Ver. 1. Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold.] Having taken Tyre, which was that great service spoken of in Ezekiel 29:18, subdued Egypt, which was his pay for his pains at Tyre, and overthrown Nineveh, as Nahum had foretold, he was so puffed up with his great success that he set up this monstrous statue of himself, to be adored by all on pain of death. That it was his own image which he here erected for such a purpose, as did also afterwards Gaius Caligula, the Roman emperor, it is gathered, (1.) Because he did not worship it himself; (2.) Because (Daniel 3:12) it is distinguished from his gods; (3.) Because this was long since foretold of him, (Isaiah 14:14) that, Lucifer-like, he should take upon him as a god; which because he did, he was worthily turned agrazing among beasts. (Daniel 4:33) Meanwhile, take notice here of the inconstant and mutable disposition of this proud prince as to matter of religion. Velox oblivio est veritatis, saith Jerome; The truth is soon forgotten. Nebuchadnezzar, who so lately had worshipped a servant of God as a god, and not being suffered to do so, declared for the one only true God, and advanced his servants to places of greatest preferment, is now setting up idolatry in despite of God, and cruelly casting into the fire those whom he had so exalted, because they dissented. Daniel, it is likely, withstood this ungodly enterprise so far as be might, and left the rest to God. Whose height was threescore cubits.] The ordinary cubit is a foot and half; but the Babylonian cubit, saith Herodotus, was three fingers greater than the common cubit; so that this image might be sixty-seven ordinary cubits high. The Rhodian Colosse was larger yet than this; for it was fourscore cubits high, made of brass in the form of a man, standing with his two legs striding over a haven, under which ships with their sails and masts might pass. The little finger of it was as large as an ordinary man, being the work of twelve years, made by Chares of Lindum, and worthily reckoned for one of the world’s seven wonders. It was afterwards sold to a Jew, who loaded nine hundred camels with the brass of it; for it had been thrown down by an earthquake. This image of Nebuchadnezzar was thus great, to affect the people with wonderment—so they “wondered after the beast” (Revelation 13:3) -and thus glorious, gilded at least, if not of solid gold, to perstringe their senses, and with exquisite music to draw their affections. The Papacy is in like sort an alluring, tempting, bewitching religion. Jerome compareth heresy to this golden image; Irenaeus worldly felicity, which the devil enticeth men to admire and adore. He set it up in the plain of Dura.] In a pleasant plain, mentioned also by Ptolemy the geographer, quo statua commendatior habeatur, that it might be the more regarded. Plin., lib. xxxiv, cap. 7. Theop. Pezel., Mell. Hist. Geog., lib. vi.
Ver. 2. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes.] Satrapas, not so called quia sat rapiant, as Lyra doateth; for it is a Persian word signifying such as were near the king’s person. Superstition first looks to wind in great ones. (Ezra 8:11) The Vulgate are “carried away to dumb idols, like as they are led.” (1 Corinthians 12:2) They are sheepish, and will follow a leader as well into a penfold as a pasture; they also feed most greedily on the grass that will rot them.
Ver. 3. Then the princes, the governors.] These envying the new favourites, and fearing that the king, by his late confession, (Daniel 2:47) had too good an opinion of the Jews’ religion, came readily to this dedication, and probably had contrived it for a mischief to those three worthies, as those in Daniel 6:4,5 did to Daniel.
Ver. 4. To you it is commanded.] Chald., They command; i.e., the king and his council. [as Esther 1:13,15] But what said the heathen? Obediemus Atridis honesta mandantibus, we will obey rulers if they command things honest, but not else. The Bishop of Norwich asked Roger Coo, martyr in Queen Mary’s days, whether he would not obey the queen’s laws? He answered, As far as they agree with the Word of God I will obey them. The bishop replied, Whether they agree with the Word of God or not we are bound to obey them, if the queen were an infidel. Coo answered, If Shadrach, Meshaeh, and Abednego had done so, Nebuchadnezzar had not confessed the living God. Eurip. in Phaeniss. Acts and Mon., fol. 1550.
Ver. 5. That at what time ye hear.] See on Daniel 3:1. The allurements of pleasure are shrewd enticements to idolatry. (2 Peter 2:18) Sir Walter Raleigh said, Were I to choose a religion to gratify the flesh, I would choose Popery. The Catholics, in their supplication to King James for a toleration, plead that their religion is, inter caetera, among others, so conformable to natural sense and reason, that it ought to be embraced! A proper argument. I have read of a lady in Paris who, when she saw the bravery of a procession to a saint, she cried out, Oh how fine is our religion beyond that of the Huguenots! That at what time ye hear the sound.] So in the Papacy, when the Ave Mary bell rings, which is at sunrising, at noon, and at sunsetting, all men, in what place soever, house, field, street, or market, do presently kneel down and send up their united devotions by an Ave Maria. Ye fall down and worship.] This is all that is required; de certa confessionis forma imperata, ne gry. Sic. Spec. Europ.