EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
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The most mighty men.—He selected these as being the most likely to be able to bear the unusual heat of the fire. Whether he had any expectation that some attempt at a rescue would be made does not appear. We may gather, however, that the army was present at this horrible tragedy.
3:19-27 Let Nebuchadnezzar heat his furnace as hot as he can, a few minutes will finish the torment of those cast into it; but hell-fire tortures, and yet does not kill. Those who worshipped the beast and his image, have no rest, no pause, no moment free from pain, Re 14:10,11. Now was fulfilled in the letter that great promise, Isa 43:2, When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. Leaving it to that God who preserved them in the fire, to bring them out, they walked up and down in the midst, supported and encouraged by the presence of the Son of God. Those who suffer for Christ, have his presence in their sufferings, even in the fiery furnace, and in the valley of the shadow of death. Nebuchadnezzar owns them for servants of the most high God; a God able to deliver them out of his hand. It is our God only is the consuming fire, Heb 12:29. Could we but see into the eternal world, we should behold the persecuted believer safe from the malice of his foes, while they are exposed to the wrath of God, and tormented in unquenchable fires.
And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army - Margin, "mighty of strength." Chaldee, "And to mighty men, mighty men of strength who were in his army, he said." He employed the strongest men that could be found for this purpose.
19. visage … changed—He had shown forbearance (Da 3:14, 15) as a favor to them, but now that they despise even his forbearance, anger "fills" him, and is betrayed in his whole countenance.
seven times more than it was wont—literally, "than it was (ever) seen to be heated." Seven is the perfect number; that is, it was made as hot as possible. Passion overdoes and defeats its own end, for the hotter the fire, the sooner were they likely to be put out of pain.
Did he think these three men would have resisted, or that their God would defend them from his power, or that, if he had, the king and his mighty men could have prevailed? None of all this was in the case, for God purposed to show his power when the king did his worst, and to quench the violence of the fire, both of the furnace and of the king’s fury, at once; and in the thing wherein he dealt proudly, to be above him.
And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army,.... The most famous for courage of mind, and strength of body, that were in all his army:
to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego either their hands or their feet, or both; unless it can be thought that they were all three bound together in one bundle, and so cast into the furnace; which is not improbable, as Gejerus observes; seeing the king afterwards wondered to see them walk separately in the furnace: there was no need to bind them, for they would not have resisted; and if he ordered this to secure them from the power of their God, it was vain and foolish:
and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace: if they were all three bound together, it required some able bodied men to take them up and cast them in, especially if the furnace was above them; though it is more probable that it was a more depressed place, or below them, and so the cast was more easy.
And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
