July 12, 2011 – Daniel 3 - 3:45

I find it odd that Daniel isn’t with them. I glanced at Chapter 2 to see what happened. Daniels interprets a dream and is given power. He takes his three friends with him and they are in charge of territories. Then we have this story where they are thrown in for not worshipping the statue. The chapter talks about all the leaders of different areas were there, but either Daniel was not there at the time or wasn’t caught not bowing down. Obviously Daniel will be tested at his own time, I just always wondered why he wasn’t there for this event.

I also really enjoyed how they did not go in with any confidence that they were going to survive. They said they would survive if God willed it, but even if they weren’t going to survive, they still couldn’t bow to the statue. I think I have written about this before. I think sometimes we read these stories and figure they were special people in a way that they had no fear or knew they were going to be ok. That is most clearly not the case here. They completely understand they may not survive, what was about to happen, they had no idea, they left it completely up to God.

I also like the detail that the fire was so hot that the people that threw them in were burnt up instantly.