Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Daniel 3:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The erection and consecration of the golden image, and the accusation brought against Daniel's friends, that they had refused to obey the king's command to do homage to this image. Dan 3:1 Nebuchadnezzar commanded a golden image to be erected, of threescore cubits in height and six cubits in breadth. צלם is properly an image in human likeness (cf. Dan 2:31), and excludes the idea of a mere pillar or an obelisk, for which מצּבה would have been the appropriate word. Yet from the use of the word צלם it is not by any means to be concluded that the image was in all respects perfectly in human form. As to the upper part - the head, countenance, arms, breast - it may have been in the form of a man, and the lower part may have been formed like a pillar. This would be altogether in accordance with the Babylonian art, which delighted in grotesque, gigantic forms; cf. Hgstb. Beitr. i. p. 96f. The measure, in height threescore cubits, in breadth six cubits, is easily explained, since in the human figure the length is to be breadth in the proportion of about six to one. In the height of threescore cubits the pedestal of the image may be regarded as included, so that the whole image according to its principal component part (a potiori) was designated as צלם; although the passage Jdg 18:30-31, adduced by Kran., where mention is made of the image alone which was erected by Micah, without any notice being taken of the pedestal belonging to it (cf. Jdg 18:17 and Jdg 18:18), furnishes no properly authentic proof that פּסל in Jdg 18:30 and Jdg 18:31 denotes the image with the pedestal. The proportion between the height and the breadth justifies, then, in no respect the rejection of the historical character of the narrative. Still less does the mass of gold necessary for the construction of so colossal an image, since, as has been already mentioned, according to the Hebrew modes of speech, we are not required to conceive of the figure as having been made of solid gold, and since, in the great riches of the ancient world, Nebuchadnezzar in his successful campaigns might certainly accumulate an astonishing amount of this precious metal. The statements of Herodotus and Diodorus regarding the Babylonian idol-images, (Note: According to Herod. i. 183, for the great golden image of Belus, which was twelve cubits high, and the great golden table standing before it, the golden steps and the golden chair, only 800 talents of gold were used; and according to Diod. Sic. ii. 9, the golden statue, forty feet high, placed in the temple of Belus consisted of 1000 talents of gold, which would have been not far from sufficient if these objects had been formed of solid gold. Diod. also expressly says regarding the statue, that it was made with the hammer, and therefore was not solid. Cf. Hgstb. Beitr. i. p. 98, and Kran. in loco.) as well as the description in Isa 40:19 of the construction of idol-images, lead us to think of the image as merely overlaid with plates of gold. The king commanded this image to be set up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. The ancients make mention of two places of the name of Dura, the one at the mouth of the Chaboras where it empties itself into the Euphrates, not far from Carchemish (Polyb. v. 48; Ammian. Marc. xxiii. 5, 8, xxiv. 1, 5), the other beyond the Tigris, not far from Apollonia (Polyb. v. 52; Amm. Marc. xxv. 6, 9). Of these the latter has most probability in its favour, since the former certainly did not belong to the…
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