Daniel 3:5, commentary and pictures

At the sound of every kind of music all peoples under Nebuchadnezzar were commanded to fall down and worship the costly golden image he had set up in the plain of Dura, about ninety feet high, on pain of being at once cast into a burning fiery furnace. The image set forth Babylon's glory and especially Nebuchadnezzar himself as an object of worship, to exalt the king, demand supreme loyalty, and turn the nations from the living God after His warning in the dream of the head of gold had been read through pride and ambition. Bowing at the musical signal was worship belonging to God alone, so the decree made idolatry the established national religion and set human law against God's law to force conscience and test loyalty to Jehovah. The three Hebrew captives refused to dishonor their Creator at the risk of life, and for loyalty to the God of heaven were cast into the furnace, where Christ Himself walked with them and preserved them unharmed before the idolatrous nation. That enforced worship will be repeated in the last days when civil power commands reverence for Sunday, the spurious sabbath without Scripture authority, in place of the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, punishing with imprisonment and death all who will not yield.

Setting and Royal Decree

Nebuchadnezzar had for a little time been influenced by the fear of God after light from heaven, but years of prosperity filled his heart with pride until he forgot the living God and resumed idol worship with increased zeal and bigotry, his heart still ruled by worldly ambition and self-exaltation. From treasures obtained in war he made an exceedingly costly and magnificent golden image to represent the one he had seen in his dream, about ninety feet high and nine feet broad, imposing and majestic to an idolatrous people. He set it up in the plain of Dura and by proclamation called all rulers, officers and people of the kingdom to assemble at its dedication.

At what time they heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music, people of every nation and language under his rule were commanded to fall down and worship the golden image, and anyone who failed was to be at once cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. The sound of the music was the signal for the assembled officials and the multitude from many nations to bow down together. The great golden image set up in Daniel's time thus required all the people under his rule to worship it on pain of death.

The image represented Babylon's glory, magnificence, power and excellence, and more particularly Nebuchadnezzar himself, magnifying the king who ruled it and setting him before the people as an object of worship. Worshipping it therefore gave to the king honor that belonged to God alone. In a land where idol worship was widespread the decree made the image an object of worship as a sign of supreme loyalty to Babylonian power.

The command was intended to honor Babylon, exalt the king, demand supreme loyalty, and convert all nations to that worship, with enforced universal worship supposed to be of sufficient authority to turn all nations to idolatry. It was also intended to obscure the prophecy of the kingdoms that would follow Babylon. It grew out of the dream of the great image in which his kingdom was represented by the head of gold, read through his own idolatrous mind and ambition and brought into harmony with his human understanding instead of in the light of the living oracles, with flattery from heathen counselors who exalted Babylon because each later kingdom was shown by a baser metal as nations separated from God and decreased in value.

Nebuchadnezzar had lost sight of God's purpose concerning the nations, and the command on the plain of Dura was the act of his proud spirit. An idolater by birth and training at the head of an idolatrous people, he yet had an innate sense of justice and right that God could use as an instrument for punishing the rebellious and fulfilling the divine purpose. There before the multitude his proud spirit was humbled until he once more acknowledged that God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and His dominion is from generation to generation.

Worship and Loyalty Test

At the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music, falling down before the golden image was not mere civil respect but an act of worship and homage that belongs to God alone. Because the image represented Nebuchadnezzar himself, to worship it was also to give to the king honor that belongs to God alone.

The command made that worship the established religion of the country, a state and national religion imposed upon people of every nation and language under his rule. It was a public act of worship at the dedication, with music as the signal for all to bow together. In that public bowing it demanded supreme loyalty to Babylonian power and sought to make image-worship part of the land's permanent order.

That human law stood in direct opposition to God's law, forcing obedience to man against obedience to Jehovah. It made public worship a test of loyalty to the king in place of loyalty to the true God, which the three Hebrew captives who cherished the knowledge of the true God refused to violate. It was an attempt by a ruler to force religious obedience and to control conscience, a right that belongs to God alone.

The imposing display and beautiful music were fitted to charm the senses, to draw the multitude into idolatry and to turn them from allegiance to God and from the worship of God. The attractive golden image had no inward purity and beauty, but depended on outward display and on human authority to force worship. Worship so secured gives honor not to God but to the prince of darkness, and the same principle appears whenever a church lacking inward holiness and the Spirit of God depends on parade, ceremonies, display, ornaments, shrines, embroidered altars and magnificent architecture to attract and hold the senses, concealing spiritual poverty and apostasy and entrapping men by the enemy.

The verse therefore means forced idol worship by human power against God. That compulsion is enforced by oppression, binding, imprisoning, condemning, and causing suffering of body and mind to make God's chosen ones untrue to God and to transgress His holy law. It includes compelling violation of loyalty to God, as in compelling worship of an unauthorized sabbath set up in place of God's sanctified seventh day.

Faithfulness and Deliverance

At the sound of the music all peoples of every nation and language were ordered to fall down and worship the golden image Nebuchadnezzar had set up, an image that stood for Babylon itself and for the king himself. To bow at that signal was an act of worship and homage belonging to God alone, so that worship of the image also gave to the king honor belonging to God alone. The order made that public worship a test of loyalty to the king, an established state and national religion imposed by human law in direct opposition to God's law and requiring worship of an idol rivaling the God of heaven. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, the three Hebrew captives and faithful companions and worthies, cherished the knowledge of the true God and would not dishonor the God who made all things by obeying it. They remained loyal to Jehovah and to God's commandments even at the risk of their lives, determined to serve Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords at any cost rather than obey human authority requiring an act against Him.

For that loyalty to the God of heaven they were cast into the burning fiery furnace. There they were seen walking unharmed, because Christ, the Lord Jesus Himself, walked with them through the fire, preserved them from all harm and manifested Himself to them.

That history tested the integrity of Daniel and his companions and demonstrated before an idolatrous nation the power and faithfulness of the God of Israel. It sets forth important principles regarding the working out of the Lord's purpose for the children of obedience and the children of disobedience. The miracle wrought upon Nebuchadnezzar's heart so that he believed in God and acknowledged His superior power. Setting God aside and trusting in one's own wisdom and cherishing the thoughts and feelings Nebuchadnezzar cherished brings danger of passing through a trying experience.

End-Time Parallel

The state-commanded test on the plain of Dura will be repeated in the last days as the pattern for demanding that people honor human religious laws in place of God's law. As the golden image was set up then, an idol sabbath will be set up, a rival, spurious sabbath exalted like the image, with rulers using legislation to compel conscience, enforce false worship, and suppress religious liberty. In that conflict the fourth-commandment Sabbath is the central issue, for the Sabbath identifies God as Creator while the papal counterfeit is exalted and enforced through laws that demand worship. The demand to bow to the image parallels Satan's final effort to compel worship through national laws and threats to people's protection and rights, growing out of vain glory and oppression.

The order to fall down and worship at the signal, triggered by music, under penalty foreshadows a time when innocent 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. Especially those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will arouse the wrath of men, and at last a universal decree will denounce them as deserving of death for refusing to yield, with punishment by imprisonment and death. The verse means compelled worship enforced by oppression, binding, imprisoning, condemning, and causing suffering of body and mind to make God's chosen ones untrue to God and transgress His holy law, and the same compulsion is repeated in trying to compel them to worship an idol sabbath which has not one text of Scripture for its authority. That idol sabbath has been set up in the same way, a Sunday institution that God has not blessed but the Catholic church instituted, and a corrupt union has formed to tear down God's memorial of creation, the sanctified and blessed seventh day of the fourth commandment. A time is coming when everyone will take sides between the Sabbath of the Lord and the spurious sabbath of the man of sin, and as death was decreed for all who would not bow and worship, so a proclamation will punish with imprisonment and death all who will not reverence Sunday, trampling the Sabbath of the Lord under foot in a united effort to make void the law of God.

Those who do this work of compulsion are not following the Lamb whithersoever He goes, have guile in their mouths, and follow the leader who was expelled from heaven and falsified God, developing the attributes of Satan as co-workers with him. This is contrary to Christ, who came not to break down the moral power of men but to restore it and to break the power of oppression and release those in bondage to Satan, and they show that if they had opportunity and power they would spy on and condemn Christ to death as did the unbelieving Jews at His first advent. That same refusal made by the three worthies will be required in the Southern States when the period comes to stand as they stood, and that time will force a decision for or against the commandments of God. Until that time comes believers must not act presumptuously to bring on the crisis or close their own way into fields not yet worked.

The image represented the kingdom of Babylon and more particularly Nebuchadnezzar himself and the excellence of Babylon, and the enforced universal worship was supposed to be of sufficient authority to convert all nations to that worship. It came because he read the interpretation of his dream in accordance with his own idolatrous mind, bringing the dream into harmony with his human understanding instead of reading it in the light of the living oracles. The three faithful servants would not bow the knee to the idolatrous image, and Christ Himself walked with them in the fiery furnace, and the miracle wrought upon Nebuchadnezzar's heart so that he believed in God and His superior power. The episode foreshadows the end of the world, when Babylon again falls in an hour of feasting and reveling and only the prepared will be ready.

The command is an example of a ruler trying to force religious obedience and control the conscience, a right that belongs to God alone, a state power commanding false worship and compelling conscience against loyalty to God. It will 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 disloyalty to the laws of the land, paralleling future laws restricting religious liberty, especially the conflict over the seventh-day Sabbath. Christ resisted Satan's offer of worldly power, and His victory shows that His followers can also resist the enemy. Then the people of God must not give up loyalty to God, but must make manifest the same principle that the three Hebrews manifested, with increased zeal for obedience, making the value of God's law as a rule of conduct manifest when truth is overborne by falsehood, and God will intervene for His loyal, commandment-keeping people.

Sabbath Counterpart

As the golden image was lifted up on the plain of Dura to be worshiped at the signal of music, an idol sabbath has been set up in the same way. The exaltation of that golden image is repeated in the exaltation of a rival, spurious, false sabbath, the first day of the week and Sunday institution, over God's memorial. That memorial is the sanctified seventh day of the fourth commandment, the blessed seventh day of creation and the sign between Him and His commandment-keeping people. In this exalting of the human institution as though it were sacred, God's law is trampled, made void, and His memorial is made a thing of naught to be despised and trampled under foot.

Sunday has no sanctity and bears no divine sanction, for the first day of the week has no sanctity and is nowhere commanded in God's Word to be revered or kept holy. It has not one text of Scripture for its authority, was not blessed by God, but was instituted by the Catholic church. Human authority cannot change God's law. Observing the seventh day keeps God's creation in mind, and replacing it with Sunday tramples God's law.

In this age men claiming to be Christians call the world to worship the image they have made. That work is the mystery of iniquity devised by satanic agencies and carried into effect by the man of sin, in a corrupt union formed to tear down God's memorial of creation. Their worship is as churches exalting the papal Sabbath and worshiping the image of the beast and receiving its mark instead of keeping God's seventh-day Sabbath.

As Cain set aside God's holy command and offered a sacrifice of his own choice which met rejection, so men have set aside God's holy Sabbath for a day that bears no divine sanction. As Cain was filled with bitterness against Abel, so those who worship that day are enraged against those who keep God's Sabbath because their obedience casts reflection on false worship. Those who do this work of compulsion to make God's chosen ones untrue to God and transgress His holy law, by oppression, binding, imprisoning, condemning, and causing suffering of body and mind, are not following the Lamb whithersoever He goes and have guile in their mouths. They follow the leader who was expelled from heaven and falsified God, developing the attributes of Satan as his co-workers, contrary to Christ who came not to break down the moral power of men but to restore it and to break the power of oppression and release those in bondage. They show that with opportunity and power they would spy on and condemn Christ to death as did the unbelieving Jews at His first advent.

In that conflict the fourth-commandment Sabbath is the central issue, for the Sabbath identifies God as Creator while the papal counterfeit is exalted and enforced through laws that demand worship. Rulers will use legislation to compel conscience and exalt a spurious sabbath, and all who will not observe it are placed under oppressive laws. The ceremony and formalism, vainglory and oppression seen in Nebuchadnezzar's course is being and will continue to be manifested to the close of earth's history. As Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image and exalted himself, Satan exalts a false Sabbath and uses human authority to direct worship away from God's commandment. Compelling people to honor this man-made requirement makes human commands equal to or higher than God's requirements and renders their worship null and void.

A time is coming when everyone will take sides between the Sabbath of the Lord and the spurious sabbath of the man of sin. The law of God is to be made void by a national act, when Sunday is exalted and sustained by law, and keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath is counted disloyalty to the laws of the land. As Nebuchadnezzar decreed death for all who would not bow and worship, so a proclamation will punish with imprisonment and death all who will not reverence Sunday. This spirit of compulsion will continue till the end of time, with sin leagued against good as Satan's agents against God and righteousness.