টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Daniel 3 — The Fourth Man in the Fire
Nebuchadnezzar sets up a golden image and commands all to bow. Three Hebrew men refuse. They are thrown into a furnace heated seven times — and the king sees a fourth man walking with them, "like the Son of God." Their famous words live on: "But if not..."
“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”
— Daniel 3:17-18
- v.1-7 The image and the command to worship it
- v.8-12 The accusation against the three Hebrews
- v.13-15 The king's challenge
- v.16-18 The three men's reply — "But if not"
- v.19-23 The furnace heated seven times
- v.24-25 The fourth man — "like the Son of God"
- v.26-30 Deliverance and the king's decree
The three most important words in faith's vocabulary: "But if not." This is not doubt; it is mature submission. God can deliver. Whether He does is His choice, not ours to demand.
Their obedience was unconditional. They would not bow whether He saved them from the furnace or saved them through it.
This single verse exposes every transactional faith: "If God does this, I will believe; if not, I will walk away." The Hebrews refused that bargain.
Nebuchadnezzar is the first one to notice. The king who lit the fire is the first to see what God does in it.
God often does His most public work in furnaces. The world expects His people to be consumed; instead they walk loose, with Someone unexpected.
Four men. Three went in bound; four now stand loose. The fire that consumed the soldiers (v.22) did not touch the saints.
"Like the Son of God" — many believers see this as a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. The book of Daniel has several (10:5-6).
The bondage of the three was burned off in the fire. Sometimes the chains we beg God to remove He removes by sending us into the very thing we feared.
Four-fold emphasis on how completely God preserved them: bodies untouched, hair unsinged, coats unchanged, no smell of fire on them.
"No smell of fire" — perhaps the most striking detail. Some come out of trials carrying the smell of them for years. The Hebrew men came out as though nothing had happened.
You will be commanded to bow to a golden image of some kind in your lifetime. The names change; the pressure is the same. Decide now, before the fire, what your "but if not" sounds like. The faith that bows under no pressure is the faith that finds the Fourth Man.
The fourth man in the fire is widely understood as a pre-incarnate Christ — present with His people in their suffering centuries before His incarnation. The same Christ who walked among them then walks among us now. He still meets His people in their furnaces.
They first declare what God can do. The "able" of God is the first ground of every prayer. He is not constrained by furnaces.
Notice they do not boast about their own faith — they boast about God's ability. The focus is on Him, not them.