Daniel 3:25

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3:25 דניאל

עָנֵה וְאָמַר הָא־אֲנָה חָזֵה גֻּבְרִין אַרְבְּעָה שְׁרַיִן מַהְלְכִין בְּגוֹא־נוּרָא וַחֲבָל לָא־אִיתַי בְּהוֹן וְרֵוֵהּ דִּי *רְבִיעָיָא [רְבִיעָאָה] דָּמֵה לְבַר־אֱלָהִין ס

(Masoretic Text, Bomberg Edition, 1525)

Daniel 3:25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

(King James Version, Pure Cambridge Edition 1900)

Daniel 3:25 He responded and said, “Behold, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”

(King James Version 2016 Edition, 2016) - buy the revised and updated printed 2023 Edition New Testament here

Interlinear

Commentary

Although God in the Hebrew is plural, it is usually translated as "God" singular. Many modern scholars state that a pagan polytheistic king like Nebuchadnezzar could not know if it was The Son of God, but we see that he did know many such things. For example in Daniel 2:47:

“The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.”

In the next verse (verse 26), Nebuchadnezzar addresses the three Hebrews as "ye servants of the most high God". In verse 28 the king continues to praise "the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego"and refers to "his angel". In verse 29 the king recognizes the uniqueness of this God who alone "can deliver after this sort". So is it impossible that God revealed His Son to the king? Matthew 27:54 has a pagan Centurion doing just that:

Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

Knowledge of the Son of God is revealed from the Father, such as in Matthew 16:

¹⁶ And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

It would seem strange that God brought about such a miracle and would allow it to be attributable to “a son of the gods” without any type of rebuke from Himself or the three Jewish witnesses.

Daniel 3:28:

Then in Nebuchaddnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the kings word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

The angel matches up with previous biblical accounts.

Nebuchaddnezzar clearly acknowledges that it was their singular God who brought deliverance, just as the three had said would occur. It would make no logical sense for him to then attribute the miracle to his “gods” when clearly this was the revelation that the one true God would deliver them. The context is clear that he wasn’t seeing if his own gods delivered them, but if their God did. That is the main crux of the narrative.

Many non Christian Jewish rabbis viewed the text in this manner according to Gill: “And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God; like one of the angels, who are called the sons of God; so Jarchi, Saadiah, and Jacchiades;”

John Gill

John Gill stated in his commentary:

And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God; many of the ancient Christian writers interpret it of Christ the Son of God, whom Nebuchadnezzar, though a Heathen prince, might have some knowledge of from Daniel and other Jews in his court, of whom he had heard them speak as a glorious Person; and this being such an one, he might conclude it was he, or one like to him; and it is highly probable it was he, since it was not unusual for him to appear in a human form, and to be present with his people, as he often is with them, and even in the furnace of affliction;to sympathize with them; to revive and comfort them; to bear them up and support them; to teach and instruct them, and at last to deliver them out of their afflictions.

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry says in his commentary:

Some think it was the eternal Son of God, the angel of the covenant, and not a created angel. He appeared often in our nature before he assumed it in his incarnation, and never more seasonable, nor to give a more proper indication and presage of his great errand into the world in the fulness of time, than now, when, to deliver his chosen out of the fire, he came and walked with them in the fire.

John Wesley

John Wesley said:

The Son of God - Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant, did sometimes appear before his incarnation.

Matthew Poole

Matthew Poole states:

Like the Son of God; a Divine, most beautiful, and glorious countenance; either of a mere angel, or rather of Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant, who did sometimes appear in the Old Testament before his incarnation, Gen. xii. 7; xviii. 10, 13, 17, 20, &c.; Exod. xxiii. 23; xxxiii. 2; Josh. v. 13—15 ; Prov. viii. 31; in all which places it is Jehovah; Gen. xix. 24; Exod. iii. 2 ; Acts vii. 30, 32, 33, 38."

Was it an angel, or was it the second person of the Trinity, "the" Son of God? That this was the Son of God - the second person of the Trinity, who afterward became incarnate, has been quite a common opinion of expositors. So it was held by Tertullian, by Augustine, and by Hilary, among the fathers; and so it has been held by Gill, Clarius, and others, among the moderns. Of those who have maintained that it was Christ, some have supposed that Nebuchadnezzar had been made acquainted with the belief of the Hebrews in regard to the Messiah; others, that he spoke under the influence of the Holy Spirit, without being fully aware of what his words imported, as Caiaphas, Saul, Pilate, and others have done. ^{- Poole's "Synopsis."}

John Trapp

John Trapp in his Complete Commentary (English Puritan) said:

This fourth person here in the fiery furnace is by many held to be Christ the Son of God, who appeared at this time in human shape.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

In the Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Unabridged) it says:

The form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Unconsciously, like Saul, Caiaphas (John 11:49-52), and Pilate, he is made to utter divine truths, the full import of which he did not himself understand. "Son of God" in his mouth means only an "angel" from heaven, as Daniel 3:28 proves, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, etc., who hath sent his angel." (Compare Job 1:6; Job 38:7, where "the sons of God" mean the angels; Psalms 34:7-8, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them;" and the probably pagan centurion's exclamation, Matthew 27:54, "Truly this was the Son of God"). The Chaldeans believed in families of gods: Bel, the supreme god, accompanied by the goddess Mylitta, being the father of the gods: thus by the expression he meant one sprung from and sent by the gods. Really it was the "messenger of the covenant," who herein gave a prelude to His incarnation.

New King James Version

The NKJV of 1982 reads:

the fourth is like the Son of God".

it has a footnote that reads:

Or a son of the gods.

King James Version Today

This passage concerns the miraculous deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego from the fiery furnace. Clarke's Commentary on the Bible says with respect to the KJV translation of this verse, "Is like the Son of God - A most improper translation. What notion could this idolatrous king have of the Lord Jesus Christ?" Barnes' Notes on the Bible says, "The Chaldee is simply, לבר־אלחין דמה dâmēh lebar 'ĕlâhı̂yn - "like to A son of God," or to a son of the gods - since the word אלחין 'ĕlâhı̂yn (Chaldee), or אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym (Hebrew), though often, and indeed usually applied to the true God, is in the plural number, and in the mouth of a pagan would properly be used to denote the gods that he worshipped."

"God" or "gods"?

While it is recognized that the Aramaic word could mean either "gods" or "God" (context determines whether it is singular or plural in English), several commentaries share this view that the "polytheistic" king of Babylon would have conceived of the figure as a son of the "gods", plural, and not as "God", singular. Such commentators fail to read the immediate context. In just the next verse (verse 26), Nebuchadnezzar addresses the three Hebrews as "ye servants of the most high God". In verse 28 the king continues to praise "the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego"and refers to "his angel". In verse 29 the king recognizes the uniqueness of this God who alone "can deliver after this sort". So while it may be true that the king was a practicing polytheist, he was certainly knowledgeable of the singular most high God, which we translate as "God".

"Son" or "son"?

Another point of contention is that the KJV translated "בר" as "Son" with a capital letter, which makes it seem as though the king was referring to the second person of the Trinity. The critics point to verse 28 where the king recognizes this being as an "angel" to rebut the presumption that a greater divine being was in the mind of the king. In response, although the king believed that this being was in fact an angel, his statement in verse 25 is a simile. He says, "the form of the fourth is like the Son of God". Here he is not saying that the being is in fact the Son of God but merely looks like the Son of God. He certainly could have said the being looks like an angel, but he chose to provide the loftier expression. Accordingly, we can understand that the king was comparing the being to something resembling the most high God (which he acknowledges immediately later) and more magnificent than just an ordinary angel. The king may not have conceived of the actual Jewish Messiah in using the term "Son of God", but at the least he was invoking the image of an avatar or a theophany in accordance with his pagan view. Thus to the king, this being resembled the "Son of God" as he understood the term. There is nothing wrong with capitalizing the S because it does not necessarily mean the king was referring to the second person of the Christian Trinity.

English Bibles

1382 Forsothe Asarie stoode, and preiede thus; and he openyde his mouth in the myddis of the fier, (Wycliffe)
1535 He answered and sayde: lo, for all that, yet do I se foure men goinge lowse in the myddest off the fyre, and nothinge corrupte: and the fourth is like an angel to loke vpon. (Coverdale)
1537 He aunswered and sayde: lo, for all that, yet do I se foure men goynge lowse in the myddeste of the fyre, and nothynge corrupte: and the fourthe is lyke an angell to loke vpon. (Matthew's)
1539 He answered, and sayde: lo, for all that, yet do I se foure men going lowse in the myddest of the fyer, and nothynge corrupte: and the fourth is lyke the sonne of God to loke vpon. (Great Bible)
1560 And he answered, and said, Loe, I see foure men loose, walking in the middes of the fire, and they haue no hurt, and the forme of the fourth is like the sonne of God. (Geneva Bible)
1568 He aunswered & sayde: Lo, I see foure men loose, walking in the mids of ye fire, and they haue no hurt: and the fourme of the fourth is like the sonne of God
1611 He answered and said, Loe, I see foure men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they haue no hurt, and the forme of the fourth is like the sonne of God.
1769 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
1862 He answered and hath said, `Lo, I am seeing four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the appearance of the fourth `is' like to a son of the gods.' (Young's)
1833 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt: and the form of the fourth is like the son of God. (Webster's)
1993 He answered and said, Behold! I see four men loose, walking in the middle of the fire, and there is no harm among them. And the form of the fourth is like a son of the gods. (Green's Literal Translation)

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