
Coercion · RELIGIOUS — RELIGIOUS
Fire · Can be increased in intensity — Can be increased in intensity
Furnace · into, by Nebuchadnezzar — into, by Nebuchadnezzar
Indictments · .Three Hebrew — .Three Hebrew
Meshach · A name given by the chief eu — A name given by the chief eu
Mishael · .Thrown into the fiery furnace — .Thrown into the fiery furnace
Persecution · Spirit of — Exemplified: Chaldeans — Spirit of — Exemplified: Chaldeans
Daniel 3:21-23
21. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
21. Tunc viri illi vincti sunt, vel, ligati, in suis chlamydibus, [189] et cum tiaris suis: [190] in vestitu suo: et projecti sunt in fornacem ignis ardentis.
22. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
22. Propterea quod urgebat, vel, festinabat, ud verbum praeceptum regis, et fornacem vehementer jusserat accendi, viros illos qui extulerant Sadrach, Mesach, et Abed-nego occidit t kavilla, a…
דּי מן (because that), a further explanatory expression added to דּנה כּל־קבל (wholly for this cause): because the word of the king was sharp, and in consequence of it (ו), the furnace was heated beyond measure for that reason. The words אלּך גּבריּא (these mighty men) stand here in the status absol., and are again taken up in the pronoun המּון after the verb קטּל. If the three were brought up to the furnace, it must have had a mouth above, through which the victims could be cast into it. When heated to an ordinary degree, this could be done without danger to the men who performed this service; but in the present case the heat of the fire was so great, that the servants themselves perished b…
The three men declared their faithfulness to God above all. They were entrusting themselves to the God who had rescued the entire nation of Israel from the power of Pharaoh (Exod 18:10). God later revealed that those who remain faithful unto death will be delivered even after they have died (Dan 12:1-3).
Rashi on Daniel 3:22
In view of this in view of this, that the king’s command was strong.
and the furnace was heated excessively and the furnace was heated to a great degree.
these men these mighty men who had bound Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah and had cast them into the furnace.
were killed by a spark of fire The power of a spark of fire burned them.
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
