Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages,
The herald's cry was a public summons to peoples, nations and languages to hear and obey the king's command. It required all assembled on the plain of Dura to bow down and worship the golden image representing Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar himself when the music sounded, on pain of immediate casting into the burning fiery furnace, though such worship and homage belong to God alone. By that proclamation worship was made a matter of civil command rather than conscience, with the king assuming a right that belongs to God alone by forcing men to worship an idol of human creation. That universal command to false worship will be repeated in the last days in the exaltation of a rival, spurious, man-made sabbath above God's Sabbath, with professed Christians calling the world to observe Sunday in place of the seventh day until a universal decree denounces as deserving death those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. When human authority thus requires violation of God's law, God's people must refuse to bow the knee and remain loyal to His commandments, and He will interpose in behalf of His loyal, commandment-keeping people as Christ walked with the three Hebrews in the furnace and preserved them unharmed.
Proclamation and Historical Setting
The verse records a herald crying aloud with a public summons addressed to peoples, nations, and languages to hear and obey the king's command. The command required all rulers and people assembled at the dedication on the plain of Dura to bow down and worship the golden image when the music sounded, on pain of being immediately cast into the burning fiery furnace for refusal.
The episode belongs to the history of the Lord's wonderful deliverance of the three Hebrew worthies, setting forth important principles regarding obedience and disobedience in the working out of His purpose for the children of obedience and the children of disobedience. Their integrity was thereby tested, and an idolatrous nation was shown the power and faithfulness of Israel's God. This came after a few years of prosperity had filled Nebuchadnezzar's heart with pride, so that he forgot his acknowledgment of the living God and resumed idol worship with increased zeal and bigotry. In that pride he returned to idolatry in an effort to exalt his kingdom through the image.
From treasures obtained in war he made a golden image to represent the one he had seen in his dream, exceedingly costly and magnificent, imposing and majestic in appearance and in the eyes of an idolatrous people. It was about ninety feet in height and nine feet in breadth. He set it up in the plain of Dura and called all the officers of the kingdom to assemble at its dedication.
Afterward, when his pride was humbled, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged that God's kingdom is everlasting and His dominion continues from generation to generation.
Meaning of the Required Worship
The image was made to represent the one Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream, and it represented the kingdom of Babylon and more particularly Nebuchadnezzar himself, his glory, and the excellence of Babylon. It was exceedingly costly, magnificent, imposing and majestic in appearance, about ninety feet high and nine feet broad, made from treasures obtained in war and set up in the plain of Dura. The herald's proclamation commanded all rulers and people assembled at its dedication to bow down and worship it when the music sounded.
The demand grew from Nebuchadnezzar perverting the light given in Daniel's interpretation, reading it through his own idolatrous mind and ambition instead of in the light of the living oracles. He and his heathen counselors were flattered that his kingdom was the head of gold while each baser metal signified decrease in value as nations separated from God, and they set him before the people as an object of worship. He supposed the display had authority to convert all nations to its worship, which God allowed him to follow according to his own inventions.
The required bowing was understood as worship and homage that belong to God alone. The three Hebrews refused to give that honor to an idol or, in effect, to the king.
The herald's universal call to peoples, nations, and languages made loyalty to the image a test of loyalty to Babylon on dedication day. It sought to make image worship a permanent part of the state religion and the country's established and official religion. It was part of a scheme to compel the three Hebrew youths to obey human law against God's law, to exalt the king, and to stir hostility against the Hebrew captives. It threatened to turn captive Israel's presence from a means of blessing the nations into a failure of God's purpose.
The proclamation made worship a matter of civil command rather than conscience, with a royal call to every rank and nation to give homage and submit across the king's realm. Nebuchadnezzar thereby assumed a right that belongs to God alone by forcing conscience, which only God can control. His command in pride and self-exaltation was an attempt by man to force fellow men to worship an idol of human creation representing himself.
That false religion relied on position of authority to command without question all who acknowledge God as Creator and Sovereign to bow to human enactments running counter to the commandments of God. It relied on outward display, parade, ceremony, and outward beauty, impressive and attractive with beautiful music to charm the senses and hold men by subtle influence upon the senses. That outward attractiveness covered the absence of inward purity, beauty, and holiness, and concealed spiritual poverty and apostasy. The worship it secured gave honor to the prince of darkness.
Prophetic Pattern for Last Days
The universal command to false worship on the plain of Dura will be repeated in this day, and is being repeated in the present age. Though innocent of wrongdoing, many servants of God will be given over to suffer humiliation and abuse at the hands of those inspired by Satan and filled with envy and religious bigotry. The wrath of man will be aroused especially against those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, until at last a universal decree denounces them as deserving of death. His vanity and oppression illustrate a future test in which laws will pressure people to honor a rival sabbath, and those who refuse will face oppression.
The exaltation of the golden image pictures the exaltation of a rival, spurious, man-made sabbath above God's Sabbath, and the herald's universal call pictures professed Christians calling the world to worship the institution they have made. The churches' promotion of Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the exaltation of the first day in place of the Lord's Sabbath, are compared to that image. Satan exalts himself through a false, man-made sabbath and leads people to give it the worship that belongs to God. As people were commanded to worship the image, so people are commanded to keep this false rest day holy. Sunday is presented as sacred and exalted for universal observance, although it has no sanctity.
That requirement to observe the first day of the week is imposed on the world, but has no sanctity or command in God's Word. The episode illustrates rulers using coercion to compel worship, in contrast with following Christ. Civil authority was used to demand religious worship, and this parallels later human laws that require observance of a false sabbath in place of God's Sabbath. Human laws can be used to demand religious worship and displace God's law, including by exalting a spurious Sabbath over the fourth commandment. Representative men exalting Sunday for all people is compared to Nebuchadnezzar's demand that people worship the image, with an idol sabbath set up and rulers using legislation to compel conscience and promote a spurious sabbath.
The same spirit that set aside God's holy seventh-day Sabbath, which He sanctified and blessed as His memorial of creation, exalts a rival rest day of human creating and with bitterness like Cain's against Abel tries to compel God's people to reject God's law and worship accordingly. That course manifests the same ceremony, formalism, vainglory, and oppression seen in Nebuchadnezzar's course, carried into effect by satanic agencies through the man of sin as the mystery of iniquity. The command to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image is a model for a future decree compelling people to honor Sunday, so that those who refuse to worship the false sabbath will face imprisonment and death. An idol Sunday sabbath is set up like that image, a proclamation commands reverence for the Sunday institution, and all who refuse are punished with imprisonment and death while the Sabbath of the Lord is trampled underfoot.
The verse means human law compelling conscience against the law of God, to be repeated when the law of God is made void by a national act, when Sunday is exalted and sustained by law, and when keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath is counted disloyal to the laws of the land. The enforced worship foreshadows the end of the world, when students of God's Word will again stand apart from the customs and appointments of the world's counselors while Babylon falls as it fell in an hour of feasting and reveling. The command to worship the image is compared with worship of the beast's image, in which churches that keep Sunday instead of the seventh-day Sabbath exalt the papacy's image and receive the beast's mark. The same will happen again in a battle over the seventh-day Sabbath when authorities in the United States and in other countries rise up in pride and power and make laws to restrict religious liberty. They are already making a beginning that they will continue to carry forward till they reach a boundary over which they cannot step.
Loyalty and Deliverance Today
The three faithful servants refused to bow the knee to the commanded worship, making a decision for the commandments of God against a human command. Their loyalty to God was made manifest when the king's command put that loyalty in conflict with a public decree. Their example shows that God's people must remain faithful when human authority requires them to violate God's law.
For their loyalty to the God of heaven they were cast into the burning fiery furnace. There Christ Himself walked with them in the furnace, and the Lord Jesus was with them and preserved them from harm so that they were unharmed. The miracle wrought upon Nebuchadnezzar's heart, leading him to see the form of the Fourth and to acknowledge their God as the living God of superior power and to believe in God.
When blind, hard-hearted powers seek to compel conscience, the duty of the people of God is plain: not to give up loyalty to God but to make manifest the same principle that the three Hebrews manifested. They are to make manifest the value of God's law as a rule of conduct, to have increased zeal as the world and the church unite in making void the law, and to love God's commandments above gold, yea above fine gold. God will interpose in behalf of His loyal, commandment-keeping people when authorities rise up in pride and power to restrict religious liberty.
That same kind of testing period will come in the Southern States in connection with bringing truth to the colored people, when believers will have to do as the three worthies did and face decisions for or against the commandments of God. Until that time believers must not be presumptuous or encourage the spirit of defiance and resistance, but pray for those who treat them evilly and resist not evil, and avoid closing the way for work in untouched fields. In the final conflict human laws may be exalted in place of God's law and require worship contrary to conscience, as the royal call to people of every rank and nation to give homage to the image illustrates.
The herald's cry was a public summons to peoples, nations and languages to hear and obey the king's command. It required all assembled on the plain of Dura to bow down and worship the golden image representing Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar himself when the music sounded, on pain of immediate casting into the burning fiery furnace, though such worship and homage belong to God alone. By that proclamation worship was made a matter of civil command rather than conscience, with the king assuming a right that belongs to God alone by forcing men to worship an idol of human creation. That universal command to false worship will be repeated in the last days in the exaltation of a rival, spurious, man-made sabbath above God's Sabbath, with professed Christians calling the world to observe Sunday in place of the seventh day until a universal decree denounces as deserving death those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. When human authority thus requires violation of God's law, God's people must refuse to bow the knee and remain loyal to His commandments, and He will interpose in behalf of His loyal, commandment-keeping people as Christ walked with the three Hebrews in the furnace and preserved them unharmed.
Proclamation and Historical Setting
The verse records a herald crying aloud with a public summons addressed to peoples, nations, and languages to hear and obey the king's command. The command required all rulers and people assembled at the dedication on the plain of Dura to bow down and worship the golden image when the music sounded, on pain of being immediately cast into the burning fiery furnace for refusal.
The episode belongs to the history of the Lord's wonderful deliverance of the three Hebrew worthies, setting forth important principles regarding obedience and disobedience in the working out of His purpose for the children of obedience and the children of disobedience. Their integrity was thereby tested, and an idolatrous nation was shown the power and faithfulness of Israel's God. This came after a few years of prosperity had filled Nebuchadnezzar's heart with pride, so that he forgot his acknowledgment of the living God and resumed idol worship with increased zeal and bigotry. In that pride he returned to idolatry in an effort to exalt his kingdom through the image.
From treasures obtained in war he made a golden image to represent the one he had seen in his dream, exceedingly costly and magnificent, imposing and majestic in appearance and in the eyes of an idolatrous people. It was about ninety feet in height and nine feet in breadth. He set it up in the plain of Dura and called all the officers of the kingdom to assemble at its dedication.
Afterward, when his pride was humbled, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged that God's kingdom is everlasting and His dominion continues from generation to generation.
Meaning of the Required Worship
The image was made to represent the one Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream, and it represented the kingdom of Babylon and more particularly Nebuchadnezzar himself, his glory, and the excellence of Babylon. It was exceedingly costly, magnificent, imposing and majestic in appearance, about ninety feet high and nine feet broad, made from treasures obtained in war and set up in the plain of Dura. The herald's proclamation commanded all rulers and people assembled at its dedication to bow down and worship it when the music sounded.
The demand grew from Nebuchadnezzar perverting the light given in Daniel's interpretation, reading it through his own idolatrous mind and ambition instead of in the light of the living oracles. He and his heathen counselors were flattered that his kingdom was the head of gold while each baser metal signified decrease in value as nations separated from God, and they set him before the people as an object of worship. He supposed the display had authority to convert all nations to its worship, which God allowed him to follow according to his own inventions.
The required bowing was understood as worship and homage that belong to God alone. The three Hebrews refused to give that honor to an idol or, in effect, to the king.
The herald's universal call to peoples, nations, and languages made loyalty to the image a test of loyalty to Babylon on dedication day. It sought to make image worship a permanent part of the state religion and the country's established and official religion. It was part of a scheme to compel the three Hebrew youths to obey human law against God's law, to exalt the king, and to stir hostility against the Hebrew captives. It threatened to turn captive Israel's presence from a means of blessing the nations into a failure of God's purpose.
The proclamation made worship a matter of civil command rather than conscience, with a royal call to every rank and nation to give homage and submit across the king's realm. Nebuchadnezzar thereby assumed a right that belongs to God alone by forcing conscience, which only God can control. His command in pride and self-exaltation was an attempt by man to force fellow men to worship an idol of human creation representing himself.
That false religion relied on position of authority to command without question all who acknowledge God as Creator and Sovereign to bow to human enactments running counter to the commandments of God. It relied on outward display, parade, ceremony, and outward beauty, impressive and attractive with beautiful music to charm the senses and hold men by subtle influence upon the senses. That outward attractiveness covered the absence of inward purity, beauty, and holiness, and concealed spiritual poverty and apostasy. The worship it secured gave honor to the prince of darkness.
Prophetic Pattern for Last Days
The universal command to false worship on the plain of Dura will be repeated in this day, and is being repeated in the present age. Though innocent of wrongdoing, many servants of God will be given over to suffer humiliation and abuse at the hands of those inspired by Satan and filled with envy and religious bigotry. The wrath of man will be aroused especially against those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, until at last a universal decree denounces them as deserving of death. His vanity and oppression illustrate a future test in which laws will pressure people to honor a rival sabbath, and those who refuse will face oppression.
The exaltation of the golden image pictures the exaltation of a rival, spurious, man-made sabbath above God's Sabbath, and the herald's universal call pictures professed Christians calling the world to worship the institution they have made. The churches' promotion of Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the exaltation of the first day in place of the Lord's Sabbath, are compared to that image. Satan exalts himself through a false, man-made sabbath and leads people to give it the worship that belongs to God. As people were commanded to worship the image, so people are commanded to keep this false rest day holy. Sunday is presented as sacred and exalted for universal observance, although it has no sanctity.
That requirement to observe the first day of the week is imposed on the world, but has no sanctity or command in God's Word. The episode illustrates rulers using coercion to compel worship, in contrast with following Christ. Civil authority was used to demand religious worship, and this parallels later human laws that require observance of a false sabbath in place of God's Sabbath. Human laws can be used to demand religious worship and displace God's law, including by exalting a spurious Sabbath over the fourth commandment. Representative men exalting Sunday for all people is compared to Nebuchadnezzar's demand that people worship the image, with an idol sabbath set up and rulers using legislation to compel conscience and promote a spurious sabbath.
The same spirit that set aside God's holy seventh-day Sabbath, which He sanctified and blessed as His memorial of creation, exalts a rival rest day of human creating and with bitterness like Cain's against Abel tries to compel God's people to reject God's law and worship accordingly. That course manifests the same ceremony, formalism, vainglory, and oppression seen in Nebuchadnezzar's course, carried into effect by satanic agencies through the man of sin as the mystery of iniquity. The command to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image is a model for a future decree compelling people to honor Sunday, so that those who refuse to worship the false sabbath will face imprisonment and death. An idol Sunday sabbath is set up like that image, a proclamation commands reverence for the Sunday institution, and all who refuse are punished with imprisonment and death while the Sabbath of the Lord is trampled underfoot.
The verse means human law compelling conscience against the law of God, to be repeated when the law of God is made void by a national act, when Sunday is exalted and sustained by law, and when keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath is counted disloyal to the laws of the land. The enforced worship foreshadows the end of the world, when students of God's Word will again stand apart from the customs and appointments of the world's counselors while Babylon falls as it fell in an hour of feasting and reveling. The command to worship the image is compared with worship of the beast's image, in which churches that keep Sunday instead of the seventh-day Sabbath exalt the papacy's image and receive the beast's mark. The same will happen again in a battle over the seventh-day Sabbath when authorities in the United States and in other countries rise up in pride and power and make laws to restrict religious liberty. They are already making a beginning that they will continue to carry forward till they reach a boundary over which they cannot step.
Loyalty and Deliverance Today
The three faithful servants refused to bow the knee to the commanded worship, making a decision for the commandments of God against a human command. Their loyalty to God was made manifest when the king's command put that loyalty in conflict with a public decree. Their example shows that God's people must remain faithful when human authority requires them to violate God's law.
For their loyalty to the God of heaven they were cast into the burning fiery furnace. There Christ Himself walked with them in the furnace, and the Lord Jesus was with them and preserved them from harm so that they were unharmed. The miracle wrought upon Nebuchadnezzar's heart, leading him to see the form of the Fourth and to acknowledge their God as the living God of superior power and to believe in God.
When blind, hard-hearted powers seek to compel conscience, the duty of the people of God is plain: not to give up loyalty to God but to make manifest the same principle that the three Hebrews manifested. They are to make manifest the value of God's law as a rule of conduct, to have increased zeal as the world and the church unite in making void the law, and to love God's commandments above gold, yea above fine gold. God will interpose in behalf of His loyal, commandment-keeping people when authorities rise up in pride and power to restrict religious liberty.
That same kind of testing period will come in the Southern States in connection with bringing truth to the colored people, when believers will have to do as the three worthies did and face decisions for or against the commandments of God. Until that time believers must not be presumptuous or encourage the spirit of defiance and resistance, but pray for those who treat them evilly and resist not evil, and avoid closing the way for work in untouched fields. In the final conflict human laws may be exalted in place of God's law and require worship contrary to conscience, as the royal call to people of every rank and nation to give homage to the image illustrates.